There are a lot of speculations about the two legends of the game – Messi and Ronaldo supposedly playing their last World Cup, but there are other players worth watching at this World Cup. We will look at some favorites to be the World Cup top scorers this year.
| Player Odds | Hollywoodbets | Betway | bet.co.za |
| Neymar | N/A | N/A | 11.00 |
| Mbappe | N/A | N/A | 8.50 |
| Lewandoski | N/A | N/A | 21.00 |
| Ronaldo | N/A | N/A | 13.00 |
| Messi | N/A | N/A | 11.00 |
Top 5 Favourite World Cup Top Scorers for 2022
Here are some of our favorites to win the golden boot for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Neymar
The Brazillian playmaker has scored 78 international goals in all competitions and 4 in the World Cup. He scored 4 in the 2014 edition hosted by Brazil and 2 in the 2018 edition hosted by Russia and has just played in 2 World Cups.
Neymar is currently the second-highest goal scorer for Brazil, with 74 goals. He will hope to score at least 3 more goals to surpass Pele on 77 goals. He may also plan to extend his scoring to give him room to surpass the World Cup top scorers of all time, as he may still have one more World Cup to play after this edition as he will be 34 when the 2026 World Cup is held.
Kylian Mbappe
Mbappe had already shown his prowess on the world stage when France won the 2018 World Cup in Russia, scoring 4 goals in 7 games with a screaming 25-yard goal in the final. He was one of the World Cup 2018 top scorers but he missed clinching the golden boot as he finished a joint second with 4 goals.
Even though he didn’t win the World Cup top scorer award in the tournament, he won the Young Player of the tournament award. He was also the second youngest player to score in a World Cup final, behind the Brazilian great Pele.
He will go into the 2022 edition of the World Cup with many eyes on him to extend his goal-scoring record and, if possible, start the process of unseating the World Cup top scorers of all time.
Robert Lewandowski
Lewandoski is Europe’s third-highest international goal scorer with 76 goals behind Ferenc Puskas (84 goals) and Ronaldo (117 goals). The Poland player has been the top scorer in the Bundesliga for 7 seasons before moving to Barcelona.
The Polish team will be playing in group C in the World Cup in Qatar, and Lewandowski, who doesn’t yet have a World Cup goal, will be hoping to start his goal-scoring campaign. Based on his exploits in the Bundesliga and now in the La Liga with Barcelona – 8 goals in 6 games, we hope he will show up in this edition of the World Cup.
Cristiano Ronaldo
As the highest goal scorer in international competitions with 117 goals, Ronaldo will be hoping to break at least one record on the global stage in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He has scored 7 goals in 4 World Cup tournaments and will hope to surpass the highest goal tally held by Miroslav Klose (16 goals) if he can score 9 more goals.
He can also hope to score two more goals to surpass Portugal’s highest goal scorer, Eusebio, who has 9 goals in all.
Ronaldo was one of the World Cup 2018 top scorers as he had 4 goals and was joint-second to Harry Kane who won the golden boot with 6 goals. He will most likely be playing in his last World Cup tournament in the 2022 World Cup, having played in the last 4 editions, the next one making it his fifth, a record shared with his life-long competitor Lionel Messi.
Lionel Messi
Messi has one less goal than his competitor, Ronaldo, with 6 goals in 11 matches in the World Cup. He has played in 4 World Cups since 2006, as he was part of the team competing in Germany. He will hope to add to his tally to surpass the highest goal-scorer for Argentina, Batistuta, with 10 goals.
Or he could pull a surprise and score 11 goals to surpass the current highest goal-scorer, Klose, who has 16 goals. The 2022 edition will most likely be his last World Cup as he will be 40 years old for the next World Cup in 2026, and he has been hinting at retirement since losing the finals of Copa America in 2016.
List of World Cup Top Scorers of All Times
This is a list of all the World Cup top scorers at all times of the World Cup held since the inaugural edition of 1930.
Miroslav Klose
Germany’s Miroslav Klose is the world cup top scorer for all time in the World Cup tournaments spanning 4 tournaments, from the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea to the 2014 World Cup, in Brazil, where he scored 6 goals to get onto 16 goals outscoring Ronaldo of Brazil, then on 15 goals.
Klose is also one of 4 players to score in 4 World Cup tournaments from 2002 to 2014. He is joined by his fellow countryman Uwe Seeler, Pele, and Cristiano Ronaldo.
He started his World Cup scoring the 2002 World Cup with 5 goals, then added 5 more in the 2006 World Cup in his home country and ended up the highest goal scorer in the tournament. He added 4 goals in the 2010 World, and his final two goals came in the 2014 World Cup, where he also won the tournament prize with the German team.
Klose finished his career on the world stage scoring 16 goals from just 63 shots at a 25.4% conversion rate, the best rate among other top scorers.
Ronaldo
Ronaldo was one of the most prolific scorers of his generation. He scored in just 3 tournaments: 1998, 2002, and 2006 World Cup. In his first World Cup tournament in 1998, he scored 4 goals in 7 appearances, but Brazil lost the finals to the host nation France.
His highest-scoring tournament was the 2002 World Cup in Japan, and South Korea, where he scored 8 goals in 7 games. He completed the tournament with the only 2 goals scored in the finals in a 2-0 win against Germany.
The most impressive thing about this feat is the fact that Ronaldo has spent most of the qualifying campaign recovering from injury, so he didn’t play any of the games. But he went on to score in almost every game and won the tournament’s golden boot.
In the 2006 World Cup, he scored 3 goals to bring his overall goal tally to 15 goals overtaking Gerd Muller’s 14 goals which was the record for 32 years.
Gerd Muller
Gerd Muller holds the record for scoring the most goals in the least competitions. His 14 goals, a record that stood for 32 years, came in just 2 competitions, the 1970 edition in Mexico and the 1974 edition in Germany.
In the 1970 edition, Muller scored 10 goals in 6 games. He scored till the semi-final, where he scored 2 goals, but lost to Italy and didn’t have any goals scored in the third-place play-off against Uruguay.
He is only one of three players to score a double-digit at any World Cup, joining Sandor Kocsis of Hungary, that scored 13 goals in the 1954 edition hosted by Switzerland, and Just Fontaine of France, who scored 11 goals in the 1958 edition hosted by Sweden. In fact, since 1970, when Muller set the record, no other player has scored double digits goals at any World Cup edition.
In the 1974 World Cup hosted by Germany, Muller scored 4 goals and, even better, scored the winning goal in the 2-1 win over the Netherlands. As one of the most dangerous strikers in his generation, his 14 goals came from touches within the penalty box.
Just Fontaine
The French international is the next player to score the most goals in World Cup competitions. But his record is more impressive as he scored all 13 goals in 6 games in the 1958 World Cup edition held in Sweden. And that was the only World Cup competition he played in; he was just 24 years old.
Fontaine’s 13 goals came as double hat-tricks against Paraguay and West Germany (4 goals in this case). The other 6 goals came in the remaining 4 games. Despite his massive goal contribution, Brazil dispatched France in the semi-finals, who were the tournament winners. He had to retire before the 1962 World Cup due to injury complications.
Pele
The popular Brazilian player has a lot of records in addition to his 12 goals over 4 World Cup editions. For instance, he is the youngest scorer in a World Cup match, scoring in the match against Wales at just 17 years and 239 days.
In addition, he is the youngest scorer in a World Cup final match as he scored in the 5-2 win over Sweden in the 1958 World Cup. He is also the youngest player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup, against France, still in the 1958 competition.
He is also the player with the highest assists in a World Cup, clocking 6 assists in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Finally, the most impressive record, he is the player with the highest World Cup titles – 3 Cups over a 16- year period. Meaning he won 3 out of 4 competitions.
Pele scored 6 goals in his first World Cup in 1958, which was overshadowed by French Just Fontaine’s 13 goals in the same competition. The good part included beating the French team in the semi-finals on their way to winning the first of 3 World Cup tournaments.
The other 6 goals came in the 3 other World Cups. He scored 1 goal in the 1962 and 1966 World Cup. Then in his final appearance in a World Cup, in 1970, he scored 4 goals. Surprisingly, despite his massive contributions, Pele never won the golden boot. However, he ended the 1970 edition as the best player, scoring 4 goals and providing 6 assists as they won the competition.
The List of World Cup Top Scorers for the Past Years
| Tournament | Player | Team | Number of goals | Number of games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 | Guillermo Stabile | Argentina | 8 | 4 |
| 1934 | Oldrich Nejedly | Czechoslovakia | 5 | 4 |
| 1938 | Leonidas | Brazil | 7 | 5 |
| 1950 | Ademir | Brazil | 8 | 6 |
| 1954 | Sandor Kocsis | Hungary | 11 | 6 |
| 1958 | Just Fontaine | France | 13 | 6 |
| 1962 | Florian Albert | Hungary | 4 | 6 |
| 1966 | Eusebio | Portugal | 9 | 7 |
| 1970 | Gerd Muller | Germany | 10 | 6 |
| 1974 | Grzegorz Lato | Poland | 7 | 7 |
| 1978 | Mario Kempes | Argentina | 6 | 7 |
| 1982 | Paolo Rossi | Italy | 6 | 7 |
| 1986 | Gary Lineker | England | 6 | 5 |
| 1990 | Salvatore Schilacci | Italy | 6 | 7 |
| 1994 | Hristo Stoichkov | Bulgaria | 6 | 7 |
| 1998 | David Suker | Croatia | 6 | 7 |
| 2002 | Ronaldo | Brazil | 8 | 7 |
| 2006 | Miroslav Klose | Germany | 5 | 7 |
| 2010 | Thomas Muller | Germany | 5 | 6 |
| 2014 | James Rodriguez | Colombia | 6 | 5 |
| 2018 | Harry Kane | England | 6 | 6 |
World Cup Top Scorers FAQ
The World Cup scorer of all time is the German forward Miroslav Klose. Klose has scored 16 goals in 4 World Cups to clinch the title, surpassing the Brazilian forward Ronaldo, who is second with 15 goals.
4 players were the joint top-scorers in the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. There are Thomas Muller (Germany), David Villa (Spain), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), and Diego Forlan of Uruguay. All the top 4 scorers finished the tournaments on 5 goals each, but Thomas Muller clinched the golden boot, having scored in fewer matches (6) than the others.
The World Cup 2018 top scorer was Harry Kane of England, scoring 6 goals in 6 games.
There were 22 players with 2 assists in the 2018 World Cup, the highest number of assists.
Many players are expected to score the most goals in the 2022 World Cup. Some of them include Neymar, Lewandoski, Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jnr. Also, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo play their last World Cup in 2022, so they are expected to perform.
