Rarely has a World Cup Golden Boot race felt this stacked with quality.Usually, the battle to finish as the tournament’s top scorer is a mix of a couple of elite talents and a few surprise packages catching fire at the perfect time. In this tournament, though, the leaderboard has become an exclusive club, reserved for top-end, household-name forwards only.Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Kylian Mbappe lead the way on six goals apiece, with Norway’s Erling Haaland and England’s Harry Kane one behind, while Brazil’s Vinicius Junior and Mbappe’s team-mate Ousmane Dembele are still in touch on four.It is a blistering pace, one that has lifted Messi and Mbappe to unprecedented heights. Both have now overtaken Miroslav Klose’s previous World Cup record of 16 goals, with Messi on 19 and Mbappe on 18. Yet there is another, arguably more impressive record now in their crosshairs: France striker Just Fontaine’s 13 goals at the 1958 tournament, still the most by any player at a single World Cup.It seemed a record destined to remain out of reach. Fontaine belonged to a looser, more free-scoring era of World Cup football, before disciplined defensive blocks, detailed opposition analysis and improved physical conditioning reduced the space available to modern forwards. The last player to even reach double figures at a World Cup was Germany’s Gerd Muller, who scored 10 at Mexico 1970.But the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams has opened the door for the current crop. There is now an extra knockout round, while the larger field has inevitably widened the gap between the strongest and weakest sides. Goals are flowing at 2.94 per game, the highest rate since Mexico 1970, and the average margin of victory stands at 2.18, the largest since 1974.