Most Goals in a Single World Cup Match

Oleg Salenko of Russia holds the record for the most goals by a single player in one World Cup match, scoring five in a 6-1 rout of Cameroon on June 28, 1994. No player before or since has scored more than four in a single game, which is what makes his afternoon in Palo Alto so unique.

Scoring even a hat-trick at a World Cup is rare, because the tournament comes around only once every four years and defenses tighten as the stakes rise. Reaching four or five goals in one match is the sort of feat that happens perhaps once a generation. Here is the full list of the biggest individual goal hauls in World Cup history, the players behind them, and the story of the one man who reached five. All figures are through the 2022 World Cup.

The record holder: Oleg Salenko and 5 goals

Salenko’s five-goal display came in Russia’s final group game at the 1994 World Cup. Already eliminated, Russia poured forward and their striker took full advantage, converting a mix of headers, close-range finishes and a penalty. It remains the only five-goal individual performance in the competition’s history.

The wider story is even stranger. Salenko finished the tournament as joint top scorer with six goals, sharing the Golden Boot with Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov, yet five of those six came in that single match. He never scored for Russia in a competitive game again, giving his record an almost mythical, out-of-nowhere quality.

The full list of biggest World Cup match hauls

The table below lists the players who have scored four or more goals in a single World Cup match, the benchmark for the greatest individual performances.

Rank	Goals	Player	Match	Year
1	5	Oleg Salenko	Russia 6-1 Cameroon	1994
2	4	Ernst Willimowski	Poland 5-6 Brazil	1938
2	4	Gustav Wetterstrom	Sweden 8-0 Cuba	1938
2	4	Ademir	Brazil 7-1 Sweden	1950
2	4	Sandor Kocsis	Hungary 8-3 West Germany	1954
2	4	Just Fontaine	France 6-3 West Germany	1958
2	4	Eusebio	Portugal 5-3 North Korea	1966
2	4	Emilio Butragueno	Spain 5-1 Denmark	1986

Salenko sits alone at the top, with a distinguished group of four-goal scorers behind him stretching back to the 1938 tournament. The list reads like a tour through World Cup history, from pre-war forwards to the modern era.

The four-goal club

The eight players tied on four goals produced some of the tournament’s most famous single-game displays. Just Fontaine scored four against West Germany in the 1958 third-place match on his way to 13 goals in that tournament, still the single-edition record and a story told in our leaderboard of the most World Cup goals. Eusebio’s four against North Korea in 1966 dragged Portugal back from 3-0 down in one of the great comebacks. Emilio Butragueno’s four against Denmark in 1986 is the most recent addition to the list, meaning no player has scored four in a single World Cup match for nearly four decades.

Why the record has lasted

The scarcity of World Cup matches is only part of the reason Salenko’s five has survived so long. Modern defenses are more organized, blowout scorelines are rarer in the knockout era, and coaches often substitute forwards once a game is won, capping individual tallies. That combination makes multi-goal games increasingly uncommon; even quick-fire scoring feats now tend to show up at club level, as in our list of the fastest hat-trick in Premier League history. For the fastest World Cup strikes specifically, see our guide to the fastest goal in World Cup history.

Why the record matters

A single-match goal record captures something a career total cannot: one afternoon of complete dominance on the sport’s biggest stage. Salenko’s five is remembered precisely because it came from a player who otherwise left little mark on the international game, proving that the World Cup can turn anyone into a record-holder for a day. That same match also produced Roger Milla’s goal at 42, the oldest in World Cup history, making it one of the most storied 90 minutes the tournament has seen.

The short version: Oleg Salenko holds the record for the most goals in a single World Cup match with five, scored against Cameroon in 1994. A group of four-goal scorers led by Fontaine, Kocsis and Eusebio sits behind him, and no one has topped four since 1986.