Who Could Land the Golden Boot at the 2022 World Cup?
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It is going to take something for special for any of the players participating in the 2022 World Cup to catch Miroslav Klose as the top goal scorer in the history of the World Cup.
The former Germany striker has 16 goals to his name having played in four World Cup tournaments.
Klose scored his goals in 24 matches and his tally of 16 leaves him one goal ahead of Ronaldo. The Brazilian striker scored 15 goals having played at three World Cups (he did not get on the pitch at the 1994 World Cup).
Going into the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the closest players still active to Klose in the all-time list are Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Both players will be present at the 2022 World Cup but they do not have age on their side. Having scored 7 goals to date, they will need to hit 10 goals at the 2022 World Cup to pass Klose’s record and that seems unlikely.
Even if Uruguay or Portugal were to make it to the final of the competition, which would mean 7 games in total, they would have to average over a goal per game to score 10.
You must go back to Mexico 1970 to find the last time a player scored 10 goals in World Cup.
Gerd Müller was the man and the German striker scored 7 goals in the group stage alone, including a hattrick against Peru and Bulgaria. Into the knockout stages and Müller scored 3 goals, with 2 coming in the semi-final defeat against Italy.
Since the 1974 World Cup, only one player has managed to score more than 6 goals at a World Cup and that was Ronaldo for Brazil at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.
The Brazilian scored 8 goals and took his team to the trophy. Since then, the highest number of goals scored by an individual player was 6 and that happened in both the 2014 and 2018 World Cup.
James Rodríguez and Harry Kane finished with the Golden Boot in 2014 and 2018 respectively, with the latter one of the favourites to finish as top scorer at the 2022 World Cup.
If we take the most recent World Cup as an example, 5 of Kane’s 6 goals came in the group stage. 50% of Rodríguez’s goals came in the group stage in 2014 and in 2006, 4 of Klose’s 5 goals were scored in the group.
So, looking at the 2022 World Cup, it may be worth noting the teams featuring good strikers who have a weak looking group.
England will fancy their chances against Iran and United States, immediately making Harry Kane an excellent choice. Belgium will fancy their chances against Morocco and Canada, so Romelu Lukaku will be looking to add to his tally of 5 World Cup goals and finish as top scorer.
Both England and Belgium are expected to progress to the knockout stages, so both players will have the opportunity to add to their group stage total.
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