Kylian Mbappé, captain of the French national team, addressed a touching message to his country's fans in which he expressed regret for not winning the 2026 World Cup.
The French national team was one of the top favorites to win the title before and during the tournament, but it fell in the semi-finals to the Spanish national team, which later won the title.
On an individual level, Mbappé finished the tournament at the top of the 2026 World Cup scoring charts, and also topped the all-time World Cup goalscoring list.
Mbappé's message came via his personal Instagram account as follows:
A month full of emotions. A month in which we pushed our limits. A month of pride in wearing the colors of France. And above all, a month of passion—the same passion that drives us on the pitch and drives you too, whether you are watching us from home or cheering us on from the stands. This is what we lived together. An incredible story.
We did not return home with the trophy. This hurts us, and it will continue to hurt for a while. I will not pretend otherwise.
I am proud to have won the Golden Boot, but it would have meant so much more to me if it had come alongside the World Cup. Perhaps we owed you a better ending. But we do not always choose how the story ends. What we can choose is what we give during it, and we gave everything. And that alone is something we can be proud of.
Thank you to my teammates. Without their work, their movements, their passes, and without the spirit that carried us from the first match to the last, I would not have been able to score all these goals.
This award belongs to the team as much as it does to me. When I was a child, I dreamed of playing in the World Cup. Just one tournament. Now I have played in 3 editions, won one of them, and this year I had the great honor of leading my country's national team as captain. I will never forget that.
Many of you stayed up until late hours, and some until midnight, to watch us play an entire ocean away. You gathered in homes and cafés, with family and friends, in France and abroad. Others were with us in the stadiums, wrapping themselves in the French flag. Children with eyes full of dreams. Men and women from different backgrounds and generations, united by the simple joy of sharing this moment.
You never stopped believing in us. Not in the toughest moments, nor even when we did not deserve it. This story was written by millions of hands, not only by the 11 players' feet on the pitch, and all of them were driven by the same passion.
I have already told Didier Deschamps what I needed to say. He knows it. Thank you to him, to his entire technical staff, the physiotherapists, the chefs, the fitness coaches, the drivers, and everyone working behind the scenes whom no one sees, without whom none of this would have been possible. And thank you to everyone who welcomed and supported us across the United States.
Football is a game we take very seriously, and we spend our lives trying to master it, but in the end it remains a game. And it still depends on what it depended on when we first started playing: a ball, a goal, and a desire to score. That is why it brings us together in this way.
This edition of the World Cup has ended, but the story continues. There will be other matches, other nights in summer and winter, when we will all gather again around this same game, with the same undiminished enthusiasm. Our journey together is not over yet.
Mbappé finished the tournament with 10 goals, ahead of Argentina's Lionel Messi who scored 8.
Spain won the World Cup after defeating Argentina in the final by a single goal, securing La Roja's second World Cup title in history.
Mbappé scored a brace against England in the third-place match, while Messi did not score in the World Cup final.
Mbappé ensured he remained at the top of the all-time World Cup goalscoring chart with 22 goals, also ahead of Messi who has 21.
