World Cup golden boot: What are the tiebreakers for top goalscorer award?
Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Kylian Mbappe enter the final on five goals each
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Your support makes all the difference.As the World Cup comes to an end in Qatar today (Sunday 18 December), the winner of the golden boot will be crowned.
The award goes to the player who has scored the most goals at the tournament, and this year it may in fact come down to two finalists – Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Kylian Mbappe.
Both forwards enter the final having scored five goals each at the tournament, meaning a goal for either today – as long as the other does not score – would claim them the prize.
However, if both players finish on the same number of goals, whoever has more assists will claim the golden boot. As things stand, Messi has three assists and Mbappe has two.
The next differentiator, should two players end the tournament with the same number of goals and assists, is minutes played; whoever has played fewer minutes would win the award in that case.
It is also worth noting that Mbappe’s France teammate Olivier Giroud has scored four goals at this World Cup, as has Messi’s fellow Argentina forward Julian Alvarez. However, neither has recorded an assist at the tournament so far.
A silver boot and bronze boot will also be awarded today.
Here is the state of play as we wait for the World Cup golden boot to be decided:
5 goals
Lionel Messi (Argentina) – 3 assists, 570 minutes played
Kylian Mbappe (France) – 2 assists, 477 minutes
4 goals
Olivier Giroud (France) – 0 assists, 364 minutes
Julian Alvarez (Argentina) – 0 assists, 383 minutes
3 goals (N.B. All players below have been eliminated from the World Cup)
Goncalo Ramos (Portugal)
Alvaro Morata (Spain)
Marcus Rashford (England)
Enner Valencia (Ecuador)
Bukayo Saka (England)
Richarlison (Brazil)
Cody Gakpo (Netherlands)
List of previous Golden Boot winners
| World Cup | Top goalscorer | Goals | Runner(s)-up | Goals | Third place | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 Uruguay | Guillermo Stabile | 8 | Pedro Cea | 5 | Bert Patenaude | 4 |
| 1934 Italy | Oldrich Nejedly | 5 | Edmund Conen, Angelo Schiavio | 4 | None | — |
| 1938 France | Leônidas | 7 | Gyorgy Sarosi, Gyula Zsengeller, Silvio Piola | 5 | None | — |
| 1950 Brazil | Ademir | 8 | Oscar Miguez | 5 | Alcides Ghiggia, Chico, Estanislau Basora, Telmo Zarra | 4 |
| 1954 Switzerland | Sandor Kocsis | 11 | Josef Hugi, Max Morlock, Erich Probst | 6 | None | — |
| 1958 Sweden | Just Fontaine | 13 | Pele, Helmut Rahn | 6 | None | — |
| 1962 Chile | Florian Albert, Valentin Ivanov, Garrincha, Vava, Drazan Jerkovic, Leonel Sanchez | 4 | None | — | None | — |
| 1966 England | Eusebio | 9 | Helmut Haller | 6 | Valeriy Porkujan, Geoff Hurst, Ferenc Bene, Franz Beckenbauer | 4 |
| 1970 Mexico | Gerd Muller | 10 | Jairzinho | 7 | Teofilo Cubillas | 5 |
| 1974 West Germany | Grzegorz Lato | 7 | Andrzej Szarmach, Johan Neeskens | 5 | None | |
| 1978 Argentina[50] | Mario Kempes | 6 | Teófilo Cubillas | 5 | Rob Rensenbrink | 5 |
| 1982 Spain | Paolo Rossi | 6 | Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | 5 | Zico | 4 |
| 1986 Mexico | Gary Lineker | 6 | Emilio Butragueno, Careca, Diego Maradona | 5 | None | |
| 1990 Italy | Salvatore Schillaci | 6 | Tomas Skuhravy | 5 | Roger Milla, Gary Lineker | 4 |
| 1994 United States | Oleg Salenko, Hristo Stoichkov | 6 | None | — | Kennet Andersson, Romario | 5 |
| 1998 France | Davor Suker | 6 | Gabriel Batistuta, Christian Vieri | 5 | None | |
| 2002 South Korea/Japan | Ronaldo | 8 | Miroslav Klose, Rivaldo | 5 | ||
| 2006 Germany | Miroslav Klose | 5 | Hernan Crespo | 3 | Ronaldo | 3 |
| 2010 South Africa | Thomas Muller | 5 | David Villa | 5 | Wesley Sneijder | 5 |
| 2014 Brazil | James Rodriguez | 6 | Thomas Muller | 5 | Neymar | 4 |
| 2018 Russia | Harry Kane | 6 | Antoine Griezmann | 4 | Romelu Lukaku | 4 |
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