Kylian Mbappe (No.10) during a match on November 13 in Paris, France. Photo: VCG
Paris St Germain star Kylian Mbappe helped FIFA World Cup holders France to a place at next year's Qatar 2022 tournament with a game to spare.
Mbappe scored four and set up another for Karim Benzema as France - who won the last World Cup in Russia in 2018 when the striker was still a teenager - romped past Kazakhstan in an 8-0 demolition of the visitors.
It was vindication for the 22-year-old who has had a tough summer, missing the crucial penalty as favorites France crashed out of the European Championships to Switzerland, while a move to Real Madrid never materialized.
"What happened to me this summer, it shaped me," he told Telefoot after making sure France were on the plane in December 2022.
"To take the decisive missed penalty one after the other, then a non-transfer, it tests your mind, your limits. I answered in the best possible way: This strengthened me."
He has answered with a performance that was branded perfect by French football newspaper L'Équipe, with Mbappe being handed a 10/10 rating by the notoriously miserly media giant.
The striker, who many have tipped as a future Ballon d'Or winner, joins illustrious company - he becomes only the 12th player to get the perfect score.
Let's take a trip down memory lane.
Bruno Martini and Franck Sauzee - France U21s vs Greece U21s, 1988
Strangely, the first two perfect 10 ratings came in the same game as France's U21 side beat their Greek counterparts in the second leg of the final of the FIFA U21 World Cup. The first leg had ended 2-2.
France won the second leg 3-0 and Sauzee accounted for two of them with a pair of rockets deserving of winning any game. At the other end the goalkeeper Martini kept the Greeks out and France lifted the trophy. This was the first and last time that L'Équipe gave two perfect 10s in the same match.
Oleg Salenko - Russia vs Cameroon, 1994
The top scorer at the 1994 World Cup in the US won the golden boot without even getting out of the group stage. Salenko came out on top largely thanks to a single game as he scored five of his six goals at the tournament in a single game against Cameroon. Russia won 6-1 and Salenko bagged five of the team's six, becoming the only player to score five goals in a single World Cup match. Oddly, the five-goal haul came in his last appearance for the Russian national team.
Lars Windfeld - Aarhus vs Nantes, 1997
The Danish side arrived at Nantes for the second leg of their UEFA Cup knockout match having held the French side to a 2-2 draw. They came away from the second leg with a narrow win and goalkeeper Windfield - who would never even win a single cap for the national side - came away with a perfect score from L'Équipe.
Lionel Messi - Barcelona vs Arsenal, 2010 & Bayer Leverkusen, 2012
The Argentine legend, and now Mbappe's teammate at PSG after joining from Barcelona in the summer, has broken many records during his illustrious career and one of them is that he is the only player to have ever been named perfect by L'Équipe more than once.
Arsenal were the first team to feel the force of a perfect Messi, coming on the night he scored all four goals as the English side were beaten 4-1 at Barcelona's Camp Nou to win 6-3 on aggregate in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals.
While L'Équipe had waited 13 years to pass anyone the perfect score, Messi did it again just two years later.
The second time was against Bayer Leverkusen on a night when Messi scored five.
Robert Lewandowski - Borussia Dortmund vs Real Madrid, 2013
Lewandowski was handed a perfect score for his four-goal haul in Borussia Dortmund's hammering of Real Madrid at the Signal Iduna Park. That it came in the semifinals and against a Jose Mourinho side whose defense included Pepe, Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane added to the occasion. Jurgen Klopp's Dortmund side would lose to Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich in the final with neither he nor his star striker staying too long.
Carlos Eduardo - Nice vs Guingamp, 2014
On-loan Portuguese midfielder Eduardo scored five goals in a 7-2 thrashing of Guingamp in Ligue 1 in 2014. He had scored a hat trick before halftime before adding two more after the interval, which accounted for half of his total goals of his season-long loan at Nice.
Neymar - PSG vs Dijon, 2018
The Brazilian had arrived in France as the most expensive player in football history and the former Barcelona star shone brightly during his debut season. Perhaps never more so than when he scored four and set up another two in a 8-0 win over Dijon. His mustard performance got him a perfect score, which he has never replicated despite dominating in Ligue 1.
Dusan Tadic - Ajax vs Real Madrid, 2019
Former Southampton midfielder Tadic got his perfect score when he helped Ajax to a dominant win over Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in the UEFA Champions League. Tadic scored to put the Dutch side 3-0 up before providing an assist for David Neres. It ended 4-1 and Tadic got the plaudits.
Lucas Moura - Spurs vs Ajax, 2019
It was not to be Ajax's season as Spurs stopped them reaching the UEFA Champions League final, in large part thanks to Moura whose hat trick included a vital last-minute winner. Moura cried that night, as did his coach Mauricio Pochettino, though it would end in tears as Spurs lost to Klopp's Liverpool in the final.
Serge Gnabry - Bayern vs Tottenham, 2019
The former Arsenal startlet shone in a shocker for Spurs, scoring four goals in the group stage win in London. That performance - the third of the year to get a 10/10 score - would add another nail in the coffin for Pochettino.
