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All-Time World Cup Top Scorers

With Argentina's World Cup final victory over France on Sunday, Lionel Messi, 7 times Ballon d'Or winner, added the final title that was missing from his extraordinary honors list. The 35-year-old forward also broke the record for appearances in the World Cup (26 games) and enters the top 5 of the leading scorers in the competition: with 13 goals scored in 5 tournaments since 2006.

Having scored a hat-trick in the final, Kylian Mbappé won the "Golden Boot" as a consolation prize. The French striker finished at the top with 8 goals, just ahead of Messi (7). In total, at 23 years of age, he has scored 12 goals in 2 tournaments and is thus at the same level as Pele in the pantheon of World Cup scorers.

As our infographic shows, the top scorer in the history of the World Cup remains German striker Miroslav Klose, who scored a total of 16 goals across 4 tournaments with the Mannschaft from 2002 to 2014.

Description

This chart shows the timeline of goals scored by the highest scorers at the FIFA Men's World Cup.

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