World Cup 2026: Lionel Messi establishes commanding lead in Golden Boot race with record-breaking goals
The stars have been out on the 2026 World Cup. We’re now halfway by way of group play, and there are a bunch of multi-goal scorers.
We’ve been monitoring the race for the Golden Bootthe award that is given to the event’s prime purpose scorer. Assists are used as a tiebreaker if two or extra gamers have the identical purpose whole.
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Lionel Messi retake the highest spot early in Argentina‘s knockout round-clinching victory towards Austria on Monday. Shortly after lacking a penalty kick, the Argentine legend drilled a left-footer into the bottom-left corner of the net to overhaul Germany‘s Miroslav Klose with his file seventeenth World Cup purpose. Then, simply earlier than the match wrapped, Messi scored again. He’s accounted for all 5 of his nation’s goals and has now surpassed Brazil‘s Marta for probably the most goals (18) any participant’s scored in the World Cup, males’s or ladies’s.
As of Monday afternoon, Messi’s one among 22 gamers with no less than two goals in the event to date.
World Cup 2026: Daily schedule | Group schedule, results | Standings
2026 World Cup Golden Boot race
Messi is now firmly forward of Germany’s Deniz Undav, who scored twice on Saturday to run his event whole to 3 goals. Undav additionally has a pair of assists beneath his belt. He’s executed all of that as a sub, by the best way.
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Both Messi and Canada’s Jonathan David have authored hat methods. Messi’s got here in Argentina’s opener towards Algeriawhereas David’s three-goal showcase arrived amid Canada’s first-ever World Cup win, to 6-0 trouncing of Qatar.
England’s Harry Kane bagged a record-tying brace towards Croatia final Wednesday. In a rematch of the groups’ 2018 World Cup semifinal, he scored on a penalty kick and a set-piece header to tie Gary Lineker as the Three Lions’ all-time leading goal scorer at the World Cup.
Last Tuesday — the identical day Messi sparkled with three goals and France’s Kylian Mbappé started defending his 2022 Golden Boot with a pair of goals in a win over Senegal — Norway’s Erling Haaland discovered the again of the online twice in his long-awaited World Cup debut, piloting his country to a convincing victory against Iraq.
You can relive the nine combined opening-match goals scored by Messi, Kane, Mbappé and Haaland for those who missed any of these performances.
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We’ll be monitoring the Golden Boot race all through the event on this web page, so bookmark it and are available again to see who’s on prime.
