When Kylian Mbappé rolled in his second of the match, the stadium DJ, who was the France captain’s closest rival for the man-of-the-match award, immediately put on Daft Punk’s “One More Time”.It was good, but not quite as good as some of his earlier selections (getting the crowd to sing “Oooohhhh, we’re halfway there” with Jon Bon Jovi as the second half resumed, 131 minutes after the first half ended, was genius).Very good would have been The Sound of Music’s “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”, as it is only a matter of time — most likely at some point in France’s final group-stage game against Norway on Friday — before Mbappé scores again.His numbers are ridiculous. The two goals he scored against Iraq in Philadelphia on Monday were his 59th and 60th for his country, and they came in his 100th international match. They were the 50th and 51st goals he has scored in 54 games for club and country since last summer.And, most impressively of all, he has now scored 16 goals in 16 World Cup matches. A goal a game on football’s greatest stage. It is not meant to be this easy, and yet that is what it looks like for him.He started this one as if he were playing the computer game formerly known as "FIFA" against his buddy Lionel Messi, who had just scored a brace of his own against Austria, setting a new World Cup record of 18 goals. The Argentine maestro has taken his own sweet time over it, though, having played 28 games across six tournaments.There has been much discussion in France about how manager Didier Deschamps should use the embarrassment of riches he has in terms of attacking options. For this game, he opted for Mbappé up top, with Michael Olise just behind him, Bradley Barcola to Olise's left and Ousmane Dembele to the right. Ouf, as the French say.But in the first quarter of the match, Mbappé was everywhere. He had already performed one beautiful piece of skill — an L-turn to escape a trap on the left wing — when he dropped deep in the sixth minute and burst past one tackle, only to be tripped by the second. It earned Iraq's Amir Al Ammari a yellow card.Mbappé scores his first on Monday (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)Two minutes later, he was on the right flank, beating Iraq's left-back not once, but twice. Just because. Another couple of minutes pass, and this time he is bursting through the inside-left channel, forcing a corner.And then, on 14 minutes, Olise found him lurking with intent on the edge of the area, to the right of the goal. One touch to control the ball with his right foot, his strongest, one glorious swish of his left foot, his weakest, apparently, to smash it home. Tap-ins, headers, one-on-ones, worldies, with either foot, whatever.
Watching Kylian Mbappe chase down Lionel Messi’s World Cup goals record
Kylian Mbappe would have matched the World Cup goals record if it were not for Messi. Now he's just trying to keep pace










