There are few more prestigious awards for a striker than the World Cup Golden Boot.
The opportunity to compete for it only comes around once every four years which means most players will have precious few opportunities to win it in their career.
Players will often claim that they are not interested in personal accolades as the team performance is the main priority. But it’s fair to say that a statement like that is only half true.
Yes, getting as far as possible in the World Cup is of optimal importance, but forwards love scoring goals and they know that scoring more than anyone else leads to a rather smart trophy at the end of the tournament.
Here, The Athletic looks as the current frontrunners for the Golden Boot in Qatar.
Who is leading the Golden Boot race at the World Cup?
This will be updated throughout the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
- Lionel Messi — 5 goals
- Kylian Mbappe — 5 goals
- Olivier Giroud — 4 goals
- Julian Alvarez — 4 goals
- Goncalo Ramos — 3 goals
- Marcus Rashford — 3 goals
- Bukayo Saka — 3 goals
- Richarlison — 3 goals
- Cody Gakpo — 3 goals
- Alvaro Morata — 3 goals
- Enner Valencia — 3 goals
Players with Two goals
Here are all the players that have scored two goals at the 2022 World Cup.
- Bruno Fernandes*
- Harry Kane*
- Nicolas Fullkrug*
- Vincent Aboubakar*
- Mehdi Taremi*
- Neymar*
- Robert Lewandowski*
- Wout Weghorst*
- Rafael Leao*
- Kai Havertz*
- Giorgian de Arrascaeta*
- Ritsu Doan*
- Ferran Torres*
- Mohammed Kudus*
- Aleksandar Mitrovic*
- Salem Al-Dawsari*
- Cho Gue-sung*
Who are the previous winners of the World Cup Golden Boot?
The first World Cup where the top goalscorer received an award was the 1982 tournament in Spain.
Between 1982 and 2006, it was known as the Golden Shoe before being renamed to the Golden Boot for the 2010 World Cup.
Here are the players who scored the most goals at each FIFA World Cup.
- 1930: Guillermo Stabile (Argentina) — 8 goals
- 1934: Oldrich Nejedly (Czechoslovakia) — 5 goals
- 1938: Leonidas (Brazil) — 7 goals
- 1950: Ademir (Brazil) — 8 goals
- 1954: Sandor Kocsis (Hungary) — 11 goals
- 1958: Just Fontaine (France) — 13 goals
- 1962: Florian Albert (Hungary), Valentin Ivanov (Soviet Union), Garrincha (Brazil), Vava (Brazil), Drazan Jerkovic (Yugoslavia), Leonel Sanchez (Chile) — 4 goals
- 1966: Eusebio (Portugal) — 9 goals
- 1970: Gerd Muller (West Germany) — 10 goals
- 1974: Grzegorz Lato (Poland) — 7 goals
- 1978: Mario Kempes (Argentina) — 6 goals
- 1982: Paolo Rossi (Italy) — 6 goals
- 1986: Gary Lineker (England) – 6 goals
- 1990: Salvatore Schillaci (Italy) — 6 goals
- 1994: Oleg Salenko (Russia), Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria) — 6 goals
- 1998: Davor Suker (Croatia) — 6 goals
- 2002: Ronaldo (Brazil) — 8 goals
- 2006: Miroslav Klose (Germany) — 5 goals
- 2010: Thomas Muller (Germany) — 5 goals
- 2014: James Rodriguez (Colombia) — 6 goals
- 2018: Harry Kane (England) — 6 goals
