Article body analysed
Kylian Mbappe has become just the third player to bring up 50 goals for France - and he's done it in record time. The 26-year-old broke the deadlock in Les Bleus' Nations League third-place play-off victory against Germany on Sunday afternoon. Mbappe brilliantly took down a lofted pass from Real Madrid teammate Aurelien Tchouameni, before standing up Joshua Kimmich at the far post. Having shifted the ball onto his right foot, he then fired an effort in off the post on the stroke of half-time. And Mbappe then supplied the assist for Michael Olise in the 84th minute as France emerged as 2-0 winners at Stuttgart's MHPArena. Mbappe's first-half opener saw him bring up a half-century of goals in international football. The ex-Monaco man, who made his France senior debut as an 18-year-old in 2017, has reached the milestone in just 90 caps. He has followed in the footsteps of ex-Arsenal centre-forwards Olivier Giroud and Thierry Henry in scoring at least 50 times for France. Henry had been the record holder in reaching 50 France goals in the quickest time. The 1998 World Cup winner brought up the landmark strike on his 113th appearance against Serbia in September in 2009. As for Giroud, his 50th goal fell on his 115th appearance - a match he scored twice in during a 4-1 win over Australia at the 2022 World Cup. Mbappe will now be looking to leapfrog Henry and Giroud in the all-time France top-scoring standings. Giroud currently leads the way with 57 goals from his 137 appearances - the joint third-most outings in Les Bleus history. As for Henry, he found the back of the net on 51 occasions from his 123 matches between 1997-2010. Mbappe has enjoyed a brilliant goalscoring 2024/25 season since linking up at the Bernabeu on a free transfer after he decided not to run his contract down at Paris Saint-Germain. He scored 43 goals in 56 matches in all competitions for Real, with his 31 La Liga strikes seeing him scoop his first European Golden Boot. In doing so, he is now the only player in world football to win the European Golden Boot, World Cup Golden Boot and the Champions League Golden Boot. That is in addition to being the only footballer to also have scooped the Pichichi Trophy [La Liga top scorer] and the Gerd Muller Award [highest scoring player in a season]. And he also broke a 33-year record previously held by Ivan Zamorano by scoring the most goals for Real in their debut term. Meanwhile, he is just the fourth player in La Liga history to score at least 30 goals in their opening season, along with Pruden, Romano and Ronaldo Nazario. Mbappe could extend his goal tally for the season with Madrid to take part in the FIFA Club World Cup, which starts next weekend. But attention was firmly on the national team for now as he added an assist to his tally in the very same game. He set up Michael Olise for France's second to make it 2-0 against Germany. © 2025 talk SPORT Limited
Registered in England No. 2806093. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF
talk SPORT is a registered trade mark of Wireless Group Media (GB) Limited.
This service is provided on talk SPORT Limited's Terms of Use in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy.