With the World Cup now well and truly underway, we look at which players are leading the early race for the Golden Boot award.
The Golden Boot is given to the player who scores most goals in the tournament, with previous winners including Portugal’s Eusebio (1966), Italy’s Paolo Rossi (1982), England’s Gary Lineker (1986), Brazil’s Ronaldo (2002) and Colombia’s James Rodriguez (2014).
In the event of a tie – such as in 1962 and 1994 – the winner is decided by assists, then minutes per goal.
Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo currently heads the scoring charts at Russia 2018. He hit a stunning hat-trick in his side’s 3-3 opening draw with Spain and then added another just four minutes into a 1-0 win over Morocco.
Russia’s Denis Cheryshev has also netted three times and was joined on that mark by Diego Costa, who proved the matchwinner against Iran.
Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku, Russia’s Artem Dzyuba, Croatia’s Luka Modric and England’s Harry Kane have also staked an early claim and have two goals to their name so far.
Here is how the race for the 2018 World Cup Golden Boot is shaping up at present…
Golden Boot race: World Cup top scorers
| Name (country) | Goals | Assists |
| Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) | 4 | 0 |
| Denis Cheryshev (Russia) | 3 | 0 |
| Diego Costa (Spain) | 3 | 0 |
| Artem Dzyuba (Russia) | 2 | 1 |
| Mile Jedinak (Australia) | 2 | 0 |
| Harry Kane (England) | 2 | 0 |
| Romelu Lukaku (Belgium) | 2 | 0 |
| Luka Modric (Croatia) | 2 | 0 |
| Aleksandr Golovin (Russia) | 1 | 2 |
| Christian Eriksen (Denmark) | 1 | 1 |
| Hirving Lozano (Mexicio) | 1 | 0 |
| Antoine Griezmann (France) | 1 | 0 |
| Dries Mertens (Belgium) | 1 | 0 |
| Alfred Finnbogason (Iceland) | 1 | 0 |
| Sergio Aguero (Argentina) | 1 | 0 |
| Philippe Coutinho (Brazil) | 1 | 0 |
| Nacho (Spain) | 1 | 0 |
| Yuri Gazinskiy (Russia) | 1 | 0 |
| Jose Gimenez (Uruguay) | 1 | 0 |
| Andreas Granqvist (Sweden) | 1 | 0 |
| Aleksandar Kolarov (Serbia) | 1 | 0 |
| Yussuf Poulsen (Denmark) | 1 | 0 |
| Ferjani Sassi (Tunisia) | 1 | 0 |
| Steven Zuber (Switzerland) | 1 | 0 |
| Juan Quintero (Colombia) | 1 | 0 |
| Shinji Kagawa (Japan) | 1 | 0 |
| M’Baye Niang (Senegal) | 1 | 0 |
| Yuya Osako (Japan) | 1 | 0 |
| Grzegorz Krychowiak (Poland) | 1 | 0 |
| Mohamed Salah (Egypt) | 1 | 0 |
| Luis Suarez (Uruguay) | 1 | 0 |
| Kylian Mbappe (France) | 1 | 0 |
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