11 thoughts on the race for the World Cup Golden Boot
Will it be Harry Kane or Romelu Lukaku? Or do we have a dark horse candidate?
With four teams left in the 2018 World Cup, each with two games to play, it’s time to take a look at the competition within the competition: the Golden Boot for top goalscorer. One player will join the immortal brotherhood that includes such historic names as Just Fontaine, Miroslav Klose, and everybody’s favorite itinerant crisp salesman, Gary Lineker.
Harry Kane leads the way with six, two ahead of Romelu Lukaku. But who will win? Let’s speculate wildly!
1. Even if Kane doesn’t score again, he’s pretty well set with six. With the exception of 2002, when Original Ronaldo scored eight, you have to go back to 1974 and the seven scored by Poland’s Grzegorz Lato, to find the last time six wasn’t enough.
2. And what a six they’ve been. Three penalties, two headers from a combined distance of approximately a yard, and an accidental heel-flick from the edge of the box. An absolute clinic in basic footballing principles: a goal is a goal is a goal, however fancy or otherwise it is. If it is coming home, it’s coming from the penalty spot. Or maybe the back of Kane’s head.
3. Incidentally, when it comes to previous winners, Kane’s three penalties put him level with Hristo Stoichkov in 1994. If he gets another, then he’ll move level with the great Eusébio, who scored four from the spot (along with five from open play) in 1966. And if he gets a fifth, and takes the shiny shoe? Then he’ll reign supreme, as king of the Golden Boot Winners: Spot Kick subdivision. Might need a VAR asterisk.
4. So, Lukaku. Perhaps the Manchester United striker’s hopes of catching Kane depend on his manager. If he’s asked to reprise his role against Brazil, thundering around on the right wing, then he may not get as many chances as if he were on duty in the penalty area. But that might have been a Brazil-specific tactic, for Bobby Martínez loves a tinker. We’ll have to wait and see.
5. Eden Hazard takes Belgium’s penalties, incidentally. For the moment. But we reckon he’d lose an argument with Lukaku, if it came down to it.
6. Things that don’t go together as much as it seems they should: top scoring at a World Cup, and winning the World Cup. Original Ronaldo did it in 2002, Paolo Rossi and Mario Kempes went back-to-back in 1982 and 1978, and Garrincha and Vavá ended up in a six-way tie in 1962. But that’s your lot.
7. Incidentally again, the name “Golden Boot” is — surprisingly — quite a recent one. Prior to 2010 it was known as the “Golden Shoe”, which is much more pleasing. But that was only introduced in 1982; before that, players were named “Top Goalscorer”. Early FIFA had no instinct for glamour.
8. Turning to the other semi-finalists, Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé have three goals each. Griezmann takes the penalties, so if Mbappé is going to catch Kane, then it’ll have to come from open play. And that’ll be sensational to watch. Somebody tell him that the Golden Boot is the most important prize in world football, please. Then wind him up and watch him go.
9. The only Croatian to have scored more than one goal is Luka Modrić. He has scored two.
10. The wild card in all of this is the third-fourth play-off, which is still technically a World Cup match but also doesn’t really matter. At all. Teams get rotated, everybody’s knackered, and both teams are at least slightly irritated not to be in the final. Sometimes this leads to nothing very much, but other times we end up with weird goalfests that skew the science all over the place. Thomas Müller, Davor Šuker, Grzegorz Lato ... all took advantage of this weird exhibition game to grab that boot.
11. Finally, the tie breaker. If Lukaku and Kane finish level, then FIFA will separate them first by number of assists made, and then by minutes played, with the boot going to the fewest. Kane has no assists but Lukaku picked one up against Brazil, after nudging the ball to Kevin de Bruyne for Belgium’s second. That might not have been football’s greatest act of imagination, but it makes up for the assist he didn’t get against Japan. That dummy run was the finest assist of the whole competition so far.