The World Cup is one of the most intense soccer tournaments. Each team gets a chance to prove themselves worthy of the World Cup trophy. Although this accomplishment is only awarded to the winning team, many other awards focus on one player specifically. One such award is the Golden Boot. This is awarded to the highest scorer in the entire World Cup. This year the competition is quite fierce, and the true holder of this award is yet to be determined come.

The Golden Boot was created in 1982 and first won by Paolo Rossi, an Italian player. The award was originally called the Golden Shoe, but it still served the same purpose as it does today. The award was renamed to Golden Boot in 2010. Despite this, FIFA also still recognized players way back into the 1930’s. For example, the all-time leading scorer is Just Fontaine, a French player with 12 goals. The most recent recipients of this award were Harry Cane in 2018 and Kylian Mbappe in 2022.

This year, the lead competitors for the Golden Boot are Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe both with 8 eight goals. Third place goes to Erling Haaland with seven goals. Tied for fourth is Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham with six goals. So far, Norway was eliminated, so it is difficult for Haaland to maintain his place.

This year has been a close race between famous soccer stars. The Golden Boot is still under fierce competition the competition of many.