World Cup 2026 is the biggest World Cup in history but its sheer size alone doesn't explain away one of the most fascinating Golden Boot races the competition has ever produced.
The last four teams left standing will each play eight matches in the United States, Canada and Mexico this summer, plenty of time for the planet's top scoring machines to pile up the goals.
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe both going past Miroslav Klose's record tally of career World Cup goals has added a layer to the tangle between former Paris Saint-Germain teammates – and others – for this year's Golden Boot.
Who is the record scorer in a single World Cup?
Messi scored six goals in Argentina's first three matches, before adding another in the Round of 32 tie with Cape Verde, taking his career total of World Cup goals to 20, four more than Klose's previous record. Mbappe has six goals in four games for France and now has 18 overall.
It's hard to imagine Mbappe not capitalising on his better goals-per-game record and likely involvement at World Cup 2030 to snatch the record from the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner but the single-tournament record is, probably, out of reach.
The highest number of goals scored at a single World Cup is 13, a total sensationally achieved in six matches by Just Fontaine in Sweden in 1958.
France were beaten by Brazil in the semi-final but Fontaine scored more than twice as many goals as any other player. Brazil's Pele and Helmut Rahn of West Germany were next in line with six each.
The Morocco-born striker was rattling along at around a goal per game when he joined the French squad at his only World Cup and started the finals with a hat-trick in their 7-3 group stage victory over Paraguay.
He scored twice more in a defeat to Yugoslavia and once, crucially, in the final group game against Scotland.
Fontaine's seventh and eighth goals came against Northern Ireland in the quarter-finals, with one more in the semi-finals against Brazil.
He etched his name into history by scoring four times in the unwanted third-place play-off match, which France won 6-3 against West Germany in Gothenburg.
Inspired by Pele, Brazil went on to win the final. Fontaine's four-goal haul a day earlier might have turned an incredible goalscoring record into an unassailable one.
Fontaine is not the only player to have reached double figures at the World Cup.
Hungary's Mighty Magyars reached the final in Switzerland in 1954, losing to West Germany in the famous Miracle of Bern final.
Sandor Kocsis, who scored both of their extra-time goals in the semi-final against Uruguay, ended the tournament with 11 goals. He played in one match fewer than Fontaine.
West Germany's legendary striker Gerd Muller scored 10 goals at the World Cup in 1970. His tally did not include any goals in the third-place play-off in Mexico.
