⚽ Golden Boot: top scorer prediction

Per-player expected tournament goals, computed as E[goals] = share × E[team goals/match] × E[games played]. Share is the player's exponentially time-decayed slice of their nation's international goals since 2022; team goals/match uses the posterior mean λ; games played uses the knockout stage probabilities from the simulation.

🥇🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England

Harry Kane

4.04

expected tournament goals

NaN% national-team share26 recent goals

🥈🇳🇴 Norway

Erling Haaland

4.01

expected tournament goals

NaN% national-team share35 recent goals

🥉🇫🇷 France

Kylian Mbappé

3.70

expected tournament goals

NaN% national-team share27 recent goals

Top 30 expected scorers

#	Player	Team	Goal share	Team xG	xGoals	Recent
4	Lionel Messi	🇦🇷Argentina	NaN%	18.7	3.66	17
5	Lautaro Martínez	🇦🇷Argentina	NaN%	18.7	3.24	12
6	Cristiano Ronaldo	🇵🇹Portugal	NaN%	14.7	3.03	26
7	Julián Alvarez	🇦🇷Argentina	NaN%	18.7	2.85	11
8	Mehdi Taremi	🇮🇷Iran	NaN%	8.1	2.80	17
9	Raphinha	🇧🇷Brazil	NaN%	18.2	2.70	7
10	Enner Valencia	🇪🇨Ecuador	NaN%	9.0	2.62	10
11	Vinícius Júnior	🇧🇷Brazil	NaN%	18.2	2.55	6
12	Luis Díaz	🇨🇴Colombia	NaN%	14.1	2.46	10
13	Mikel Merino	🇪🇸Spain	NaN%	20.2	2.39	10
14	Mikel Oyarzabal	🇪🇸Spain	NaN%	20.2	2.30	12
15	Mohamed Salah	🇪🇬Egypt	NaN%	5.4	2.30	16
16	Viktor Gyökeres	🇸🇪Sweden	NaN%	6.9	2.11	17
17	Cody Gakpo	🇳🇱Netherlands	NaN%	13.8	2.06	18
18	Memphis Depay	🇳🇱Netherlands	NaN%	13.8	1.99	15
19	Mohamed Amoura	🇩🇿Algeria	NaN%	8.0	1.95	10
20	Florian Wirtz	🇩🇪Germany	NaN%	14.9	1.81	7
21	Chris Wood	🇳🇿New Zealand	NaN%	5.9	1.80	14
22	Eldor Shomurodov	🇺🇿Uzbekistan	NaN%	5.4	1.78	5
23	Bruno Fernandes	🇵🇹Portugal	NaN%	14.7	1.77	17
24	Andrej Kramarić	🇭🇷Croatia	NaN%	10.2	1.71	16
25	Romelu Lukaku	🇧🇪Belgium	NaN%	11.7	1.68	18
26	Son Heung-min	🇰🇷South Korea	NaN%	8.4	1.67	14
27	Kevin De Bruyne	🇧🇪Belgium	NaN%	11.7	1.64	11
28	Mousa Mohammad Mousa Sulaiman Al Tamari	🇯🇴Jordan	NaN%	5.4	1.62	0
29	Breel Embolo	🇨🇭Switzerland	NaN%	10.3	1.62	10
30	Jonathan David	🇨🇦Canada	NaN%	8.4	1.57	6

Caveats

Baseline estimator only. Point estimates, no per tournament Monte Carlo. Players who retire between their last goal and the WC may still appear; emerging stars (Yamal, Wirtz) are under-weighted because their international scoring history is short. Squad filter and minutes/role adjustment will land once the official 26-man rosters are released (~2026-06-01).