Goals scored by players in the World Cup third place playoffs will count towards the player’s goal tally and the competition for the Golden Boot.
This means the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham could still win the Golden Boot at the 2026 tournament in the US, Canada and Mexico, despite France and England reaching the semi-finals.
Ahead of the final two matches of the tournament, the quartet are among seven players who have scored five or more goals so far.
England and France meet in the third-place play-off on Saturday. A day later, Spain will face Argentina in the final.
Mbappe is joint leader in goals with Messi, both with eight. However, Messi leads the race as he has one more assist than Mbappe in the tournament.
Norway’s Erling Haaland is next on the list with seven goals, but he won’t be able to add to that this weekend after his side were eliminated in the quarter-finals.
English duo Bellingham and Kane have six goals each, while French striker Dembele and Spain striker Mikel Oyarzabal have five goals each.
The race for the Golden Boot may well be decided by how strong England and France are in the third-place play-off on Saturday.
When England faced Belgium in the same match in 2018, then Three Lions coach Gareth Southgate made five changes to the match from the team that lost to Croatia in the semi-final. Tournament Golden Boot winner Kane started the match but did not score.
Only seven previous World Cup Golden Boot winners have scored goals in the third-place play-off. Four of those seven needed the goals they scored in that match to win the award.
Germany’s Thomas Müller (2010), Croatia’s Davor Suker (1998), Italy’s Salvatore Schillaci (1990) and Brazil’s Leonidas (1938) all benefited from the match, with goals in these games ultimately leading to their Golden Boot awards.
Poland’s Grzegorz Lato (1974), Portuguese great Eusebio (1966) and France’s Juste Fontaine (1958) also received the award and scored in the third-place play-off that year. However, they would still have won the award regardless of the goals in that match.