Müller the Only Active Player to Challenge Klose's Record

FIFA World Cup

Next to his team's 7-1 thumping of tournament host Brazil and the emotional 1-0 extra-time victory over Argentina in the final, Germany's Miroslav Klose also had a personal triumph to celebrate at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. After scoring his 16th goal at a World Cup tournament in the semi-final against Brazil, Klose is now the leading goal scorer of all time on the sporting world's biggest stage. The now-retired Polish-born striker found the net twice in 2014, surpassing Ronaldo’s (the Brazilian one) previous record by one goal.

Looking at the illustrious list of top scorers in World Cup history, Klose currently has only one man to fear: his former teammate Thomas Müller, Golden Boot winner in South Africa 2010, who already has 10 World Cup goals under his belt. A likely starter for Germany in Russia and still young enough to compete in Qatar in 2022, Müller is the only real threat to Klose’s impressive record.

Noticeably absent from the list of top scorers are Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, undisputedly the world’s best players over the past decade. While Lionel Messi found the net five times in three World Cups, Cristiano Ronaldo scored just three goals in as many tournaments.

Find all our World Cup related charts here.

Infographic: Müller the Only Active Player to Challenge Klose's Record | Statista

Description

This chart shows the most-successful World Cup goal scorers of all time.

Report

Download Chart

URL to be used as reference link:

https://www.statista.com/chart/2443/best-world-cup-goal-scorers/

HTML code to embed chart

<a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/2443/best-world-cup-goal-scorers/" title="Infographic: Müller the Only Active Player to Challenge Klose's Record | Statista"><img src="https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/2443.jpeg" alt="Infographic: Müller the Only Active Player to Challenge Klose's Record | Statista" width="100%" height="auto" style="width: 100%; height: auto !important; max-width:960px;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"/></a> You will find more infographics at <a href="https://www.statista.com/chartoftheday/">Statista</a>

Related Infographics

Football

FIFA

Sport

FIFA Women's World Cup

Soccer

FAQ

The Statista "Chart of the Day", made available under the Creative Commons License CC BY-ND 3.0, may be used and displayed without charge by all commercial and non-commercial websites. Use is, however, only permitted with proper attribution to Statista. When publishing one of these graphics, please include a backlink to the respective infographic URL. More Information
The Statista "Chart of the Day" currently focuses on two sectors: "Media and Technology", updated daily and featuring the latest statistics from the media, internet, telecommunications and consumer electronics industries; and "Economy and Society", which current data from the United States and around the world relating to economic and political issues as well as sports and entertainment.
For individual content and infographics in your Corporate Design, please visit our agency website www.statista.design

Any more questions?

Get in touch with us quickly and easily.
We are happy to help!

Do you still have questions?

Feel free to contact us anytime using our contact form or visit our FAQ page.

Statista Content & Design

Need infographics, animated videos, presentations, data research or social media charts?

More Information

Müller the Only Active Player to Challenge Klose's Record

FIFA World Cup