Just how big is that Golden Boot?!

What have Gerd Muller, Gary Linekar, Ronaldo and Eusebio got in common? well, other than being World Cup icons and synonymous with the art of goalscoring, they are all proud recipients of the Golden Boot, the FIFA award for the World Cup's top scorer.

With the amount of awards dished out at the end of the World Cup (seemingly growing with every tournament, currently with 6!!! such as awards for Goalkeepers, young players, most entertaining team (why?)) and the prestige of these awards being diminished (the first World Cup All Star team featured 11 players, one for each position, the 2006 World Cup all star team had 23 players! featuring 9 midfielders!!!) so the Golden Boot remains the purest form of recognition for the world's most potent striker and the one any attacking player wishes to win. But it is just an award, does it really matter? 'As long as the team wins' is the typical response given by any striker but seeing Didier Drogba's reaction to being denied a penalty at the end of the season to claim the Premier League Golden Boot award shows just how important these accolades are to players.

So who will win the coveted prize this time around? well, previous Golden boot winners have fallen into one of 4 categories:-

The Genuinely Great Golden Boot Gods

players that won the boot and were expected to before the tournament;-

Sandor Kocsis of Hungary who scored 11 goals in 1954

Just Fontaine of France with 13 goals (a record not likely to be broken) in 1958

Euesebio with 9 goals in 1966

Germany's Gerd Muller with 10 in 1970

Gary Linekar with 6 for England in 1986

Hristo Stoichkov got 6 for Bulgaria in 1994

Ronaldo with 8 for Brazil in 2002

Those Fulfilling Their Potential

Players that won the boot expectedly but not a favourite;-

Grzegorz Lato of Poland with 7 goals in 1974

Mario Kempes with 6 for Argentina on home soil in 1978 (Kempes had failed to register in the 1974 World Cup or even in the 1978 group stages!)

Paolo Rossi with 6 for Italy in 1986 (Rossi had to serve a 2 year suspension for being involved in a betting scandal in the lead up to the World Cup finals and again, he didn't score in the group stages!)

Davor Suker with 6 for 3rd placed Croatia in 1998

Miroslav Klose with 5 for Germany in 2006 (Klose also scored 5 in 2002, all with his head!)

The Unknown

Players that no-one had heard of before the finals, came, set the world alight, then did nothing again after;-

Salvatore Schillachi scored 6 goals for Italy at Italia 90 (Schillachi only made his debut in the group stages and played 16 times in total for Italy, scoring only one more goal following the World Cup)

The Lucky One But Who No-one Knows

Oleg Salenko, scored 6 goals for Russia in the 1994 World Cup, finishing joint top scorer with Hristo Stoichkov (Salenko scored 5 goals against Cameroon and an additional penalty against Sweden. Salenko didn't score in any other game other than these two in the entire international career)

Based on the above, it would seem that more often than not, the cream tends to rise to the top. The Golden boot winner comes from the usual list of favourites nearly every time, the likes of Spain's Fernando Torres and David Villa, Fabiano of Brazil, Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, current holder of the award, Klose of Germany, Argentina's Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney of England. Of that list, Ronaldo and Messi have been in blistering form for their club sides this season, though they both can struggle to replicate on the international stage. Torres and Rooney are heading back to full fitness from injuries and Klose has even been struggling to make the first team for his club side, Bayern Munich. This leaves Fabiano and Villa, both with high scoring records this season. Other mentions are Argentina's Carlos Tevez, Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, in fact the list can go on.

As for a downright lucky winner, well, let's hope this accolade can go to an Englishman at least who's barrage of goals propels us into the final, Peter Crouch anyone.........?!