World Cup 2018: 5 things we learned from the first round of matches

#3 The battle for the Golden Boot will be fierce

Costa looks to be primed for action at the World Cup

Diego Costa, Artem Dyzuba, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku are some of the top marksmen that are already shown their quality.

Not since Miroslav Klose (Germany) at the 2006 World Cup hosted by his home team has an out-and-out striker won the Golden Boot. 2010 saw 4 players share the golden boot with 5 goals each (David Villa was the only one that could be described as a striker), while the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 saw Colombia's James Rodriguez win the award.

The top strikers in world football are all at the World Cup and will want to show that their reputations are no fluke. Of all the strikers, Spain's Costa, Lukaku (Belgium) and Kane (England) look like they will have the best chance to establish a good rate at the group stage as they will be coming up against some opponents who may be defensively generous.

The goalscoring non-strikers can never be ruled out though; Cristiano Ronaldo already has 3 goals, same as Dennis Cheryshev for Russia and surely players like Messi, Neymar and others would have to step up at a point and fill their boots.

Some top strikers like Sergio Aguero (Argentina), Timo Werner (Germany) and others playing in quality teams cannot be ruled out at this early stage as well. Whatever happens, it promises to be a fascinating tournament for the goleadors.