Messi and Mbappé tie on 8 goals. Recent Golden Boot winners often missed the final.
The World Cup Golden Boot race for top scorer enters its final week with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé tied on 8 goals. Mbappé leads only on assists.
What happened
Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi lead the adidas Golden Boot race on eight goals each, with Mbappé first on the assists tiebreaker; FIFA separates tied scorers by assists and then by fewer minutes played.
Erling Haaland stopped on seven goals when Norway lost 2-1 to England in the quarter-final on . Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham have six each. Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal moved to five with his penalty against France.
Mbappé has one match left, Messi has up to two. Mbappé did not score when Spain beat France 2-0 in the semi-final in Dallas. He now plays the bronze final, the match for third place, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on .
His opponent is the team that loses tonight in Atlanta. Messi, Kane and Bellingham play that semi-final tonight, then either the final at MetLife or the bronze final.
In a race this close, the tie rules matter. One Messi goal tonight would put him in front on his own. Kane or Bellingham would need three more goals, or two and a better tiebreak, in their remaining games.
Sources: FIFA (2), Sky Sports
The Pattern
Only two of the last six winners played in the final. We looked at the World Cups from 2002 to 2022 and asked where the Golden Boot winner was on the last day. The others won the prize while their team was already out or playing for third place.
Show the other 4 cases
The Read
The case for Messi is simple maths. He has eight goals like Mbappé, but up to two matches left against Mbappé’s one. A single goal tonight puts him clear, against an England defence that has let in goals in both knockout rounds. Mbappé must score in the bronze final, three days after Spain kept him from scoring.
The case for Mbappé is that leads like his usually last. Three of the last six winners scored nothing after the quarter-finals and still won the prize. Mbappé also wins the tie on assists, so Messi must score more than him, not just the same. The 2022 final is the warning the other way: Mbappé took the prize from Messi with a hat-trick on the last day, so this race is not over until the final whistle at MetLife.
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