Barcelona and Real Madrid and Italy champion Juventus are on the best-paid teams in world sports, according to a survey.
Goal rounds up Europe’s leading goal-scorers from the top leagues, ordered by the number of strikes multiplied by each league’s factor.
With European football past the mid-way point of the season, Espn tallies up all the top scorers across the major leagues and takes a look at who could be crowned this season’s Golden Shoe winner.
Last season’s European Golden Shoe winner Lionel Messi will be looking to defend his crown after netting a breathtaking 34 goals last season, which earned him his fifth prize – moving him one award clear of Cristiano Ronaldo in terms of total victories.
#1 Lionel Messi | Barcelona | 33 goals (66)
Twitter explodes as Lionel Messi takes Barcelona To 3-0 Victory Over Juventus.
The Ronaldo-Messi rivalry came to an end last summer, but the Barcelonasuperstar could hold onto the honour of top-scorer in Spain this season following the Portuguese international’s departure to Juventus.
The tyro looking to do great stuff, Mbappé has the skills-set needed to become Thierry Henry 2.0
The World Cup winner with France started the Ligue 1 in typical stellar form, and made history as he scored four goals in 13 minutes against Lyon in a 5-0 victory in early October – as well as a hat-trick in a 9-0 demolition of Guingamp in January.
#3 Krzysztof Piatek | Genoa/AC Milan | 21 goals (42)
Piatek is the unlikely challenger to Ronaldo in the race to be Serie A’s top scorer following his scintillating form for Genoa, becoming the first player since Gabriel Batistuta to score in each of the first seven games of an Italian top-flight season.
He moved to AC Milan in January and got off the mark for his new side immediately.
#4 Fabio Quagliarella | Sampdoria | 21 goals (42)
The veteran Italy international is showing no sign of slowing down, with his eye for the spectacular very much alive. With his 11th consecutive strike against Udinese, he equalled the Serie A record established in 1994-95 by Gabriel Batistuta.
#5 Robert Lewandowski | Bayern Munich | 21 goals (42)
The Poland international had a frustrating end to the 2017-18 season but looks to be finding his best form heading into the early months of 2019.
#6 Luis Suarez | Barcelona | 20 goals (40)
Luis Suarez has been ruled out for 15 days following a hamstring injury during training. (Source: Reuters)
The Uruguyan striker proved to be the man to step up for Barcelona in the absence of Lionel Messi in their Clasico clash with Real Madrid, with his hat-trick against the Blancos seeing him become the first man other than his Argentine colleague to record a treble in such meetings since Romario in 1994. He won the Golden Shoe in 2014 and 2016, so is chasing his third award.
Luuk De Jong has been unstoppable in the Eredivisie, forming a potent strikeforce alongside Hirving ‘Chucky’ Lozano.
#9 Cristiano Ronaldo | Juventus | 19 goals (38)
Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates scoring for Juventus.
The former Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo took his time getting rolling in Serie A but has moved up the scoring charts. His first strike against Sampdoria in December made him the highest-scoring Portuguese player in the Italian top-flight since Rui Barros.
#10 Sergio Aguero | Manchester City | 19 goals (38)
Sergio Aguero signs new contract at Man City to keep him at the Etihad until 2020.
Manchester City’s all-time top-scorer is in fine form for the Premier League champions once again. The Argentine equalled Alan Shearer’s record for most hat-tricks scored in the Premier League (11) when he netted three times against Chelsea in February.
Leave a Reply