Mbappé scores eight goals but Spain's semifinal masterclass leaves France's captain empty-handed again

Kylian Mbappé walked off the pitch after France’s 2-0 World Cup semifinal defeat to Spain on Tuesday having scored eight goals in the tournament — and having managed none against the side that mattered most. Pedro Porro’s 58th-minute strike sealed a result that ended France’s bid for a third consecutive final appearance and left their captain, once again, without the trophy his talent seems to demand.

The moment captured the evening. As Porro’s shot crossed the line, Mbappé flung his left arm into the air, wiped his face with his jersey, and trudged back toward the centre circle. Spain had been too organised, too disciplined, and too good — reducing one of football’s most dangerous players to three shots, none on target.

“You take all the glory when you win and when you don’t win, you have to take the s***,” Mbappé said afterwards. “It’s part of the game, it’s part of my life. And as the captain, I have to take all the responsibility. I have no problem with that. We wanted to go to the final. We didn’t go.”

The defeat sharpens a question that has followed Mbappé through every major tournament. He scored four goals on his World Cup debut in Russia in 2018, including one in the final victory over Croatia, becoming only the second teenager in history to score in a World Cup final after Pelé in 1958. Four years later in Qatar, he raised the stakes further with eight goals and a hat-trick in the final against Argentina — a performance for the ages, even if France ultimately lost on penalties. He collected the Golden Boot with a blank expression, unable to celebrate while his team’s comeback fell short.

This summer was meant to be the chapter where the individual brilliance finally translated into collective glory. Mbappé, now 27, matched Lionel Messi at the top of the scoring charts with eight goals across the tournament. But Spain’s semifinal was a different kind of test — one built on suffocating possession and collective shape rather than individual errors to exploit.

“It’s a team that loves to have control of the game, to have control of the ball, and that’s what we let them do,” Mbappé said, the dejection audible.

His frustration surfaced visibly in the closing stages. He was shown a yellow card in the 86th minute after a collision with Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simón, and his subsequent free kick from outside the box cleared the crossbar by some distance.

France now face England in the third-place match. For Mbappé, the arithmetic of his World Cup record remains extraordinary — goals in three tournaments, a Golden Boot, a final hat-trick — yet the trophy column stays empty. Whether that ledger reads as a legacy intact or a legacy incomplete may depend entirely on who is doing the reading.