Could Messi – With Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé tied on six goals, the Golden Boot race has tightened into an exclusive sprint. Now the numbers are pulling attention toward a bigger prize: Just Fontaine’s 13-goal single-tournament record from 1958—and whether modern forma
The Golden Boot race has stopped feeling like a routine leaderboard and started looking like a fight for history.
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé are leading the World Cup with six goals apiece. Erling Haaland and Harry Kane sit one behind with five. Vinicius Junior and Mbappé’s France team-mate Ousmane Dembélé are still in touch on four.
The pace is brutal, and it has already lifted both Messi and Mbappé into territory few thought they’d ever see again. They have now overtaken Miroslav Klose’s previous World Cup record of 16 goals, with Messi on 19 and Mbappé on 18.
But there’s a second record—one that has always sounded more untouchable than the tally lines—that is starting to draw real attention. France striker Just Fontaine’s 13 goals at the 1958 tournament remains the most by any player at a single World Cup.
For decades, it looked like that record would stay frozen in amber. Fontaine came from a freer. more open era of World Cup football. before disciplined defensive blocks. detailed opposition analysis. and improved physical conditioning narrowed the space modern forwards have to operate in. The last player to reach double figures at a World Cup was Germany’s Gerd Müller. who scored 10 at Mexico 1970.
Then the tournament format expanded to 48 teams, and with it came extra opportunity. There is now an extra knockout round. and the larger field has widened the gap between the strongest and weakest sides. Goals are coming at a new clip—2.94 per game. the highest rate since Mexico 1970—and the average margin of victory is 2.18. the largest since 1974.
Fontaine’s supporters point to what made his total so astonishing in the first place: he scored 13 goals in just six games. Messi’s side of the argument is different. Messi. who plays his round-of-32 tie against Cape Verde on Friday. is matching Fontaine goal for goal—meaning the chase isn’t just theoretical. His tournament has followed the same game-by-game scoring pattern, with Haaland, Kane, and Mbappé only just off the pace.
Still. Fontaine isn’t only in the spotlight for one reason: he holds the record for most goals in a single tournament at 13. but he doesn’t hold the record for most goals per game at a single tournament. That distinction belongs to Hungary striker Sandor Kocsis, who scored 11 in five matches in 1954.
If the current levels hold, Mbappé, Haaland, and Messi would all enter the top 15 single-tournament scoring rates in World Cup history, higher than any since 1970.
Yet the argument around Fontaine’s 13-goal record never stays simple. There is debate over whether Fontaine’s record should even count in full. His final four goals of the tournament were scored in a third-place play-off against West Germany. Third-place play-offs are often treated as essentially meaningless games—losing semi-finalists come down for bronze and then move on fast. while the match is rarely remembered in the same way as a final. Some argue that records from these matches should be expunged from the record books. including the quickest goal in World Cup history. scored by Turkey’s Hakan Şükür after 11 seconds against South Korea in the 2002 third-place play-off.
Even so, it is unlikely FIFA will discredit what it has framed as one of its “104 Super Bowls.” For anyone chasing the record now, the path is straightforward: keep scoring, and keep playing as many matches as possible.
That’s where the tournament’s shape suddenly matters. The sheer depth of high-quality forwards has made this Golden Boot race feel unusually crowded—four players on five or more goals after four rounds of games has not happened since 1938. The 1938 tournament isn’t strictly comparable because tied games were resolved through replays, not the structure used now. Still. the present-day effect is clear: there are more dominoes to fall before the award is reduced to a simple coronation.
Messi’s position looks especially strong. With a tournament-leading scoring rate of two goals per game. and Argentina’s round-of-32 tie still to come. he is in pole position to eclipse Fontaine. Using The Athletic’s tournament forecasting probabilities—and remembering that semi-finalists are guaranteed to play one more match. either the final or the third-place play-off—Messi is expected to play 3.8 more games.
Assuming he maintains his current goalscoring rate across those expected games, he is projected to finish on 13.7 goals. Mbappé’s forecast is roughly 11 goals, while the other contenders are projected lower because they are considered less likely to reach the latter stages.
Forecasts and probabilities remain educated guesses, though. The World Cup has a way of rejecting neat math. Mbappé did score a hat-trick in the 2022 final, after all.
So the question isn’t just whether modern football can produce another record-breaking scorer. It’s whether the numbers are finally lining up for a player to match Fontaine’s legendary total.
Maybe it can happen.
Maybe Messi can do it.
World Cup Golden Boot Lionel Messi Kylian Mbappé Just Fontaine Fontaine 13 goals 1958 Erling Haaland Harry Kane Vinicius Junior Ousmane Dembélé Miroslav Klose Gerd Muller Sandor Kocsis Hakan Şükür