World Cup Watch: Golden Boot hopefuls

In anticipation of the World Cup, The Independent will be running down the key people and factors to keep an eye out for in South Africa with our World Cup Watch series.

Click here or click the image to launch our guide.

From free-kick takers to WAGs, blasts from the past to the youngsters, we'll have it all covered before things kick-off in Johannesburg.

Here, we bring you the Golden Boot hopefuls to watch at the 2010 World Cup. These are the leading candidates to score the most goals in South Africa.

The players here have been drawn from the teams expected to go far in the tournament (and who will consequently have more games and opportunities to score). So the likes of Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon and Theofanis Gekas of Greece miss out.

The Golden Boot winner is by no means certain to come from this group of players (Grzegorz Lato of Poland won it in 1974!) But if you're taking a punt, this gang of hit men would be a decent place to start.