Read 3 minutes16 Jul 2026 04:12 AM IST
With his two brilliant assists against England, Lionel Messi currently leads the Golden Boot race with 8 goals and 4 assists. He overtook Kylian Mbappe on Wednesday night after becoming a provider for Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez. Argentina beat England 2-1 in the semi-final. Both Messi and Mbappe have scored 8 goals each, with the French star scoring two thanks to the Argentine’s 4 assists.
Both Messi and Mbappe have one match remaining, with France facing England in the third-place clash on Saturday, while Argentina face Spain in the final on Sunday. England’s Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham are 4th and 5th with 6 goals respectively while France’s Ousmane Dembele and Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal are 6th and 7th with 5 goals. All these players still have a game to play while Norway’s Erling Haaland who is 3rd with 7 goals, has no chance of increasing his tally as his team exited in the quarter-finals.
Messi, 39, has played every minute of all four of Argentina’s knockout games at the tournament and has made an art of conserving his energy for key moments. He scored in difficult 3–2 victories over Cape Verde and Egypt, and assisted in a 3–1 extra time victory over Switzerland in the quarter-finals. His influence grew in Wednesday’s match and he really came into his own as the match got under way and in the 55th minute Argentina besieged England’s penalty area when they went 1-0 down.
Moving from the center of attack to the right wing, he hit a string of dangerous crosses into the penalty area to create chances for his teammates. It was his pass that found the midfielder Enzo Fernandez on the edge of the box to equalize in the 85th minute and he tried to keep the ball in play before lofting in a cross for Martinez’s winner seven minutes later. Wednesday’s assist took his World Cup tally to 12, a record tied with his 21 goals in soccer’s global showpiece.
Top goal scorers in FIFA World Cup 2026
| rank | player | the country | Round | helps |
| 1 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 8 | 4 |
| 2 | Kylian Mbappe | France | 8 | 3 |
| 3 | Erling Halland | Norway | 7 | 0 |
| 4 | Jude Bellingham | England | 6 | 1 |
| 5 | Harry Kane | England | 6 | 1 |
| 6 | Ousmane Dembele | France | 5 | 2 |
| 7 | Michael Oyarzabal | Spain | 5 | 1 |
| 8 | Sir Ismail | Senegal | 4 | 1 |
| 9 | Julian Quinones | Mexico | 4 | 1 |
| 10 | Vinicius Jr | Brazil | 4 | 1 |