KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTING —- Eleven years have passed since a player in the English Premier League last won the ESM Golden Shoe, awarded annually since 1968 to the leading marksman in European domestic competition.

Benfica’s Portuguese superstar Eusebio was the first winner and Cristiano Ronaldo, then with Manchester United, was the last Premier League winner with 31 goals in 2008.

The only other English championship winners before him were Liverpool’s Ian Rush (32 goals in 1983-84), Kevin Phillips of Sunderland (30 in 1999-2000) and Arsenal’s Thierry Henry with 30 and 35 goals respectively in 2003-04 and then 2004-05 jointly with Villarreal’s Diego Forlan.

Eusebio . . . first winner of the European Golden Boot

This will be another ’empty’ season for the Premier League unless Sergio Aguero (18 goals) puts together a goal-grabbing run of record intensity. One goal behind him come Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.

None of them, however, appears to have any hope of catching Barcelona’s Lionel Messi who scored his 26th goal of the Spanish season in BArcena’s 3-1 win over Rayo Vallecano at the weekend.

UEFA standard

The Golden Shoe is based on a ranking computed according to UEFA’s July rankings. Thus marksmen from among the top five nations  benefit from a multiple of 2.0, the next batch 1.5 and the remainder 1.0.

Last year France replaced Portugal in the top five meaning the value of goals in Ligue 1 rose to 2.0 while the valuation for for players from Benfica, Sporting and Porto etc was downgraded to 1.5. Goals in the countries ranked on down from 23 stand at face value.

As in previous years the Golden Shoe does not consider goals in play-off competitions.

Golden Shoe standings  

(Ranking multiplication based on UEFA coefficient status) 

1. Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) 26 x 2 = 52
2. Kylian Mbappé (Paris Saint-Germain) 24 x 2 = 48
3. Fabio Quagliarella (UC Sampdoria) 20 x 2 = 40
4. Krzysztof Piatek (Genoa CFC/AC Milan) 19 x 2 = 38
— Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus) 19 x 2 = 38
6. Sergio ‘Kun’ Agüero (Manchester City) 18 x 2 = 36
7. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal) 17 x 2 = 34
— Edinson Cavani (Paris Saint-Germain) 17 x 2 = 34
— Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur) 17 x 2 = 34
— Robert Lewandowski (FC Bayern München) 17 x 2 = 34
— Nicolas Pépé (Lille OSC) 17 x 2 = 34
— Mohamed Salah (Liverpool FC) 17 x 2 = 34
— Luis Suárez (FC Barcelona) 17 x 2 = 34
— Duván Zapata (Atalanta Bergamo) 17 x 2 = 34
15. Mbaye Diagne (Kasimpasa SK/Galatasaray SK) 22 x 1,5 = 33
Robert Skov (FC København) 22 x 1,5 = 33
17. Sadio Mané (Liverpool FC) 16 x 2 = 32
Cristhian Stuani (Girona FC) 16 x 2 = 32
19. Luuk de Jong (PSV Eindhoven) 21 x 1,5 = 31,5
20. Ellenton ‘Liliu’ (Nõmme Kalju FC) 31 x 1 = 31
21. Zakaria Beglarishvili (FC Flora Tallinn) 30 x 1 = 30
Luka Jovic (SG Eintracht Frankfurt) 15 x 2 = 30
Nikolai Komlichenko (FK Mladá Boleslav) 20 x 1,5 = 30
‘Paulinho’ de Oliveira (BK Häcken) 20 x 1,5 = 30
Mbwane Ally Samatta (KRC Genk) 20 x 1,5 = 30
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) 15 x 2 = 30
Wissam Ben Yedder (Sevilla FC) 15 x 2 = 30
28. Patrick Hoban (FC Dundalk) 29 x 1 = 29
29. Paco Alcácer (Borussia Dortmund) 14 x 2 = 28
Sébastien Haller (SG Eintracht Frankfurt) 14 x 2 = 28
Arkadiusz Milik (SSC Napoli) 14 x 2 = 28
Marco Reus (Borussia Dortmund) 14 x 2 = 28
33. Roman Debelko (FC Levadia Tallinn) 27 x 1 = 27
Linus Hallenius (GIF Sundsvall) 18 x 1,5 = 27
Andreas Skov Olsen (FC Nordsjaelland) 18 x 1,5 = 27
Dusan Tadic (AFC Ajax) 18 x 1,5 = 27
37. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) 13 x 2 = 26
Eden Hazard (Chelsea FC) 13 x 2 = 26
Ciro Immobile (SS Lazio Roma) 13 x 2 = 26
Jaime Mata Arnaiz (Getafe CF) 13 x 2 = 26
‘Neymar’ da Silva (Paris Saint-Germain) 13 x 2 = 26
Florian Thauvin (Olympique Marseille) 13 x 2 = 26
43. Francesco Caputo (Empoli FC) 12 x 2 = 24
‘Charles’ Dias de Oliveira (SD Eibar) 12 x 2 = 24
Radamel Falcao (AS Monaco) 12 x 2 = 24
Antoine Griezmann (Atlético de Madrid) 12 x 2 = 24
Hamdi Harbaoui (SV Zulte Waregem) 16 x 1,5 = 24
Raúl Jiménez Rodríguez (Wolverhampton Wanderers) 12 x 2 = 24
Wahbi Khazri (AS Saint-Étienne) 12 x 2 = 24
Efthymios Koulouris (Atromitos FC) 16 x 1,5 = 24
Andrej Kramarić (TSG 1899 Hoffenheim) 12 x 2 = 24
Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) 12 x 2 = 24
Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United) 12 x 2 = 24
Yussuf Poulsen (RasenBallsport Leipzig) 12 x 2 = 24
Emiliano Sala (FC Nantes/Cardiff City) 12 x 2 = 24
George Tucudean (CFR Cluj 1907) 16 x 1,5 = 24
Jamie Vardy (Leicester City) 12 x 2 = 24
Kamil Wilczek (Brøndby IF) 16 x 1,5 = 24
59. Liviu Antal (FK Zalgiris Vilnius) 23 x 1 = 23
60. Igor Angulo Albóniga (Górnik Zabrze) 15 x 1,5 = 22,5
Aluísio ‘Júnior Moraes’ (FC Shakhtar Donetsk) 15 x 1,5 = 22,5
Haris Seferovic (SL Benfica) 15 x 1,5 = 22,5

* The Golden Shoe is administered, computed and formulated by the European Sports Media group whose members comprise: A Bola (Portugal), ElfVoetbal (Netherlands), Fanatik (Turkey), Foot Magazine (Belgium), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), Gazzetta dello Sport (Italy), GoalNews/Sentragoal (Greece), Guerin Sportivo (Italy), Kicker (Germany), Marca (Spain), Nemzeti Sport (Hungary), SoFoot (France), Sport Express (Russia), Telegraaf/Telesport (Netherlands), Tipsbladet (Denmark), World Soccer (England). Affiliated members: Kick Off (South Africa), Titan Sport (China), Netease (China), SportalKorea (South-Korea).

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