Lionel Messi is the new top scorer at the World Cups.
With 18 goals scored in six World Cups playing for Argentina, the Inter Miami star surpassed Miroslav Klose, who retired in 2016. The German scored 16.
The title of top scorer in FIFA World Cups was won this Monday (22), after the Argentines’ 2-0 victory over Austria.
There were two goals scored by number 10: at 38 minutes of the first half and in stoppage time of the second.
The World Cup artillery record had last been broken in 2014, during the tournament in Brazil.
Kylian Mbappe (16 goals)
The Frenchman is still hot on Messi’s heels in the competition for top scorer in the World Cup. In this Monday’s game (22), Kylian Mbappé scored two goals against the Iraqi national team and has already scored four goals in this edition.
He is two away from equaling the Argentine striker.
At the end of the first round of the group stage, the Frenchman had 14 goals in World Cups and was one behind Ronaldo Nazário, nicknamed Fenômeno, number 9 of the Brazilian team in the fifth championship campaign in 2002.
Against the Iraqis, Mbappé found the net twice, once in the first half and once in the second, after the match had to be interrupted due to heavy rain in Philadelphia (USA).
The score ended 3-0 for the French.
Miroslav Klose (16 goals)
The semifinal between Brazil and Germany was marked by a 7-1 victory that eliminated the Brazilian team, at Mineirão. The Germans’ second goal was scored by veteran Klose, who reached 16 goals and surpassed Ronaldo Fenômeno.
At the 2014 World Cup, the German striker had only scored once before, in Germany’s 2-2 draw with Ghana, still in the group stage.
Before that, he left his mark in the World Cups in Japan/Korea (5), Germany (5) and South Africa (4), in 2002, 2006 and 2010, respectively.
Klose hung up his boots two years after his fourth championship and works as a coach, in charge of Nuremberg, a German second division club.
Ronaldo Fenômeno (15 goals)
The number 9 of the Brazilian team in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 campaigns took the title of top scorer in the World Cups after scoring against Ghana, in the round of 16, in Germany.
The goals representing Brazil in FIFA World Cups were scored in France (4), Japan/Korea (8) and Germany (3), in 1998, 2002 and 2006.
Called up for the 1994 World Cup — wearing the national team’s number 20 shirt —, Ronaldo did not take the field in his fourth title campaign.
Until the game against Ghana, the Brazilian was tied on 14 goals with Gerd Müller, from whom he took the title on German soil — just as Klose would do eight years later, in front of the Brazilian fans.
It was 32 years before a player broke Müller’s mark.
Gerd Müller (14 gols)
The German “bombardier” reached the position of top scorer at the FIFA World Cups in 1974. That year’s edition was hosted in what was then West Germany and won by the home team.
The Germans beat Johan Cruyff’s Netherlands 2-1, and the winning goal was scored by Müller, at the Olympic Stadium in Munich.
After a low cross, the attacker stopped the ball, turned his body and hit the Dutch net with a shot into the left corner.
Gerd Müller scored four goals in that edition and another ten in the Mexico Cup, four years earlier.
The high number of goals in the same tournament, however, did not surpass that of Just Fontaine — from whom the German took the position of top scorer in World Cups.
Just Fontaine (13 gols)
The top scorer in the first edition won by Brazil was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Brazilian. The title belonged to French striker Just Fontaine, to this day the highest scorer in a single World Cup.
Combined, the goals of Pelé and Helmut Rahn, runners-up with six goals each, do not reach Fontaine’s 13 in the tournament held in Sweden in 1958.
The Frenchman held the title of top overall scorer at World Cups for 16 years.
Pele (12 goals)
The King of Football is the scorer of 12 goals in FIFA World Cups. Pelé scored at least once in the four editions he played in: Sweden (6), Chile, (1) England (1) and Mexico (4).
The 1962 and 1966 campaigns, in Chile and England, were marked by injuries that took Pelé out in the first games.
In the year of his second championship, Pelé left the field injured in the draw against Czechoslovakia, in the group stage, and did not return to play for Brazil until they won the cup.
In England, he also suffered from violent tackles in the group stage games against Bulgaria and Portugal. The team was eliminated in the first phase, with one victory and two defeats.
