Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe are set to lock horns in the final of the FIFA World Cup 2022 on Sunday, December 18 at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar. As Argentina square off against France, apart from the glory of winning the coveted World Cup trophy, the race for World Cup's golden boot will also be at stake.
Both Messi and Mbappe have scored five goals each and they will be eyeing to win the golden boot by scoring in the final and thus help their respective side to win the summit clash and take home the World Cup trophy.
The last time Messi played in a World Cup final, he was not able to score against Germany, while Mbappe did score in the 4-1 win over Croatia when the Les Bleus won the World Cup in 2018.
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Apart from Messi and Mbappe, Julian Alvarez and Olivier Giroud could also win the golden boot, the pair of strikers are on four goals each, and they will need to score at least two goals each to overtake the pair of Messi and Mbappe to win the golden boot.
The top prize which is given to the highest goal-scorer of the tournament has been awarded since the first-ever World Cup in 1930 and has been awarded at every edition since.
Here's the complete list of golden boot winners since the inaugural World Cup in 1930, to the most recent edition in 2018:
1930 - Guillermo Stabile (Argentina) - 8 goals
1934 - Oldrich Nejedly (Czechoslovakia) - 5 goals
1938 - Leonidas (Brazil) - 7 goals
1950 - Ademir (Brazil) - 9 goals
1954 - Sandor Kocsis (Hungary) - 11 goals
1958 - Just Fontaine (France) - 13 goals
1962 - Florian Albert (Hungary), Valentin Ivanov (Soviet Union), Garrincha (Brazil), Vava (Brazil), Drazan Jerkovic (Yugoslavia), Leonel Sanchez (Chile) - 4 goals
1966 - Eusebio (Portugal) 9 goals
1970 - Gerd Muller (West Germany) - 10 goals
1974 - Grzegorz Lato (Poland) - 7 goals
1978 - Mario Kempes (Argentina) - 6 goals
1982 - Paolo Rossi (Italy) - 6 goals
1986 - Gary Lineker (England) - 6 goals
1990 - Salvatore Schillaci (Italy) - 6 goals
1994 - Oleg Salenko (Russia), Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria) - 6 goals
1998 - Davor Suker (Croatia) - 6 goals
2002 - Ronaldo (Brazil) - 8 goals
2006 - Miroslav Klose (Germany) - 5 goals
2010 - Thomas Muller (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), David Villa (Spain), Diego Forlan (Uruguay) - 5 goals
2014 - James Rodriguez (Colombia) - 6 goals
2018 - Harry Kane (England) - 6 goals
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It remains to be seen who can take over the golden boot from Harry Kane, will it be Lionel Messi, who is playing his final game in an Argentina shirt, or will it be Kylian Mbappe, the 23-year-old playing in his second World Cup final already, only time will tell.
With agency inputs
