Three players were leading the race for the Golden Boot (award for the highest scorer) in the ongoing FIFA World Cup with three apiece at the end of Sunday (June 21), the 11th day of the tournament.
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Argentina great Lionel Messi scored three in his team’s very first match against Algeria on Group J on June 16. Two days later, on June 18, Canadian forward Jonathan David equalled him with his hat-trick against Qatar. Germany’s Deniz Undav joined the elite club on June 20 when he scored a brace against Ivory Coast. David and Undav have taken two games to match Messi, who will appear for his second game on Monday (June 22), against Austria.
Golden Boot race: Three goal club as on June 21
♦ Lionel Messi (Argentina) has 3 goals from 1 match
♦ Jonathan David (Canada) has 3 goals from 2 matches
♦ Deniz Undav (Germany) has 3 goals from 2 matches
Two goals: 19 players
The ‘Two goal’ club so far has seen 19 names from 13 nations. The Netherlands have the most number of players who have scored two goals in the tournament so far. They are: Brian Brobbey, Cody Gakpo and Crysencio Summerville. Brazil and Japan have two players each who have scored two goals. They are: Matheus Cunha and Vinícius Júnior (Brazil) and Daichi Kamada and Ayase Ueda (Japan).
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Others with two goals include Cyle Larin (Canada), Harry Kane (England), Kylian Mbappe (France), Kai Havertz (Germany), Ismael Saibari (Morocco), Elijah Just (New Zealand), Erling Haaland (Norway), Mikel Oyarzabal (Spain). (United States) and Maximilian Araújo (Uruguay).
Sixty-six players from 38 countries have scored one goal so far.
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Twenty-eight players in all bagged the honours of scoring the most goals in a single edition of the World Cup. The name ‘Golden Boot’ first came into use in 1982. It was first called the Golden Shoe Award and got its current name in 2010. However, top scorers of every tournament are retroactively recognised as winners of the crown.
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Here are the names of the top scorers of all World Cups since its inception in 1930:
1930, Uruguay: Guillermo Stabile (Argentina) Goals scored (GS): 8
1934, Italy: Oldrich Nejedly (formerly Czechoslovakia) GS: 5
1938, France: Leonidas (Brazil) GS: 7
1950, Brazil: Ademir (Brazil) GS: 9
1954, Switzerland: Sandor Kocsis (Hungary) GS: 11
1958, Sweden: Just Fontaine (France) GS: 13
1962, Chile: Florian Albert (Hungary), Valentin Ivanov (Soviet Union), Garrincha (Brazil), Vava (Brazil), Drazan Jerkovic (Yugoslavia) and Leonel Sanchez (Chile) GS: 4
1966, England: Eusebio (Portugal) GS: 9
1970, Mexico: Gerd Muller (Germany) GS: 10
1974, West Germany: Grzegorz Lato (Poland) GS: 7
1978, Argentina: Mario Kempes (Argentina) GS: 6
1982, Spain: Paolo Rossi (Italy) GS: 6
1986, Mexico: Gary Lineker (England) GS: 6
1990, Italy: Salvatore Schillaci (Italy) GS: 6
1994, USA: Oleg Salenko (Russia) Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria) GS: 6 each
1998, France: Davor Suker (Croatia) GS: 6
2002, South Korea/Japan: Ronaldo (Brazil) GS: 82006, Germany: Miroslav Klose (Germany) GS: 5
2010, South Africa: Thomas Muller (Germany) GS: 5
2014, Brazil: James Rodríguez (Colombia) GS: 6
2018, Russia: Harry Kane (England) GS: 6
2022, Qatar: Kylian Mbappe (France) GS: 8
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