Going into the finals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe are favourites to win the Golden Boot award, given to the top goal-scorer of the tournament. Both men have 5 goals each in the tournament so far.
This will be Messi’s final shot at winning the World Cup, a trophy that has eluded his glittering cabinet in his illustrious career.
Below is the list of FIFA World Cup Golden Boot winners (inputs from Xinhua):
1930 – Guillermo Stabile (Argentina) – 8 goals
1934 – Oldrich Nejedly (Czechoslovakia) – 5 goals
1938 – Leonidas (Brazil) – 7 goals
1950 – Ademir (Brazil) – 9 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), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), David Villa (Spain), Diego Forlan (Uruguay) – 5 goals
2014 – James Rodriguez (Colombia) – 6 goals
2018 – Harry Kane (England) – 6 goals