With the Golden Boot race heating up at the FIFA World Cup 2026, the spotlight has once again turned to one of football's most unusual records: who has scored the most goals at a World Cup without winning the tournament's top scorer award?

The answer is Lionel Messi and Jairzinho, who jointly hold the men's record with seven goals each without claiming the Golden Boot.

Messi set the mark during Argentina's triumphant 2022 World Cup campaign in Qatar. He entered the final as the tournament's leading scorer with seven goals, but Kylian Mbappé's stunning hat-trick in the title decider took the French star to eight, denying Messi the Golden Boot. The Argentine, however, walked away with the World Cup trophy and the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player.

More than five decades earlier, Brazil legend Jairzinho suffered a similar fate. His seven goals helped Brazil lift the 1970 World Cup, but Gerd Müller claimed the Golden Boot after scoring an incredible 10 goals for West Germany.

Several other football icons have endured similar disappointment.

At the 1954 World Cup, Max Morlock, Erich Probst and Josef Hügi each scored six goals but finished well behind Hungary's Sándor Kocsis, who struck 11 times.

Four years later, Pelé and Helmut Rahn both netted six goals in Sweden, only to be overshadowed by Just Fontaine's still-unmatched record of 13 goals in a single World Cup.

Perhaps the unluckiest player of all was Dutch forward Rob Rensenbrink in 1978. His stoppage-time effort in the World Cup final struck the post. Had it gone in, the Netherlands would likely have won the title, and Rensenbrink would have finished as the tournament's top scorer ahead of Argentina's Mario Kempes.

With Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé among the leading scorers once again at the 2026 World Cup, the record could yet be rewritten if another player finishes with a remarkable goal tally but falls short in the Golden Boot race.