“Who has scored the most goals at a World Cup finals without winning the Golden Boot?” asks Sam Edwards.With Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé already on six goals and leading an elite bunch in the 2026 race, we may well see the men’s record broken this summer. As it stands, Messi shares the record – as if he needs another one – with Brazil great Jairzinho.In 2022, Messi scored seven goals and was leading the standings midway through the final – but Kylian Mbappé’s hat-trick took him to eight goals and the gilded shoe. Still, Messi got the Golden Ball for best player … and the World Cup trophy. As for Jairzinho, his seven goals in Brazil’s surge to the title was not enough to deny Gerd Müller, who scored 10 (including two hat-tricks) for third-placed West Germany.The 1954 edition had the best goals-per-game ratio (5.38) of any men’s World Cup, so it’s to be expected that three players – Germany’s Max Morlock, Austria’s Erich Probst and Swiss striker Josef Hügi – scored six each, but finished five behind the runaway winner, Hungary goal machine Sandor Kocsis. In 1958, Pelé and Helmut Rahn (six goals each) were seven behind Just Fontaine, who banged in a ridiculous 13.Unluckiest of all is Rob Rensenbrink, whose stoppage-time shot in the 1978 final took a freakish bounce and hit a post. Had he scored, Mario Kempes would not have had the chance to score an extra-time winner, so the Dutchman would have claimed the Golden Boot with six goals to Kempes’s five – and won the World Cup to boot.As for the Women’s World Cup, Heidi Mohr netted seven goals for Germany in 1991 but needed, well, a few more to catch US hot-shot Michelle Akers-Stahl’s total of 10. In 2007, Abby Wambach and Norway’s Ragnhild Gulbrandsen scored six apiece, but were pipped to the prize by Brazil legend Marta, with seven goals.Heidi Mohr netted twice against Nigeria on her way to seven World Cup goals in 1991. Photograph: Tommy Cheng/AFP/Getty ImagesFinally, on to the 2019 edition in France, where American star Alex Morgan and England striker Ellen White topped the chart with six goals (Morgan led the assist count 3-0) before the final. Morgan was fouled in the area, and Megan Rapinoe scored the penalty to claim the Golden Boot with six goals and three assists in fewer minutes. If our maths is right, if Morgan had set up Rapinoe to score directly, she would have taken top spot with her fourth assist of the tournament.Here’s the list of the highest-scoring Golden Boot dodgers at men’s and women’s World Cup finals:Men’s World CupSeven goals