Yahoo News Top scorers at the World Cup – overall and by year
Being in a World Cup is already a great achievement, but for some players the tournament offers the possibility of making their mark on history.
In 2014, Miroslav Klose reached, during the 7-1 win against Brazil, the position of top scorer in World Cup history.
His 16 goals beat the 15 of Ronaldo, the former record holder.
Below those two is West Germany’s Gerd Müller, with 14; Just Fontaine, from France, with 13; the Brazilian Pele, with 12; Sandor Kocsis (Hungary) and Jürgen Klinsmann (Germany), with 11; Helmut Rahn (West Germany), Gary Lineker (England), Gabriel Batistuta (Argentina), Teofilo Cubillas (Peru), Thomas Müller (Germany) and Grzegorz Lato (Poland), all with 10.
Establishing a top 5, but ranking by average goals, things change. Just Fontaine is in first, with an average of 2.17 goals/game (13 out of 6); next is Gerd Müller, with 1.08 goals/game (14 out of 13); then you have Pele, with 0.86 goals/game (12 out of 14); followed by Ronaldo, with 0.79 goals/game (15 out of 19); and finally Klose, with 0.67 goals/game (16 out of 28).
Top scorers by year
– 1930 - Uruguay World Cup: Guillermo Stabile, Argentina, 8 goals
– 1934 - Italy World Cup: Oldrich Nejedlý, Czechoslovakia, 5 goals
– 1938 - France World Cup: Leonidas da Silva, Brazil, 7 goals
– 1950 - Brazil World Cup: Ademir de Menezes, Brazil, 9 goals
– 1954 - Swiss World Cup: Sandor Kocsis, Hungary, 11 goals
– 1958 - Sweden World Cup: Just Fontaine, France, 13 goals
– 1962 - Chile World Cup: Garrincha/Vava (Brazil), Leonel Sanchez (Chile), Florian Albert (Hungary), Drazan Jerkovic (Croatia), Valentin Ivanov (Soviet Union), 4 goals
– 1966 - England World Cup: Eusebio, Portugal, 9 goals
– 1970 - Mexico World Cup: Gerd Müller, Germany, 10 goals
– 1974 - Germany World Cup: Grzegorz Lato, Poland, 7 goals
– 1978 - Argentina World Cup: Mario Kempes, Argentina, 6 goals
– 1982 - Spain World Cup: Paolo Rossi, Italy, 6 goals
– 1986 - Mexico World Cup: Gary Lineker, England, 6 goals
– 1990 - Italy World Cup: Salvatore Schillaci, Italy, 6 goals
– 1994 - United States World Cup: Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria), Oleg Salenko (Russia), 6 goals
– 1998 - France World Cup: Davor Suker, Croatia, 6 goals
– 2002 - South Korea/Japan World Cup: Ronaldo, Brazil, 8 goals
– 2006 - Germany World Cup: Miroslav Klose, Germany, 5 goals
– 2010 - South Africa World Cup: Thomas Müller (Germany), David Villa (Spain), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Diego Forlan (Uruguay), 5 goals
– 2014 - Brazil World Cup: James Rodriguez, Colombia, 6 goals
– 2018 - Russia World Cup: Harry Kane, England, 6 goals
