Kylian Mbappe is the World Cup's all-time leading goal scorer now and the top scorer at this edition, surpassing Lionel Messi with his two goals in the crazy 6-4 loss to England in the third-place game on Saturday. But it should be with an asterisk. Let's be honest about these third-place games -- they are as useful as a surfboard in Nebraska. Soccer's third-place game gives you an "honor" really nobody ever cares about or remembers. It's a tier above a glorified friendly and several tiers below the Club World Cup final. Quick, who played in the third-place match at the 2006 World Cup? Time's up. It was Germany vs. Portugal, but you didn't know that.
On Saturday in an insane 6-4 England win over France, Mbappe pushed his career World Cup tally to 22, moving him past Lionel Messi's 21, in a match where defending was decidedly optional. He also became the first player since Gerd Muller in 1970 to reach double digits in goals at a single World Cup, finishing this tournament with 10. Those are two of the biggest individual scoring records in the sport, and Mbappe grabbed both of them on the same afternoon, in a game that decided absolutely nothing except who gets to stand slightly higher on a podium nobody wanted to be on in the first place.
Sure, France did not lose in the group stage, the round of 32, the round of 16 or the quarterfinals, but Les Bleus lost in the semifinals, 2-0 to Spain, in a match where Mbappe himself barely got a sniff. The favorites to win it all were humbled, produced next to nothing and should have been sent packing.
Under the sport's own typical rules, that loss should have ended his tournament. Everywhere else in the bracket, one loss in the knockout rounds means you go home. Lose in the round of 16 and your World Cup is over. Lose in the quarterfinals, same thing. Lose in the semifinal, and suddenly there is a bonus match, tacked on 72 hours later, against another team that also just lost. The title match of losers, effectively. The Copa America has done it every edition since 1993, and all I can remember from those is Lionel Messi and Gary Medel nearly coming to blows. The UEFA European Championship stopped it in 1980, one of the many things Europe just does better.
I get it -- the Olympics still play for a bronze medal, and that makes all the sense in the world when medals are everything. FIFA has certainly heard the pleas to scrap it because nobody involved treats it like they did the semifinals they just lost in. Coaches rotate entire lineups. Stars sit out entirely (enjoy the show, Harry Kane?), and coaches make decisions they typically don't. Didn't you see Thomas Tuchel not retreat and bring on Dan Burn?
Compare that to an Olympic bronze medal match. Boxers and wrestlers empty the tank for third place because it is a real medal, hung around your neck, on your permanent record forever. Meanwhile, Dean Henderson goes 90 minutes here.
Look, Mbappe deserves everything he has done at World Cups before this. But this record was built partly on a game the sport itself overall does not seem to believe in.
Maybe it is time FIFA to reconsider. But they won't. There's money in it for them and the host city, and if you haven't learned yet, it's truly all that matters. The game? It's secondary.
Mbappe got two extra games' worth of scoring chances that a quarterfinal loser, like Erling Haaland, doesn't get. Doubling down on a stat in a game that exists purely because two teams fell short feels like just another poor choice to continue to go with, but it's not the only one.
This World Cup has brought a bit of "Americanization" to the global game, whether we like it or not. On Sunday, we'll have to sit through the first-ever World Cup halftime show. The winners are getting championship rings.
Can you imagine if the NFL or the College Football Playoff had a third-place game?
Tom Brady, Nick Saban -- time to place a call.
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