Here's what Lionel Messi needs to do to beat Kylian Mbappe for World Cup Golden Boot

14 hours ago 2

France's Kylian Mbappe scored two goals, and dished out an assist, during the World Cup third-place match on Saturday.

That may have secured the tournament's Golden Boot honor for him as the top scorer, because those third-place game contributions do count toward his totals. Argentina's Lionel Messi is going to have to put together a World Cup Final for the ages against Spain to knock Mbappe off his perch.

It's a debate for another day about whether those Mbappe tallies in the third-place game should count.

On Sunday, all that's relevant to this race is figuring out exactly what Messi needs to do to climb back atop that leaderboard.

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How can Lionel Messi win the Golden Boot?

There are two combinations that will win Messi the Golden Boot over Mbappe:

2 goals and 1 assist vs. Spain (or more)
3 goals vs. Spain (or more)

Entering Sunday, Mbappe has 10 goals and 4 assists for the tournament.

Messi has 8 goals and 4 assists.

The leader in goals wins the Golden Boot, so if Messi gets to 11 goals (with a hat trick against Spain), he'd claim it regardless of assist totals.

Assists is the first tiebreaker, so if Messi scores twice, he'd need an assist to give him five in that category and go ahead of Mbappe.

The next tiebreaker is minutes played -- the player with fewer minutes but the same stats would win. That seems like it'll end up working in Mbappe's favor, if it gets to that level.

So essentially Messi needs to have an absolutely historic final against a side that has only conceded one goal all tournament. It should make for compelling stuff.