Minute 75 is the most prolific minute in World Cup history — here are some of its most memorable goals

If you rank every exact minute of play by how many goals have been scored there throughout World Cup history — you can do this yourself in our goals by minute section — there's a clear winner: minute 75, with 52 goals — more than any other minute, including the 90th.

The overall pattern points to the second half: of the 10 minutes with the most goals in history, only two are from the first half (minute 18 and minute 44, tied at 42 goals each). The rest — including minute 75 itself — belong entirely to the second half.

This isn't a quirk unique to international football. The same trend shows up, with very similar numbers, in studies of other competitions: at the 2018 World Cup, 59.8% of goals were scored in the second half, and at the 2022 World Cup, 58.7%. At Euro 2016 the figure rises to 64.8%, and studies of the five major European leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) find the same pattern consistently across several seasons.

Why does this happen? The explanation that comes up most often in sports literature is physical fatigue: by the end of a match, players have covered several kilometers at near-maximum intensity, and that exhaustion affects both the physical side (less speed, less shooting accuracy) and the mental side (more concentration errors, slower decisions under pressure). On top of that, tactical substitutions — fresh legs coming on break up the rhythm of the match — and the urgency that builds as the score stays undecided add to the effect.

Some of the goals scored at minute 75 across nearly seven decades of World Cups, with the exact score they left at that moment:

And the most recent entry is exactly that one: Harry Kane's goal against DR Congo in 2026 — one more for the tally of the minute that, with 52 goals total, remains the one with the most goals in World Cup history.

By the way, if you're wondering about the latest goal of all: that honor belongs to Youri Tielemans, who scored against Senegal in 2026 at minute 120+5 — beating out even Alessandro Del Piero (120+1, Germany 2006) and Lautaro Martínez (120+1, also in 2026). We dedicated a separate story to that goal, if you're curious about the full details.