Messi, David and Undav lead a wide-open World Cup Golden Boot race

A week and a half into the World Cup, the Golden Boot race looks nothing like a procession. Three players sit on three goals, more than a dozen others are stuck on two, and the strikers most people pencilled in for this fight are still waiting to take charge of it. For an award that often turns into a one-man runaway by the quarter-finals, this is a refreshingly crowded leaderboard.

Three at the top, and not the three you would have picked

Lionel Messi is up there, which surprises nobody. His hat-trick in Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria took him to three for the tournament in what everyone knows is his last World Cup at 38. The other two names on three are less obvious. Jonathan David scored a treble of his own as co-hosts Canada hammered Qatar 6-0, the kind of statement night that turns a useful forward into a tournament story. And then there is Deniz Undav, who came off the bench for Germany against Ivory Coast and scored twice to climb level with the headliners.

A substitute sharing top spot with Messi tells you how this race is going. Nobody has pulled clear because the goals are being shared around, and the players doing the early damage are not all the ones on the marketing posters.

The chasing pack just keeps filling up

The two-goal group reads like a who’s who that has not quite caught fire yet. Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland and Harry Kane are all on it, each with the talent to score three in an afternoon once their teams find rhythm. Vinicius Junior is there for Brazil alongside Matheus Cunha. Japan’s Ayase Ueda struck twice against Tunisia, Morocco’s Ismael Saibari is on two, and the United States have Folarin Balogun keeping the hosts ticking.

The Netherlands have managed something stranger still. After thrashing Sweden 5-1, they have three different players on two goals in Cody Gakpo, Brian Brobbey and Crysencio Summerville, which is great for the team and useless for any of them trying to win an individual prize off each other. When the goals spread that evenly through a squad, no single name gets the chance to run away with the boot.

The tiebreakers could end up deciding it

With this many players bunched together, the small print matters. The adidas Golden Boot goes to the leading scorer, but if players finish level on goals, assists are counted next, and if they are still tied, the player who has spent fewer minutes on the pitch is ranked ahead. That last rule quietly rewards the impact substitute and the player whose team scores in bunches.

It already has a candidate. Undav has two assists to go with his three goals, two of which came off the bench, so on the current tiebreakers he is arguably ahead of the two men level with him on goals. None of it counts for much yet, but in a race this tight it is the sort of detail that decides a trophy in three weeks’ time.

There is a long way to go, and the knockout rounds are usually where the biggest names find their range and surge. Mbappe, Haaland and Kane will not stay on two forever. For now, though, the most valuable individual award in the tournament has a Canadian, a German substitute and a 38-year-old Argentine setting the pace, and very little to separate the field behind them.

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