Mbappe targets Ligue 1 scoring record with PSG next season

June 4 (Reuters) – Kylian Mbappe said he has his eyes set on the Ligue 1 record for finishing top scorer in six consecutive seasons next year after he equalled the record for five straight Golden Boot awards set by Jean-Pierre Papin.

Mbappe scored his 29th league goal of the season in PSG’s final game on Saturday, a 3-2 defeat by Clermont, to finish top of the Ligue 1 scoring charts yet again.

The Frenchman was earlier named Ligue 1 player of the season for the fourth time in a row last week.

The 24-year-old has finished top scorer in the league every year since his move to PSG was made permanent in 2018, sharing the Golden Boot with AS Monaco’s Wissam Ben Yedder in 2019-20.

“My top scorer award? I’m very happy. We’ve won the championship. I’m still top scorer and top player. So that’s great,” said Mbappe, who is also PSG’s all-time top scorer.

“It’s true that it was at the end of the season, when we’d won the title, that it was a personal goal and I’ve achieved it.

“I’m going down in history and I’m happy. But I still have next year to beat Jean-Pierre Papin.”

Three other players have won the Ligue 1 Golden Boot five times but Papin was the first player to win it five times in a row between 1987 and 1992 when he was with Olympique de Marseille.

After vowing to honour his PSG contract, Mbappe’s words are another clear indication that he will stay amid rumours of interest from Real Madrid, a club that has courted him in the past but failed to land the French forward.

Mbappe signed a contract extension with PSG until 2025 last year, but Sky Sports reported it was only a two-year deal with a player option for a third year – which means Mbappe will be entering the final year of his contract next season.

Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.