World Cup according to data: Is Kylian Mbappe the most clinical striker?

Over the course of the World Cup so far, Mbappe has played 346 minutes of the game, during which he has taken 19 shots on goal and added eight passes followed by a direct shot on goal. The result is five goals scored, two assists and a leading position among the scorers and most productive players of the tournament.

With an average of 4.94 attempts per game, he is the most active shooter and only his teammate Olivier Giroud gets to better finishing positions according to the expected goals (xG) metric. 

While this traditional analytical metric is a great help in evaluating players and teams, attacks and defences, or a reliable predictor of future results, in Mbappe's case it has essentially one function. It underlines his genius.

It all started in the 2016/2017 season. Back then, still in a Monaco shirt and at the age of 18, he managed to rack up 7.64 expected goals from his position as a striker in 1566 minutes played. A fantastic result that put him in the top 10% of Ligue1 strikers. 

But the reality was even better. According to the quality of his shot placement on goal (post-shot xG), Mbappe should have even reached 10 goals, but he far exceeded even this expected figure and ended up scoring 15 times.

In such a small sample of data, it could still have been a fluke. But with the number of shots rapidly increasing, it became clear that this was not the case. 

Fast forward to the 22/23 season - Mbappe has played 15,000 minutes so far in the French top flight over his career, during which he has recorded 643 shot attempts with a cumulative xG of 108. However, he has put the ball in the net 147 times. 

In other words, if the average player in his position had the same chances, he would have scored 39 fewer goals. And we have to take into account that he played 30% of his games on the wing.

For an even better understanding, let's see how other elite players whose offensive qualities are unquestionable handle their chances. Let's take Robert Lewandowski and his performances at Bayern Munich starting from the 15/16 season until his departure to Barcelona this year. 

During that time, the Polish phenom played almost 20,000 minutes, shot 923 times and scored 219 goals at xG 199. He, therefore, surpassed the expected figure by 20 goals, exclusively from the position of a top striker.

Harry Kane, the other participant in tonight's quarter-final, is at +28 in the last eight seasons. Mbappe's numbers could be approached in the future by Erling Haaland, who has scored 30 goals more than the expected total in the Bundesliga, Premier League and Champions League on the same model so far, albeit in a significantly lower sample of minutes.

But how do we account for the fact that there are objective quality differences between leagues when evaluating a player? One way is to look at how they stack up against the world's best defences. That's right, in the Champions League. There, Mbappe has played 4883 minutes so far with a record of 171 shots, 30 expected goals... and 40 goals scored. He's played 40% of his time there on the wing.

It's also worth pointing out that even in the case of very good offensive players, the two figures often even out in the long run (or the difference between them is not that significant), and so greatly exceeding expected goals is the prerogative of only a small number of the best individuals. And Lionel Messi, who should have his own category with +46 goals from the 15/16 season alone.

Mbappe's game is certainly not just the ability to convert his chances. But it demonstrates what an exceptional player he is. English defence must remember that he scores goals from positions from which other good players would fail. And that they can't allow him five shots on target like other teams in the tournament. There is simply no other recipe for Mbappe.