Scoring in a World Cup final is rare enough. Scoring in two different ones, years or even decades apart, is a feat only five men have ever managed. Between them they cover four different tournaments spanning more than sixty years, and the list has added only one new name since the 1980s.
With Spain and Argentina both among the favourites this summer, anyone checking the latest Spain vs Argentina odds will know how rare it would be for a player from either side to join that select group. But there is every possibility.
Vavá
Vavá scored twice in the 1958 final as Brazil beat Sweden 5-2, then once more in the 1962 final as Brazil beat Czechoslovakia 3-1, for a combined tally of three goals in two winning finals. He started both matches, which is more than his strike partner from 1958 could manage. Pelé picked up a groin injury in that 1962 tournament's group stage and missed the rest of it, including the final, with Amarildo stepping in. Vavá carried the forward line either way and finished as a two-time champion who scored in every final he played.
Pelé
Pelé scored twice in the 1958 final against Sweden at seventeen years old, a record that still stands for the youngest player to score in a World Cup final. Injury ruled him out of the 1962 final entirely.
He returned for 1970, heading Brazil's opening goal in a 4-1 win over Italy that made him the first player to win the World Cup three times. Two finals, three goals, and a scoring record that has stood for over fifty years.
Paul Breitner
Breitner is the only man on this list whose two finals went different ways. In 1974, he levelled an early penalty from Johan Neeskens with a spot kick of his own, before Gerd Muller won the match for West Germany 2-1 against the Netherlands.
Eight years later, in the 1982 final in Madrid, he scored West Germany's consolation goal in the 83rd minute of a match Italy had already put out of reach, finishing the game a 3-1 loss. No other player on this list has scored in a winning final and a losing one.
Zinedine Zidane
Zidane remains the only player to score two headed goals in a single World Cup final, both from corners, in France's 3-0 win over Brazil in 1998, still one of the most one-sided finals the competition has produced.
He scored again in 2006, an early penalty chipped down the middle past Gianluigi Buffon, before Materazzi levelled for Italy. That final also ended his career in dramatic fashion: sent off in extra time for a headbutt on Materazzi, before France lost the shootout. It remains the only appearance on this list where the same player was sent off in the same match he scored in.
Kylian Mbappé
Mbappé scored in the 2018 final at 19 years old as France beat Croatia 4-2, then scored a hat-trick against Argentina in 2022, a match that finished 3-3 before Argentina won the shootout. That hat-trick made him the first player to score three goals in a World Cup final since Geoff Hurst in 1966.
France's run this summer ended at the semi-final stage, so Mbappé won't get the chance to add to that tally this time. Plenty of fans still bet on sports markets built around his future tournament chances, and at just 27, he has plenty more World Cups left to try and extend the record.
