Most Goals In A Single World Cup
The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is almost upon us. To get you in the mood for this summer’s tournament, in the week leading up to kickoff, we’ll be taking a look back at the stories behind some of the most significant world records set on the beautiful game’s biggest stage.
Home; Music; Shows; News; Shop; 0 Cart 0 items Total $ 0.00; most goals in a single world cup. But one country which has stayed strong is Brazil, who have been a peak team in World Cup history and qualified for every single World Cup since its inception in 1930. That means that Brazil holds the record of the most consecutive number of World Cup participation by qualifying for 21 straight World Cup tournaments. The legendary Dixie Dean scored 383 goals for Everton between 1925 and 1937. Not far behind is that eternal sniffer Ian Rush, who scored 346 times – most of them against Everton – in two spells at.
Today: France's Just Fontaine and his magical 1958 tournament.
Looking back at the 1958 World Cup is like stepping through the closet that takes you to Narnia. None of it makes sense.
They held playoffs to find out who escaped the group stages?
The countries were seeded in pots based on geography?
The man who scored the most goals ever in a single World Cup tournament didn’t even make the team of the tournament as selected by journalists?!
Amazingly, that’s the case of Just Fontaine, the French striker to whom we dedicate today’s piece of our World Cup preview.
We’ve already told you yesterday about Ronaldo, the Brazilian phenom who owns the record for most goals scored in a World Cup career with 15.
But the story of Fontaine’s singular 1958 performance is perhaps even more legendary.
Fontaine scored 13 goals in Sweden that year, across the six matches that France played. It remains the high-water mark for the most goals scored in a single World Cup tournament. Amazingly, it was the only World Cup in which Fontaine would ever play. And, despite more than a half century having passed, his tally of 13 in one tournament still has him sitting third all-time on the career goals list.
That's Fontaine pictured up top, in 1978, posing with his Golden Boot.
To put it in perspective, Ronaldo needed 19 matches across three World Cups to earn his 15. Miroslav Klose and Gerd Mueller – the German duo tied for second with 14 each – required 19 and 13 matches, respectively, to hit their marks. Again, Fontaine needed only six. That’s a ballistic 2.17 goals per game average, the second-highest of any player to have ever scored 10 or more goals in a World Cup career (Hungary’s Sandor Kocsis hit 2.2/game with 11 goals in five matches in 1954).
Fontaine netted a hat trick in France’s opening match, then proceeded to score in every game for Les Bleus thereafter. And he didn’t simply load up in one or two matches. He scored multiple times in four of the six contests, including a four-goal virtuosity against defending champs West Germany in the third-place game.
Sadly, Fontaine’s career was cut short at just 28 years old due to chronic injury. But he showed across a mere three weeks in the Swedish summer of ’58 the kind of historic touch he held in those boots.
And yet, to revisit the point, Fontaine still couldn’t even crack the media’s all-tournament team. This was despite earning more votes than any other forward. The reason? The votes for Fontaine were split between the “inside forward” and “outside forward” position, meaning he didn’t have enough at one position to make the squad.
Like I said – none of it made sense.
Related articles:
World Cup Rewind: Ronaldo sets all-time goals world record
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The following is a list of goalscorers in the FIFA World Cup finals. Only goals scored during regulation or extra time are included. Any goals scored during the penalty shoot-out are excluded. As of the 2018 final, sixty-two individuals have scored the total of seventy-seven goals in the all of finals history. Ten players have scored multiple goals in the finals, while half of these players have done so in a single game. Geoff Hurst is the only men's player to score a hat trick in a final. Five players have done so via a penalty kick. Mario Mandžukić was the first player to score an own goal in a final, as well as the first to follow it up with a goal at the opponent's net. He scored the opening and closing goal of the final in 2018. Only two scorers, Pelé and Kylian Mbappé, scored a finals goal as teenagers.[1]
ESPN featured a documentary on the 34 finals goalscorers who were alive before the 2010 final.[2]
Finals goalscorers[edit]
| Year | Player | Team | Score | Minute | Result | Report | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 | Pablo Dorado | Uruguay | 1–0 | 12' | 4–2 | Report | |
| Carlos Peucelle | Argentina | 1–1 | 20' | ||||
| Guillermo Stábile | Argentina | 2–1 | 37' | ||||
| Pedro Cea | Uruguay | 2–2 | 57' | ||||
| Santos Iriarte | Uruguay | 3–2 | 68' | ||||
| Héctor Castro | Uruguay | 4–2 | 89' | ||||
| 1934 | Antonín Puč | Czechoslovakia | 1–0 | 71' | 2–1 | Report | |
| Raimundo Orsi | Italy | 1–1 | 81' | ||||
| Angelo Schiavio | Italy | 2–1 | 95' | ||||
| 1938 | Gino Colaussi | Italy | 1–0 | 6' | 4–2 | Report | |
| Pál Titkos | Hungary | 1–1 | 8' | ||||
| Silvio Piola | Italy | 2–1 | 16' | ||||
| Gino Colaussi (2) | Italy | 3–1 | 35' | ||||
| György Sárosi | Hungary | 2–3 | 70' | ||||
| Silvio Piola (2) | Italy | 4–2 | 82' | ||||
| 1950[n 1] | Friaça | Brazil | 1–0 | 47' | 2–1 | Report | |
| Juan Alberto Schiaffino | Uruguay | 1–1 | 66' | ||||
| Alcides Ghiggia | Uruguay | 2–1 | 79' | ||||
| 1954 | Ferenc Puskás | Hungary | 1–0 | 6' | 3–2 | Report | |
| Zoltán Czibor | Hungary | 2–0 | 8' | ||||
| Max Morlock | West Germany | 1–2 | 10' | ||||
| Helmut Rahn | West Germany | 2–2 | 18' | ||||
| Helmut Rahn (2) | West Germany | 3–2 | 84' | ||||
| 1958 | Nils Liedholm | Sweden | 1–0 | 4' | 5–2 | Report | |
| Vavá | Brazil | 1–1 | 9' | ||||
| Vavá (2) | Brazil | 2–1 | 32' | ||||
| Pelé | Brazil | 3–1 | 55' | ||||
| Zagallo | Brazil | 4–1 | 68' | ||||
| Agne Simonsson | Sweden | 2–4 | 80' | ||||
| Pelé (2) | Brazil | 5–2 | 90' | ||||
| 1962 | Josef Masopust | Czechoslovakia | 1–0 | 15' | 3–1 | Report | |
| Amarildo Tavares da Silveira | Brazil | 1–1 | 17' | ||||
| Zito | Brazil | 2–1 | 69' | ||||
| Vavá (3) | Brazil | 3–1 | 78' | ||||
| 1966 | Helmut Haller | West Germany | 1–0 | 12' | 4–2 | Report | |
| Geoff Hurst | England | 1–1 | 18' | ||||
| Martin Peters | England | 2–1 | 78' | ||||
| Wolfgang Weber | West Germany | 2–2 | 89' | ||||
| Geoff Hurst (2) | England | 3–2 | 101' | ||||
| Geoff Hurst (3) | England | 4–2 | 120' | ||||
| 1970 | Pelé (3) | Brazil | 1–0 | 18' | 4-1 | Report | |
| Roberto Boninsegna | Italy | 1–1 | 37' | ||||
| Gérson | Brazil | 2–1 | 66' | ||||
| Jairzinho | Brazil | 3–1 | 71' | ||||
| Carlos Alberto | Brazil | 4–1 | 86' | ||||
| 1974 | Johan Neeskens | Netherlands | 1–0 | 2' (p) | 2–1 | Report | |
| Paul Breitner | West Germany | 1–1 | 25' (p) | ||||
| Gerd Müller | West Germany | 2–1 | 43' | ||||
| 1978 | Mario Kempes | Argentina | 1–0 | 38' | 3–1 | Report | |
| Dirk Nanninga | Netherlands | 1–1 | 82' | ||||
| Mario Kempes (2) | Argentina | 2–1 | 105' | ||||
| Daniel Bertoni | Argentina | 3–1 | 115' | ||||
| 1982 | Paolo Rossi | Italy | 1–0 | 57' | 3–1 | Report | |
| Marco Tardelli | Italy | 2–0 | 69' | ||||
| Alessandro Altobelli | Italy | 3–0 | 81' | ||||
| Paul Breitner (2) | West Germany | 3–1 | 83' | ||||
| 1986 | José Luis Brown | Argentina | 1–0 | 23' | 3–2 | Report | |
| Jorge Valdano | Argentina | 2–0 | 56' | ||||
| Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | West Germany | 1–2 | 74' | ||||
| Rudi Völler | West Germany | 2–2 | 81' | ||||
| Jorge Burruchaga | Argentina | 3–2 | 84' | ||||
| 1990 | Andreas Brehme | West Germany | 1–0 | 85' (p) | 1–0 | Report | |
| 1994 | No goals scored. Game decided in penalty shoot-out. | Report | |||||
| 1998 | Zinedine Zidane | France | 1–0 | 27' | 3–0 | Report | |
| Zinedine Zidane (2) | France | 2–0 | 45+1' | ||||
| Emmanuel Petit | France | 3–0 | 90+3' | ||||
| 2002 | Ronaldo | Brazil | 1–0 | 67' | 2–0 | Report | |
| Ronaldo (2) | Brazil | 2–0 | 79' | ||||
| 2006 | Zinedine Zidane (3) | France | 1–0 | 7' (p) | 1–1 | Report | |
| Marco Materazzi | Italy | 1–1 | 19' | ||||
| Game decided in penalty shoot-out. | |||||||
| 2010 | Andrés Iniesta | Spain | 1–0 | 116' | 1–0 | Report | |
| 2014 | Mario Götze | Germany | 1–0 | 113' | 1–0 | Report | |
| 2018 | Mario Mandžukić | France | 1–0 | 18' (o.g.) | 4–2 | Report | |
| Ivan Perišić | Croatia | 1–1 | 28' | ||||
| Antoine Griezmann | France | 2–1 | 38' (p) | ||||
| Paul Pogba | France | 3–1 | 59' | ||||
| Kylian Mbappé | France | 4–1 | 65' | ||||
| Mario Mandžukić | Croatia | 2–4 | 69' | ||||
Players with most goals in the Finals[edit]
| Player | Team | Goals scored | Finals played | Final(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geoff Hurst | England | 3 | 1 | 1966 |
| Vavá | Brazil | 3 | 2 | 1958, 1962 |
| Pelé | Brazil | 3 | 2 | 1958, 1970 |
| Zinedine Zidane | France | 3 | 2 | 1998, 2006 |
| Gino Colaussi | Italy | 2 | 1 | 1938 |
| Silvio Piola | Italy | 2 | 1 | 1938 |
| Helmut Rahn | West Germany | 2 | 1 | 1954 |
| Mario Kempes | Argentina | 2 | 1 | 1978 |
| Paul Breitner | West Germany | 2 | 2 | 1974, 1982 |
| Ronaldo | Brazil | 2 | 2 | 1998, 2002 |
Footnotes[edit]
- ^Not the final but the decisive match of the final group stage.
References[edit]
- ^Quartz Staff (2018-07-15). 'Kylian Mbappé became only the second teenager to score in a World Cup final'. Quartz. Quartz. Retrieved 2018-07-17.
- ^'I Scored a Goal in the FIFA World Cup Final'. IMDB. Retrieved 2014-08-01.