NEW YORK — America, you are witnessing greatness.

As in, all-time greatness.

As in, the kind of rarefied World Cup greatness that only the greatest of the greats, Lionel Messi, has bested.

For now.

Kylian Mbappé is that special.

Mbappé is delivering another World Cup for the ages, scoring two more goals Tuesday in France’s 3-0 win over Sweden in the Meadowlands to advance to the Round of 16.

The 27-year-old Mbappé now boasts 18 goals in 18 career World Cup matches, moving him just one behind Messi for the all-time World Cup scoring record.

Messi, who broke the record earlier in this tournament, has scored his 19 goals in 29 World Cup matches.

Competing in his third World Cup, Mbappé now has six goals through four games in this tournament.

He entered Tuesday’s match at New York New Jersey Stadium tied with Germany icon Miroslav Klose for the second-most World Cup goals ever.

The afternoon got off to a frustrating start for Mbappé, who had a goal disallowed in the 20th minute for being barely a toe offside.

Twelve minutes later, Mbappé missed a tap-in when he drilled the ball off the left post, prompting the forward to throw his hands in the air in exasperation.

But a soccer match is 90 minutes, and that was more than enough time for Mbappé to leave his mark.

Just before halftime, Mbappé juked to his left, then crossed over to his right, causing Swedish forward Viktor Gyokeres to fall to the grass. Mbappé finished with a nifty strike, breaking a scoreless tie in the 45th minute.

Mbappé ripped another goal from the left side at the 74th minute, giving France a 3-0 lead and serving as the dagger.

He waved as he subbed out to loud cheers at the 84th minute of Tuesday’s rout.

Mbappé has now scored 10 career goals in the knockout stage, breaking a tie with Leonidas and Ronaldo, both of Brazil, to set a new World Cup record.

Renowned for his torrid pace, masterful dribbling and ability to score with the highest degrees of difficulty, Mbappé is on the short list of soccer’s elite.

He is the best player on this year’s World Cup favorite, the driving force on a French juggernaut seeking its third consecutive berth in the final.

Internationally, Mbappé is an inner-circle superstar, whose brilliance on the pitch is undeniable but whose larger-than-life persona and off-the-field maneuvering has made him controversial.

Think of Alex Rodriguez or Tom Brady.

But in the U.S., Mbappé has yet to achieve the same level of across-the-board name recognition among casual or non-fans as that of Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

That gap may close this summer.

Mbappé opened the tournament with two goals in a 3-1 win over Senegal in the Meadowlands, securing his place as France’s all-time leading goal scorer.

He followed with two more goals in a 3-0 win over Iraq, then tallied two assists in a 4-1 win over Norway to finish off group play.

“I’m glad to have taken another step in my country’s history,” Mbappé told the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport after setting France’s scoring record. “It was something I was aiming for, but I want to emphasize that I’m not here to achieve individual records.”

Mbappé erupted onto the global stage as a 19-year-old supernova, scoring four goals at the 2018 World Cup to help lead France to its second-ever World Cup title.

He became only the second teenager to score a goal in the World Cup final — and the first since Pelé in 1958 — in France’s 4-2 win over Croatia at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.

Mbappé was even better at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, netting eight goals — including three in the final — en route to the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer.

Despite Mbappé’s historic performance — he was the second player to achieve a hat trick in a World Cup final — France lost that match on penalties to Messi-led Argentina.

But even though Messi broke through that day for his long-awaited first World Cup crown, the 2022 final felt like something of a passing of the torch.

Mbappé had staked his claim as the sport’s present and future.

“His playing style reminds me of myself at my peak,” Cristiano Ronaldo recently told the French newspaper L’Equipe. “He is one of the greatest players in football today and a natural heir to the legends of the game.”

The four years since then have been complicated for Mbappé.

In 2024, the Parisian-born star made a drawn-out, contentious exit from the French team Paris Saint-Germain to join the Spanish superpower Real Madrid, which had pursued him for years.

The saga solidified Mbappé as a villain in the eyes of many PSG fans, some of whom booed him in his final match with the club.

Mbappé’s tenure with Real Madrid has been similarly polarizing. After winning the 2024 UEFA Champions League shortly before Mbappé’s arrival, Real Madrid has come up short the past two years.

That’s because PSG won the Champions League in 2025 and 2026, accomplishing something they never managed to do with Mbappé.

In May, Mbappé was benched for the start of a Real Madrid win over Real Oviedo after he was pictured on vacation in Italy — one he said was approved by the club — while recovering from a hamstring injury.

Upon entering that match in the 69th minute, Mbappé was jeered by the home crowd at Real Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium.

“The criticism towards him is very, very unfair. Some people go a bit too far with the criticism of Kylian,” said Ousmane Dembélé, Mbappé’s France teammate and co-star, in a pre-World Cup interview with the Spanish newspaper Marca.

“Whether he ties his shoelaces or not, whether he pulls up his socks or not. … It’s too much. He’s still a human being. With the France team, he’s very good with us. He’s a leader.”

With France, Mbappé has been a model of consistency.

Mbappé is again in the mix to win the Golden Boot at this year’s World Cup. After Tuesday’s excellence, he is now tied with Messi, who has six goals in three games.

“Leo always scores,” Mbappé said earlier in the tournament. “He’ll always score. If I want to look at what Leo’s doing, I’ll have to do even more.”

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