The\u00a0stars have been out\u00a0at the\u00a02026 World Cup. It’s already been a week of the group stage, and there are a host of multi-goal scorers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It isn’t too early to start tracking the race for the Golden Boot, the award is given to the tournament’s top goal scorer. Assists are used as a tiebreaker if two or more players finish with the same goal total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kylian Mbapp\u00e9\u00a0earned the prestigious honor during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He mounted eight goals while leading\u00a0France\u00a0to the doorstep of another title. Mbapp\u00e9 opened the scoring gates in France’s first match of this year’s World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of Wednesday night, he’s one of eight players with at least two goals in the tournament so far. And he’s not the only former Golden Boot winner in the mix. So is\u00a0England’s\u00a0Harry Kane, who claimed the honor with six goals during the 2018 World Cup in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World Cup 2026:\u00a0Daily schedule\u00a0|\u00a0Group schedule, results\u00a0|\u00a0Standings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Argentina’s Lionel Messi is out in front, thanks to his head-turning hat trick, the first in his illustrious World Cup career. As a result of his prolific outing versus\u00a0Algeria, Messi is now tied with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the\u00a0most goals in World Cup history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kane bagged a record-tying brace against\u00a0Croatia\u00a0on Wednesday. In rematch of the teams’ 2018 World Cup semifinal, he scored on a penalty kick and a set-piece header\u00a0to tie Gary Lineker as the Three Lions’ all-time leading goal scorer at the World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday \u2014 the same day Messi sparkled and\u00a0Mbapp\u00e9 scored a pair of goals in a win over Senegal\u00a0\u2014 Norway’s Erling Haaland found the back of the net twice in his long-awaited World Cup debut,\u00a0piloting his country to a convincing victory against Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you missed any of those performances,\u00a0you can relive the nine combined goals scored by Messi, Kane, Mbapp\u00e9 and Haaland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, last Friday, the\u00a0USMNT\u2019s Folarin Balogun became a household name in the U.S. He accounted for half of the Americans’ scoring\u00a0in a 4-1 statement-making win over Paraguay. The other three players with two goals in this year’s World Cup are Germany’s Kai Havertz, Sweden’s Yasin Ayari and New Zealand’s Eli Just.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The\u00a0stars have been out\u00a0at the\u00a02026 World Cup. It’s already been a week of the group stage, and there are a host of multi-goal scorers. It isn’t too early to start tracking the race for the Golden Boot, the award is given to the tournament’s top goal scorer. Assists are used as a tiebreaker if two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417695,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417694\/revisions\/417695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2026 World Cup Golden Boot race<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
RANK<\/td> NAME<\/td> COUNTRY<\/td> GOALS<\/td><\/tr> 1<\/td> Lionel Messi<\/td> Argentina<\/td> 3<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Folarin Balogun<\/td> USA<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Kai Havertz<\/td> Germany<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Yasin Ayari<\/td> Sweden<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Eli Just<\/td> New Zealand<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Harry Kane<\/td> England<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Erling Haaland<\/td> Norway<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr> T-2<\/td> Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/td> France<\/td> 2<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n