DAS GOLDEN BOOT
HOW GERMANS TOP THE LIST OF THE WORLD CUP’S LEADING GOALSCORERS
WHEN it comes to the World Cup’s top goalscorers there’s one country that has produced more than any other: Germany.
Five of the 13 players to have scored 10 or more goals at the tournament are German.
And of the 90 players to have scored five or more, 14 come from Germany.
Only Brazil come close to matching that record, with 13 different players who have scored at least five times at World Cups. Two of the top three all-time World Cup goalscorers are German, including the man at the very top - Miroslav Klose. The former Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich striker scored 16 goals in the World Cup, putting him ahead of Brazil’s Ronaldo with 15 and fellow German Gerd “Der Bomber” Müller, with 14. Only one player has a realistic chance of reaching Klose’s record this summer: Thomas Müller. The Bayern forward currently has 10 World Cup goals to his name.
He got five at last year’s tournament in Brazil, so if he matches that he will surpass his namesake Gerd and join Ronaldo in second place.
If he betters last year’s performance, then he will go top of the table. Either way, at 28 years of age, he’s likely to have another World Cup left in him where he could break the all-time record.
A goal scorer’s prowess isn’t just measured by the total number of goals that they score, though.
After all, tournaments of yesteryear had far fewer games than they do now.
In 1930 and 1934 the winners played just four games compared to the seven Germany played when they won in 2014.
A look at goals per game puts a different set of names at the top of the goalscoring charts.
Hungary’s Sándor Kocsis scored an average of 2.2 goals per game in his World Cup career - more than any other player to have found the net at least five times.
Just Fontaine of France has the next best record at 2.17 per game.
Fontaine and Kocsis also have the records for the most goals scored at a single tournament.
Fontaine scored all of his 13 World Cup goals at the 1958 tournament in Sweden.
Likewise, Kocsis scored all 11 of his at the 1954 edition in Switzerland. Gerd Muller has the record for the next most goals at a tournament - 10 which he scored at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. None of those players would win the tournament in the year that they picked up the golden boot. In fact, only five players have won both the golden boot and the World Cup in the same year Garrincha and Vava in 1962 with Brazil , Mario Kempes in 1978 with Argentina, Paolo Rossi in 1982 with Italy and Ronaldo in 2002 with Brazil.