EPL and La Liga lead goal standings

SOCHI, Russia — Players from the English Premier League and the Spanish league scored nearly half of the goals at the World Cup in the group stage.

Of the 122 goals in the 48 matches so far, 31 came from players in England’s top flight and 29 from players in La Liga. Four other goals were netted by players on teams in those countries’ second divisions.

The Premier League has two of the top scorers: Lethal Tottenham striker Harry Kane, with five goals for England, and burly Manchester United forward Romelu Lukaku, with four for Belgium.

The Spanish league has Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo on four goals for Portugal, Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa on three for Spain and Villarreal midfielder Denis Cheryshev with another three for Russia.

Kane and Lukaku were left out of their teams’ final group match on Thursday as both countries had already reached the next round. The top five leading scorers will continue playing in the knockout stage.

Players from France’s Ligue 1 scored nine goals, one more than German Bundesliga stars. Italy’s Serie A was next, with its players bagging seven goals.

The top four clubs releasing players to the World Cup were from the EPL (Manchester City and Chelsea) and La Liga (Real Madrid and Barcelona).

Madrid led the club list with nine goals, followed by Barcelona and Tottenham, with eight goals each.

Among the teams with the most players at the World Cup, Bayern Munich was the only one without any goals from its players in Russia. Bayern was the top scoring team four years ago in Brazil, with its players finding the net 18 times.

The United States’ Major League Soccer has seen two of its players score — Carlos Vela of Los Angeles FC for Mexico and Kendall Waston of the Vancouver Whitecaps for Costa Rica.

A total of 86 players scored in the group stage, which ended with a goal average of 2.5 per match. Four years ago in Brazil, 136 goals were scored in the group stage, with an average of 2.8 per game.

There have been nine own-goals in the tournament, a World Cup record.

The only scoreless game so far was when Denmark and France labored to a dour draw in Moscow on Tuesday.