Suker, who had been level at the top of the scorer's list with five goals along with Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina and Christian Vieri of Italy, moved clear with the winning goal in Croatia's 2-1 victory last night over The Netherlands.

For Suker's total to be overtaken, either a Brazilian or French player would have to score at least a hat-trick in today's final, a feat only achieved once before, by England's Geoff Hurst in 1966.

Ronaldo has four goals, while his team mates Bebeto, Cesar Sampaio and Rivaldo all have three as does Thierry Henry of France. So unless there is an individual scoring spree, the top scorer in the World Cup will finish with six goals for the sixth successive tournament.

The last player to score seven in a World Cup was Grzegorz Lato of Poland in 1974. Since then Mario Kempes of Argentina (1978), Paolo Rossi of Italy(1982), Gary Lineker of England (1986), Salvatore Schillaci of Italy (1990) and joint-1994 top scorers Oleg Salenko (Russia) and Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria) have all topped the scoring chart with six.

Croatian coach Miroslav Blazevic said he did not think Suker could be caught. "I don't see how Ronaldo can score three goals in the final tomorrow . I think Davor will win it," he said.