Ranking the 2026 World Cup Golden Boot Contenders

The top scorer race in North America is unlikely anything ever seen before in the world’s biggest tournament.

Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and Jude Bellingham are all in with a shot. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated (Mbappé), Sebastian Frej/Getty Images (Messi), MB Media/Getty Images (Bellingham)

The 2026 World Cup will be remembered as an edition where the stars came out to play.

Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and more have lit up North America enchanting fans both new and old, while setting up one of the most exciting Golden Boot races in the tournament’s 96-year history.

With two more opportunities for the leading contenders to add to their totals, a potentially record-breaking contest will go down to the wire.

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What Is the Golden Boot Award?

Harry Kane won the Boot in 2018. | Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

The World Cup Golden Boot goes to the tournament's top goal scorer. Unlike the media-voted Golden Ball, this one is purely a numbers game: most goals wins. In modern editions, assists has served as the tiebreaker if scorers are level.

Historic recipients include Just Fontaine, whose 13 goals at the 1958 tournament for France remain a single-edition record, along with icons Gerd Müller, Ronaldo, Miroslav Klose, and Mbappé—the 2022 winner with eight goals.

No player has ever won the Boot twice, while Messi is yet to claim the award.

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Every FIFA World Cup Golden Boot Winner in History

Year	Golden Boot Winner	Goals
1930	Guillermo Stábile (Argentina)	8
1934	Oldřich Nejedlý (Czechoslovakia)	5
1938	Leônidas (Brazil)	7
1950	Ademir (Brazil)	9
1954	Sándor Kocsis (Hungary)	11
1958	Just Fontaine (France)	13
1962	Flórián Albert (Hungary) Valentin Ivanov (Soviet Union) Garrincha (Brazil) Vavá (Brazil) Dražan Jerković (Yugoslavia) Leonel Sánchez (Chile)	4
1966	Eusébio (Portugal)	9
1970	Gerd Müller (West Germany)	10
1974	Grzegorz Lato (Poland)	7
1978	Mario Kempes (Argentina)	6
1982	Paolo Rossi (Italy)	6
1986	Gary Lineker (England)	6
1990	Salvatore Schillaci (Italy)	6
1994	Oleg Salenko (Russia) Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria)	6
1998	Davor Šuker (Croatia)	6
2002	Ronaldo (Brazil)	8
2006	Miroslav Klose (Germany)	5
2010	Thomas Müller (Germany)	5
2014	James Rodríguez (Colombia)	6
2018	Harry Kane (England)	6
2022	Kylian Mbappé	8

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The Top Contenders to Win the Golden Boot—Ranked

On only five previous occasions has a player required more than eight goals to take home the Golden Boot trophy, and never before have there been two or more players with that total.

With Messi and Mbappé already tied on eight, with two games to play, this is one of the highest-scoring scoring races in tournament history.

Here’s a rundown of the top contenders still in the mix to be handed the prize upon the tournament’s conclusion on July 19.

Note: Erling Haaland’s seven goals rank him third currently, but as Norway has been eliminated and he will not play any more games, there is no chance he will surpass the leaders to claim the trophy.

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6. Mikel Oyarzabal

Mikel Oyarzabal is a very long shot for the trophy now. | Harry How/Getty Images

Goals: 4
Assists: 1

Four in six games is a respectable total for Spain’s primary threat, but Mikel Oyarzabal has not enjoyed the volume of some of his top competitors.

Overall, Spain has scored just 11 goals all World Cup, the lowest of any of the semifinalists, and Oyarzabal has actually only scored in two of his country’s six games—bagging braces against both Saudi Arabia and Austria.

A couple of (very) big displays in the next two games could still shoot him up the rankings, but it’s difficult to envisage Oyarzabal hoisting the Golden Boot aloft at this point.

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5. Ousmane Dembélé

Ousmane Dembélé would rank higher in most other years | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Goals: 5
Assists: 2

The current Ballon d’Or holder already has enough goals to have won the award on four previous occasions, but this 2026 edition of the World Cup is anything but normal.

Three of Ousmane Dembélé’s five strikes came in the Group I clash with a second-string Norway, and he has largely played second fiddle to Kylian Mbappé this summer. Still, he can’t be discounted.

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4. Harry Kane

Harry Kane is England’s all-time top scorer at the World Cup. | Eddie Keogh/The FA/Getty Images

Goals: 6
Assists: 1

Only the second Englishman ever to win a World Cup Golden Boot (after Gary Lineker), Harry Kane is hoping to become the first player of any nationality to win the award twice.

The quarterfinal win over Norway was only the second time that the Bayern Munich front man has blanked at this tournament, but it has left him trailing the frontrunners with only two more opportunities to add to his tally.

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3. Jude Bellingham

Jude Bellingham has scored back-to-back braces. | Erick W. Rasco/ Sports Illustrated

Goals: 6
Assists: 1

With his match-winning double against Norway, Bellingham became the first player to score twice in consecutive World Cup knockout matches since Diego Maradona in 1986. Some company.

Despite having the same goals and assists as Kane, England’s No.10 leads his teammate in the rankings by virtue of having played fewer minutes.

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2. Lionel Messi

A reminder that Lionel Messi is 39. | Erick W. Rasco/ Sports Illustrated

Goals: 8
Assists: 2

Anyone who thought Messi’s 2022 World Cup displays were impossible to top has been proven very wrong, as the 39-year-old continues to defy age in a way that will surely be piquing the interest of several Silicon Valley billionaires.

This summer, Messi has also become both the all-time leading World Cup goalscorer (21) and assist maker (10).

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1. Kylian Mbappé

Kylian Mbappé is Mr World Cup. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Goals: 8
Assists: 3

Right behind Messi in the all-time charts is Mbappé (20) and it’s hard not to imagine the Frenchman claiming top spot at some point, either this summer or further down the road.

Mbappé has been irresistible in North America, scoring at least once in every match he’s played—bar the Norway game when he bagged two assists to give him the edge over Messi in the standings.

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