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Can Messi overtake Mbappé and achieve a double win in the Golden Boot—plus something? --The Little Caishen’s World Cup betting diary 🔥

At 3 a.m. tomorrow, along with the World Cup’s title being decided comes another big suspense: can Messi win the Golden Boot in his last World Cup? Earlier, Mbappé scored twice in the third-place “mutual scoring” match and also provided an assist. That instantly moved him to the top of the scorers list. For Messi to surpass Mbappé, he must score at least 2 goals + 2 assists in the final, or pull off a hat-trick. But the opponent is Spain, fighting with everything they’ve got—this is almost an impossible task. You could say one of Mbappé’s feet has already stepped into the Golden Boot:

1. Latest match status: Mbappé has already overtaken today

Today (July 19) afternoon, in the third-place final, France and England staged a crazy 6–4 goal-fest. In the second half, Mbappé netted two goals, raising his personal World Cup tally from 8 to 10, and he leapfrogged Messi’s 8 to take the lead on the scorers list. Meanwhile, Mbappé’s total World Cup historical goals reached 22, officially surpassing Messi’s 21, crowning him the all-time top scorer in World Cup history.

This means Messi is no longer stuck in a tight “tied on goals with assists as the tiebreaker” situation. Instead, in the final he must score at least 3 goals to equal Mbappé on goals.

2. Messi’s chances of scoring in the final: there is a chance, but the difficulty is extremely high

Judging by his personal ability and role in the match, Messi still has the capability to break through in the final. In the semi-final against England, even though he didn’t score himself, he was the absolute core of Argentina’s turnaround: he completed 9 successful dribbles out of 11 and delivered 2 assists. In the final, he will still be the team’s first choice for counterattacks and set pieces. As long as he gets space in the first half or a free-kick opportunity in the attacking third, his left foot remains deadly.

But the problem is that Spain is the most solid defensive team in this World Cup, having shut out opponents all the way until now. Their possession-and-control system will压制 Argentina to the half and greatly compress Messi’s touches and shooting opportunities. In this high-intensity defense, getting even 1 goal is not easy for Messi—let alone needing 3 goals to catch Mbappé.

3. Golden Boot rules and the real-world situation

According to the FIFA Golden Boot rules, goals come first; if tied, assists are compared. The current situation is:

Mbappé: 10 goals (the figures after scoring twice in the third-place final)

Messi: 8 goals, 4 assists

Even if Messi scores 1 or 2 goals in the final, his goals tally will still lag behind Mbappé. Unless he can pull off a hat-trick or more, the Golden Boot will go to Mbappé. And after the match, Mbappé himself also said: “Messi will definitely score, but I’d rather not become the all-time best striker—so I can exchange it for being able to play the final tomorrow.” This line precisely shows he already knows his lead on the stats is in his favor.

Even more noteworthy: if Mbappé finishes with 10 goals or more, he will become the first player in men’s World Cup history to win the Golden Boot twice—a record with no precedent.

4. The only theoretical possibility

If tomorrow’s final turns into an extreme scenario—like Spain leading by a big margin, Argentina being forced to push forward across the board, and the match becoming open end-to-end—then Messi might have a chance to rack up more than 3 goals. But based on Spain’s ball-control dominance in this tournament and Argentina’s defensive resilience, the probability of such a script happening is extremely low. Another slim possibility is that Mbappé gets injured in the third-place final or is substituted early, causing his subsequent stats not to be counted—but that’s an off-field accident and is outside normal analysis.

Overall conclusion

Messi scoring in the final is a high-probability event; but trying to use goals to surpass Mbappé and take the Golden Boot is almost impossible. In today’s third-place final, Mbappé rewrote the Golden Boot landscape with two goals—his 10-to-8 lead means he only needs to “wait” to lock up the honor. For 39-year-old Messi, the meaning of the final has long gone beyond personal stats—this is his closing match in his World Cup career, and the Hercules Cup is his last target. The Golden Boot may be beautiful, but this time, the scales of fate have already tilted toward that 27-year-old Frenchman.