#1 Oleg Salenko, Russia – 1994 World Cup
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Every football fanatic on the planet knows who Oleg Salenko is. He was the joint top scorer at the 1994 World Cup in the USA alongside Bulgarian legend Hristo Stoichkov with six goals. However, there is a fact that many might not know. The six goals that Salenko scored at the 1994 World Cup are his only international goals for Russia.
Salenko made his first appearance of the competition as a second-half substitute in Russia’s 2-0 defeat to Brazil. He started in their next match against Sweden and scored the Golden Eagle’s first goal in World Cup history from the spot after just four minutes. However, Russia lost the match 3-1 and were subsequently eliminated from the tournament.
In Russia’s final group game against Cameroon, the striker created a World Cup record by scoring five goals in a 6-1 drubbing, thus breaking Eusebio’s record of four goals in the 1966 World Cup for the most number of goals scored in a single World Cup match.
Russia were eliminated but the former Dynamo Kiev player was awarded the Golden Boot alongside Stoichkov. This made Salenko the only player to be awarded the Golden boot at both the U-20 World Cup (1989) and the FIFA World Cup. The match against Cameroon also turned out to be his last for Russia.
Surprisingly, before playing for Russia, he also played one match for Ukraine in 1993.
