Mbappe scored again on Thursday and moved to within two of Messi's all-time World Cup goal tally, and the number that matters is two, not the eight or nine he still needs to actually pass the record. That is close enough that every remaining tournament appearance now gets covered as a countdown, and far enough that the countdown could stall for years depending on how France's next qualifying cycle breaks. Real Madrid's marketing department did not need to commission a poll to know that "closing in on Messi" sells more shirts than "scored again."

FIFA sells World Cup broadcast rights in cycles that stretch a decade at a time, and the value of the next one goes up every time the tournament's biggest active name is still chasing something. A Mbappe who has already caught Messi is a completed story. A Mbappe two goals back, at 27, with multiple World Cups plausibly left in his legs, is a rights package that renews its own urgency for free. FIFA didn't design the drama. It just gets to keep selling tickets to it.