Kylian Mbappé just did something that Pelé couldn’t. Something Lionel Messi couldn’t. The French forward scored his 13th and 14th World Cup goals, surpassing both legends and tying Gerd Müller’s all-time tally in the process.

Fourteen goals in 15 World Cup matches is the kind of stat line that makes you double-check your math.

The goals that made history

Mbappé scored in the 2018 final as a teenager. He then put up a hat-trick in the 2022 final against Argentina, a performance that earned him the Golden Boot with eight goals across that tournament alone.

Four of his 14 career World Cup goals have come in finals. One in 2018, three in 2022. Most elite strikers never score in a single World Cup final. Mbappé has done it four times across two.

Now competing in the 2026 tournament, he’s moved past Pelé’s 12 World Cup goals and Messi’s tally to reach 14. He sits level with Müller, the German striker who set his mark across two tournaments in 1970 and 1974.

The only player ahead of both Mbappé and Müller on the all-time World Cup scoring list is Miroslav Klose, who holds the record with 16 goals scored across four tournaments.

Where crypto enters the picture

The legitimate chapter started in July 2022, when Mbappé became an ambassador for Sorare, the Ethereum-based fantasy football NFT platform. Sorare lets users buy, sell, and trade digital player cards tied to real-world performance.

When Mbappé’s partnership was announced, Sorare’s NFT sales spiked by 795% in a single day. That’s not a typo.

The less legitimate chapter came in August 2024, when Mbappé’s social media account was hacked. The attackers used the compromised account to promote a fraudulent meme coin called MBAPPE. The token briefly reached a market cap of $460 million before collapsing.

Mbappé had nothing to do with the scam.

What this means for investors

On the legitimate side, platforms like Sorare benefit enormously from moments like this. The 2022 Golden Boot drove interest in Mbappé-linked NFTs.

The MBAPPE token fraud demonstrated that high-profile sporting events create fertile ground for scams. The $460 million market cap that the fraudulent token reached before imploding shows just how much capital can flow into a scam within hours.

Traders should treat any unsolicited Mbappé-related token with extreme skepticism. Legitimate partnerships, like the Sorare deal, are announced through verified corporate channels with clear terms.