World Cup all-time records and statistics: Most goals, most wins, most games, most titles

Record for titles: Brazil hold the record with five World Cup titles, won in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002.

Record for participations: Brazil will make their 23rd appearance at the 2026 tournament, having featured in every edition of the competition.

Record for consecutive titles: Italy (1934–1938) and Brazil (1958–1962) each won two titles in succession.

Most finals played: Germany have appeared in eight World Cup finals - 1954, 1966, 1974, 1982, 1986, 1990, 2002 and 2014.

Largest victory margin: Hungary beat South Korea 9-0 in 1954, Yugoslavia beat Zaire 9-0 in 1974, and Hungary beat El Salvador 10-1 in 1982.

Most goals in a single match: Austria 7-5 Switzerland, in the quarter-final of the 1954 edition - 12 goals in total.

Most goals scored by one team in a single edition: Hungary, who scored 27 goals in 1954.

Most matches played in the World Cup: Brazil, with 114 matches played.

Most matches won in the World Cup: Brazil, with 76 victories.

Most matches lost in the World Cup: Mexico, with 28 defeats.

Unbeaten run: Brazil went 13 matches without defeat between 1958 and 1966.

Record for consecutive wins: Brazil won 11 consecutive matches between 2002 and 2006.

Record for consecutive defeats: Mexico suffered nine consecutive defeats between 1930 and 1958.

Record for consecutive matches without a win: Bulgaria, with 17 matches.

Most frequently contested fixture: Brazil vs Sweden and Argentina vs Germany, each played seven times.

Number of World Cups hosted: Mexico have now hosted the tournament three times, including their role as a co-host in 2026.

Record attendance: 173,850 spectators at the Maracana for the Uruguay vs Brazil match in 1950.

All-time top scorer: Miroslav Klose (Germany), with 16 goals.

Top scorer in a single edition: Just Fontaine (France), who scored 13 goals in 1958.

Top scorer in a single match: Oleg Salenko (Russia), who scored five goals against Cameroon in 1994.

Record for World Cup titles won: Pele, three-time world champion in 1958, 1962 and 1970.

Record for World Cup appearances (prior to 2026): Antonio Carbajal (Mexico), Lothar Matthaus (Germany), Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Rafael Marquez (Mexico), Andres Guardado (Mexico), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Guillermo Ochoa (Mexico) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) have each appeared in five World Cups.

Player with the most matches played in the World Cup: Lionel Messi (Argentina), with 26 appearances.

Record for finals played: Cafu (Brazil), who appeared in three consecutive finals: 1994, 1998 and 2002.

Youngest player in World Cup history: Norman Whiteside (Northern Ireland), aged 17 years and 41 days when he played at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

Oldest player in World Cup history: Essam El-Hadary (Egypt), aged 45 years and 161 days in 2018.

Youngest goalscorer in a World Cup match: Pele, aged 17 years and 239 days in 1958.

Oldest goalscorer in a World Cup match: Roger Milla (Cameroon), aged 42 years, one month and eight days in 1994.

Fastest goal: Hakan Sukur (Turkey), who scored after 10.8 seconds against South Korea in the third-place play-off in 2002. Turkey won 3-2.

Top scorer across all World Cup finals: Kylian Mbappe (France), with four goals across two finals - one against Croatia in 2018 and three against Argentina in 2022.

Top scorer in a single World Cup final: Geoff Hurst (England, 1966) and Kylian Mbappe (France, 2022), with three goals each.

Consecutive matches scoring: Just Fontaine (France) and Jairzinho (Brazil) each scored in six consecutive matches.

Fastest hat-trick in World Cup history: Laszlo Kiss (Hungary), who scored three goals in eight minutes against El Salvador in 1982.

Best assist provider in World Cup history: Pele, with 10 assists.

Longest unbeaten run for a goalkeeper: Walter Zenga (Italy), who went 517 minutes without conceding during the 1990 World Cup.

Most clean sheets in the World Cup: Peter Shilton (England) and Fabien Barthez (France), with 10 clean sheets each.

Record for most cards received: Javier Mascherano (Argentina), with seven yellow cards across four World Cups.

Record for red cards: Rigobert Song (Cameroon) and Zinedine Zidane (France), with two red cards each.

Crowned as both player and manager: Mario Zagallo (Brazil), Franz Beckenbauer (Germany) and Didier Deschamps (France) each won the World Cup as a player and subsequently as a head coach.

Most decorated coach: Vittorio Pozzo (Italy), the only manager to win the World Cup twice - in 1934 and 1938.

Record for appearances as a coach: Carlos Alberto Parreira, who led six different nations at the World Cup: Kuwait (1982), the United Arab Emirates (1990), Brazil (1994), Saudi Arabia (1998), Brazil again (2006) and South Africa (2010).

Record for matches managed: Helmut Schon (West Germany), who managed 25 World Cup matches.

Best unbeaten run as a coach: Luiz Felipe Scolari, who went 12 matches unbeaten - with Brazil in 2002 and Portugal in 2006.

Youngest coach at the World Cup: Juan Jose Tramutola (Argentina), aged 27 in 1930.

Oldest coach in World Cup history: Otto Rehhagel, a German national who managed Greece at the 2010 World Cup, was 71 at the time.

Youngest coach to win the title: Alberto Suppici (Uruguay), aged 31 in 1930.

Oldest coach to win the title: Vicente del Bosque (Spain), aged 59 in 2010.

Referee with the most World Cup matches officiated: Ravshan Irmatov (Uzbekistan), who refereed 11 matches across the 2010, 2014 and 2018 World Cups.