The Golden Boot is the prize aimed at goalscorers above all else. The opportunity to carve your name into hallowed football history.
Some true greats are included in the list of winners of the tournament, such as Eusebio, Gerd Muller and the Brazilian Ronaldo, including Just Fontaine, Salvatore Schillaci and Oleg Salenko.
We have singled out those who have been awarded this honor and became Golden Boot winners in football’s biggest tournament to see how their capacities might help us predict who will win the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
From Stabile to Kane
“Until 2010, there was no official title for a person being the leading goalscorer in a World Cup tournament. That changed at the World Cup in Spain in 1982, when it was described as the golden shoe. It wasn’t until 2010 that they gave it a more fitting football-themed rebrand.”
From Argentine Guillermo Stabile in Uruguay in 1930 to England’s Harry Kane four years ago in Russia, 27 players have won the Golden Boot award across 21 tournaments.
No one has yet to match the achievement of France’s Just Fontaine at the FIFA world cup, and it is improbable if ever they will.
Fontaine scored thirteen times in Sweden in 1958. This came from just six games and included a hat-trick in an opening 7-3 win over Paraguay and four in the 6-3 third-place playoff victory over West Germany. Yes, despite his efforts that summer, France did not even make the last.
The cumulative goals scored had to qualify for the Golden Boot award was 4 in 1962, which was the number of goals scored by six different players in the combined first two tournaments for World Cup titles where the Golden Boot was awarded to more than one scorer.
In 2010, four players – Thomas Muller (Germany), David Villa (Spain), Wesley Sneijder (the Netherlands) and Diego Forlan (Uruguay) – all combined for five goals, but the boot went to Thomas Muller due to the three assists he registered.
This rule took placed after the 1994 World Cup, sup posing that tied soccer players should be separated by who scored the fewest number of penalty goals, the one with the two most assists, as well as the one, if necessary, who played the fewest minutes.
No Golden Oldies
Winning the Golden Boot is just a young man’s game. Over 30 when the tournament they top-scored was last competed in, only one player over age 30 has ever received it, the individual being Dvořák Suker, who was five month past his 30th birthday when he picked up six goals in France ’98.
Hungary’s Florian Albert, one of six Golden Boot winners in 1962, is the youngest participant; he was 20 years old at the time, eight months, and 15 days of the competition in Chile.
Germany’s Thomas Muller was 14 years old at the time of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, during which time he netted five times. He will also make it to Qatar to participate in this second FIFA World Cup.
The average age of WC Golden boot winner is 24.8. England’s harry Kane was 24 years, 11 months and 17 days old at the start of 2018 event in Russia.
Brazil Lead the Way
The most impactful FIFA World Cup side of the tournament, with five trophy wins, is Brazil. During that time, Brazil had five winners of the Ballon d’Or career honors, including Leoš Сwaplanova (1938), Freddy Ademir (1950), Benedito Garrincha (1962), Ruud van Nistelrooy (2002), and Ronaldo.
Germany have three wins, while Argentina, England, Hungary, Italy and Russia (all two) are the only other nations with more than one winner.
Brazil has also been the country where the most Golden Boot winners have found their club football homes, with four. The last of those awards was presented in 1962.
The shifting of income and power in football, and the height and ability of footballers to repeatedly seek new challenges, is the first aspect of the Golden Boot indicated in the 15 winners who played in their birth town, yet six of the twelve Golden Boot winners from 1978 onwards had ventured abroad.
Four home World Cup champions was identified. With full respect offered to Qatar and their top forwards Akram Afif and Almoez Ali, it is improbable we’ll see a home champion this time around.
Experience and Form
Experience is a valuable asset for winning the Golden Boot.
De Stabile’s first player, Alessandro Schillaci, declined to play for his team. However, Thomas Muller played on the international level only after he had decided to represent Germany.
The most caps a winner has had going into a successful World Cup is Ronaldo, with 57 in 2002.
Schillaci, Muller, and Salenko had never scored for their country before that when they achieved a score greater than average for their respective competitions. On the average, however, the Golden Boot winners have netted 11 times for their country. Hungary’s Sandor Kocsis (1954) and Ronaldo (2002) had the most with 37.
When Golden Boot winners of 1966 and subsequent decades played the soccer club, they were likely to be at their first-rate physically. Of the three players who had scored fewer than two times in their as of today, Paolo Rossi in 1982 was banned for two years and Ronaldo in 2002 was impacted by injury.
The most goals scored by a team during a World Cup is the 38 scored by Bayern Munich and West Germany in the 1969-70 Bundesliga campaign.
Only two Golden Boot winners have played in leagues outside the top four during the previous season.
In the tournament itself…
It supports intuition that more international competitions yield more chances for players to score a goal. Only one Golden Boot was awarded for the first team to exit the group stage, namely Salenko with Russia in 1994. He is an anomaly in that of 5 of his 6 goals in USA came in one game.
Pick a winner…
With this data, we can propose possible predictions for the World Cup Golden Boot in Qatar. As such, we have narrowed down the predicted winner to those from teams ranked in the top eight contenders.
They need to be under 30 years of age, preferably around 24-25, and will likely have to support a club in the top division of their European nation. They should have a minimum of 22 international caps and 11 titles.
Here are the players who come closest to fitting the bill in rough order of most suitable:
