Golden Boot at the 2018 FIFA World Cup

England captain, Harry Kane, won the Golden Boot at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, having scored a total of six goals. Three of the Tottenham Hotspur striker’s goals came in England's 6-1 defeat of Panama in the group stages. His final goal of the tournament came in England’s round of 16 game against Colombia where he opened the scoring from the penalty spot. England went on to win that game on penalties but were eventually knocked out by Croatia in the semi-finals.

World Cup hotshots

Harry Kane was the first England player to win the Golden Boot at the World Cup since Gary Lineker at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. In that tournament, England were knocked out in the quarter-finals by eventual champions, Argentina, captained by Diego Maradona. Somewhat surprisingly, the Argentinian legend does not feature in the top 20 leading goalscorers at the World Cup. Alone at the top of this list is Germany’s Miroslav Klose, who scored his sixteenth and record-breaking goal in Germany's semi-final matchup with Brazil at the 2014 World Cup.

France take home the trophy

There were five players all joint second on the top goalscorer list in 2018. Unsurprisingly, two of those players, Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé, were part of the title-winning French squad. Indeed, both players got on the scoresheet in the final as France beat Croatia 4-2 to take home the trophy. With so much fire power in the French team, it is no wonder that the squad had a combined transfer value of almost 1.1 billion euros. Both Mbappé and Griezmann also made the top 10 list of most valuable players at the 2018 World Cup. Top of this list was Argentina’s Lionel Messi, with a market value of approximately 180 million euros.