Full list of World Cup Golden Boot winners
The Golden Boot is awarded to the player who scores the most goals at the World Cup finals tournament. Which players have won it in the past?
The player who scores the most goals at the World Cup finals is awarded the Golden Boot. While some famous players have won it, some otherwise forgettable names have taken the prize too.
Top of the tree is France’s Just Fontaine. He scored a remarkable 13 goals in Sweden in 1958, which is a tally which will surely never be beaten. The 1950s were obviously a good time to be a forward, as Hungary’s Sandor Kocsis rattled in 11 goals at the 1954 finals in Switzerland to take home the Golden Boot.
Far fewer goals have been required to be the top scorer in the last three World Cups. Colombia’s James Rodriguez scored six to claim the prize in Brazil last time out, while the German pair of Thomas Muller and Miroslav Klose won the preceding two Golden Boots with just five goals each.
The least goals needed to win it was four, in 1962, albeit six players reached that mark. The Brazilian pair Garrincha and Vava are still well remembered today, but that’s not so true of Florian Albert, Valentin Ivanov, Drazan Jerkovic and Leonel Sanchez.
There have been three other Brazilian winners too. Leonidas was the first, with seven goals at the 1938 finals, and the following tournament saw Ademir win with eight. More recently, Ronaldo scored eight in 2002 to power Brazil to their last World Cup triumph to date.
Ronaldo famously under-performed in the 1998 final. Croatia’s Davor Suker was the top scorer that year, as he netted six times. That’s the most common tally for a Golden Boot winner, and was the number netted by the top scorer in the five prior World Cups.
Mario Kempes won the World Cup and Golden Boot in 1978, and Paolo Rossi repeated the feat four years later. Gary Lineker became England’s only Golden Boot winner in 1986, before Toto Schillachi took the prize in 1990.
The other six-goal winners shared the award in 1994. Russia’s Oleg Salenko and Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov couldn’t be separated, even though that was the year when FIFA introduced a rule that the player with the most assists would win in the event of a tie. To date, Thomas Muller in 2010 is the only player to win the Golden Boot via this method.
Next: The 30 best players in World Cup history
Gerd Muller is the Golden Boot’s third highest scoring winner, as he bagged 10 goals in Mexico in 1970. He couldn’t win again on home soil four years later, but winning the World Cup probably made up for that. It was Grzegorz Lato who scored the most goals that year, as he bagged seven.
That leaves us with just three Golden Boot winners to complete the set. Guillermo Stabile was the top scorer at the first World Cup, with eight goals in 1930, and Oldrich Nejedly needed just five to take the title four years later. Last and by no means least is Eusebio, who scored nine in 1966 to power his team to the semifinals.
Lionel Messi is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the Golden Boot in Russia, but as this list shows, don’t be surprised if someone you’ve not yet heard of takes the prize.