FIFA
- Check out the leading assisters at Qatar 2022
- See who created the most goals at previous FIFA World Cups
Qatar 2022 top assisters
Bruno Fernandes (3) *
Antoine Griezmann (3)
Harry Kane (3) *
Lionel Messi (3)
Jordi Alba (2) *
Diogo Dalot (2) *
Ousmane Dembele (2)
Denzel Dumfries (2) *
Joao Felix (2) *
Phil Foden (2) *
Raphael Guerreiro (2) *
Theo Hernandez (2)
Davy Klaassen (2) *
Kylian Mbappe (2)
Mislav Orsic (2)
Ivan Perisic (2)
Christian Pulisic (2) *
Dusan Tadic (2) *
Vinicius Junior (2) *
Andrija Zivkovic (2) *
* Denotes a player whose team have been eliminated.
Three-plus assists in one World Cup (1966-2018)
1966: Siegfried Held, Uwe Seeler (4), Antonio Simoes, Jose Torres (3)
1970: Pele (5), Tostao (4), Hristo Bonev, Reinhard Libuda, Gerd Muller, Rivellino (3)
1974: Robert Gadocha (5), Johan Cruyff, Dragan Dzajic, Uli Hoeness (3)
1978: Rob Rensenbrink, Rene van de Kerkhof (3)
1982: Pierre Littbarski (5), Zico (4)
1986: Diego Maradona (5), Igor Belanov (4), Dominique Rocheteau (4), Stephane Demol (3)
1990: Andreas Brehme, Jozef Chovanec, Lubo Moravcik (3)
1994: Thomas Hassler (5), Tomas Brolin (4), Gheorghe Hagi (4), Sergi (3)
1998: Dennis Bergkamp, Youri Djorkaeff, Tahar El-Khalej, Brian Laudrup, Ronaldo, Juan Sebastian Veron (3)
2002: Michael Ballack (4), David Beckham, Francisco De Pedro, Hasan Sas, Ronaldinho, Bernd Schneider, Christian Ziege (3)
2006: Francesco Totti (4), Luis Figo, Andrea Pirlo, Juan Roman Riquelme, Bastian Schweinsteiger (3)
2010: Kaka, Dirk Kuyt, Thomas Muller, Mesut Ozil, Bastian Schweinsteiger (3)
2014: Juan Cuadrado, Toni Kroos (4), Karim Benzema, Andre Schurrle (3)
2018: No player got more than two assists.
Did you know?
- Hristo Bonev, despite carrying an injury throughout Mexico 1970, managed an assist every 68 minutes of action on average. The Bulgarian and Moroccan Tahar El-Khalej are the only players listed above who didn’t appear in the knockout phase of the tournament.
- Reinhard Libuda was nicknamed ‘Stan’, after the hugely inventive English winger Stanley Matthews.
- Andreas Brehme, Sergi and Christian Ziege – all left-backs – are the only defenders to have registered more than two assists in a World Cup. The West German incredibly recorded six combined goals and assists at Italia ’90 – a figure bettered only by Toto Schillaci (7).
- Carles Puyol, of all people, produced a 360 turn en route to setting up Fernando Torres’s goal against Ukraine at Germany 2006.
- Lionel Messi set up a goal just 13 minutes into his World Cup debut in 2006. ‘The Atomic Flea’ is now the only player to register an assist in five World Cups. The next-most is three, managed by Grzegorz Lato, Diego Maradona and David Beckham.
- Thomas Muller won the adidas Golden Boot at South Africa on the assists’ tiebreaker. Four players finished tied at the top on five goals, but Muller laid on more goals (3) than Diego Forlan, Wesley Sneijder and David Villa (1 apiece).
- The Brazilians nicknamed Toni Kroos ‘Garçom’ (Waiter) due to his creativity in the early stages of the 2014 tournament. The Germany midfielder went on to set up one and score two in a historic 7-1 win over Brazil in the semi-finals.