Golden Boot Award Winners: All eyes will be on Russia in June and July as the world’s most popular sport celebrates the coming together of 32 nations to win the quadrennial event that is the FIFA World Cup. The 2018 edition promises to entertain with no clear favourites for the top prize.
Even the winner of the Golden Boot is not easy to predict. 2014 saw an unlikely contender in Colombia’s James Rodriguez walk away with the prize. Who will it be this time?
One of the most prestigious football award in the world is this individual honour of finishing as the top goal scored in the FIFA World Cups, it not only cement your place in the history but also gain huge respect in the footballing world, today we bring you the list of all previous top goal scorers in FIFA World Cups starting from 1930 when Uruguay won the world cup to Spain triumph in South Africa.
The Golden Ball, for example, is given out to the best player of each FIFA World Cup edition while the Golden Glove goes to the goalkeepers with the most clean sheets. For attacking players, the FIFA World Cup Golden Boot, given to the top scorer of each edition, is the holy grail.
Incidentally, the Golden Boot award at FIFA World Cups only started officially from 1982. It was known as the Golden Shoe award at the time. It came to be known as the Golden Boot, its current iteration, only from 2010.
However, top scorers at previous FIFA World Cup editions are also recognised as Golden Boot winners. The second highest scorer at each football World Cup wins the Silver Boot while the third-highest scorer walks away with the Bronze Boot.
Argentina’s Guillermo Stabile, hence, is the first FIFA World Cup Golden Boot winner, top scoring at the 1930 FIFA World Cup in Uruguay, the inaugural edition, with eight goals.
Previous Winners of World Cup Golden Boot Winners
Number | FIFA World Cup Edition | Top Goalscorer (Country) | Goals Scored |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Uruguay 1930 | Guillermo Stabile (Argentina) | 8 |
2 | Italy 1934 | Oldrich Nejedly (Czech Republic) | 5 |
3 | France 1938 | Leonidas (Brazil) | 7 |
4 | Brazil 1950 | Ademir (Brazil) | 8 |
5 | Switzerland 1954 | Sandor Kocsis (Hungary) | 11 |
6 | Sweden 1958 | Just Fontaine (France) | 13 |
7 | Chile 1962 | Florian Albert (Hungary) Valentin Ivanov (Soviet Union) Garrincha (Brazil) Vava (Brazil) Drazan Jerkovic (Yugoslavia) Leonel Sanchez (Chile) | 4 |
8 | England 1966 | Eusebio (Portugal) | 9 |
9 | Mexico 1970 | Gerd Muller (Germany) | 10 |
10 | West Germany 1974 | Grzegorz Lato (Poland) | 7 |
11 | Argentina 1978 | Mario Kempes (Argentina) | 6 |
12 | Spain 1982 | Paolo Rossi (Italy) | 6 |
13 | Mexico 1986 | Gary Lineker (England) | 6 |
14 | Italy 1990 | Salvatore Schillaci (Italy) | 6 |
15 | USA 1994 | Oleg Salenko (Russia) Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria) | 6 |
16 | France 1998 | Davor Suker (Croatia) | 6 |
17 | South Korea/Japan 2002 | Ronaldo (Brazil) | 8 |
18 | Germany 2006 | Miroslav Klose (Germany) | 5 |
19 | South Africa 2010 | Thomas Muller (Germany) | 5 |
20 | Brazil 2014 | James RodrÃguez (Colombia) | 6 |
21 | Russia 2018 | Harry Kane (England) | 6 |
22 | Qatar 2022 | Kylian Mbappe | 8 |