The Golden Boot is awarded to the player who scores the most goals in the tournament. If there are multiple players with the same number of goals, the tie is broken by assists, and if those too are equal, by the lowest minutes played.
Own goals do not count, and nor do penalties scored in penalty shoot-outs, but penalties in normal or extra time do.
The World Cup first gave an award to the top goalscorer of the tournament in 1982, under the name Golden Shoe, before being renamed Golden Boot for the 2010 finals (with silver and bronze boots for the second and third places). In that year, Germany’s Thomas Müller collected the award with five goals and three assists. James Rodríguez took the prize four years later with six goals, while Harry Kane’s six-goal haul for England landed the award in 2018.
These all come well short of the leading goalscorer at a single World Cup, which was France’s Just Fontaine, who scored a remarkable 13 goals during the 1958 tournament.
This year, favourites for the Golden Boot include Kane, France’s Kylian Mbappé, Argentina talisman Lionel Messi and Neymar of Brazil.
