Star Kylian Mbappe is preparing to lead the French national team in a difficult match against Morocco, within the quarter-final competitions of the 2026 World Cup.
The Moroccan national team faces its counterpart France, at eleven in the evening today, Thursday, in the quarter-final round of the World Cup.
The Spanish newspaper Marca highlighted the record numbers witnessed in the 2026 World Cup so far, both on the technical and audience levels, with the tournament reaching the quarter-final stage.
Individual numbers
The newspaper pointed out that Frenchman Kylian Mbappe recorded the highest speed in the tournament so far, after reaching 37.6 kilometers per hour, becoming the fastest player in the 2026 World Cup.
It added that Belgian Youri Tielemans topped the list of players who ran the most with a total of 61.8 kilometers, while his compatriot Timothy Castagne recorded the greatest distance covered by a player in a single match at 16.29 kilometers.
It also clarified that Senegalese Pape Gueye possesses the strongest shot in the tournament so far, after his shot reached a speed of 131.9 kilometers per hour.
Scoring numbers
On the scoring numbers front, Marca noted that Lionel Messi leads the current tournament's top scorers with 8 goals, followed by Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland with 7 goals each, an achievement that occurs for the first time with three players reaching this number of goals in a single edition of the World Cup.
It added that Messi strengthened his record as the top scorer in World Cup history with 21 goals, and continued scoring for the ninth consecutive match in the tournament.
In contrast, Mbappe scored France's 150th goal in the history of its World Cup participations, and raised his tally to 11 goals in the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Team numbers
The newspaper addressed the most prominent team numbers, noting that Morocco became the first African team to reach the quarter-final stage in two different editions, while Norway qualified for this stage for the first time in its history, and Switzerland returned to the quarter-finals for the first time since the 1954 edition.
Spain's national team remains the only team whose net has not been shaken in the tournament, while its goalkeeper Unai Simón reached 609 minutes with a clean sheet in the World Cup.
Audience attendance
On the audience level, Marca clarified that the number of attendees in the stadiums exceeded 6.25 million fans, with an occupancy rate of 99.7%, and an average of 65,204 fans per match.
It added that the tournament also achieved record numbers on social media platforms, after recording 20 billion video views, 30 billion content impressions, in addition to 1.7 billion interactions, a significant increase compared to the Qatar 2022 edition.
