SportsDud

The race for the European Golden Boot has heated up. Before the start of this week Bayern Munich’s forward Robert Lewandowski led the race for the European Golden Boot with 34 goals. Chasing him was Lazio’s Ciro Immobile equal in goals and Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo with 31 goals in the bag this season. Bayern Munich have sealed the Bundesliga Title in mid July and Juventus also securing their ninth league title in a row last match day. It was all down for the race of the European Golden Boot.

Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga ended their campaign for this season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic Ligue 1 was scrapped and Paris-Saint-Germain were crowned as Ligue 1 champions. The only league remained amongst the Europe’s top five league was the Serie A.

The European Golden Boot’s current holder Lionel Messi who is also the winner of most European Golden Boot awards(6). However, he only managed to score 25 goals in 33 matches this season in La Liga for F.C.Barcelona.

A shock defeat for the Serie A champions against Cagliari away from home in match-day 37. Not only were Juventus defeated but they also failed to score a goal against Cagliari. On the other hand, Lazio beat Brescia 2-0. Joaquin Correa scoring the first goal and Ciro Immobile scoring the second. With his goal in the 82nd minute of the game Ciro Immobile is now leading the European Golden Boot Race with 35 goals.

European Golden Boot Points System

The European Golden Boot award started in the season 1967-68. Eusebio Silva was the first ever player to win this award. He scored 42 goals for Benfica in the seson 1967-68. Later, in the season 1996-97 points system was introduced. Teams playing in the Europe’s top five league. i.e, Premier League(England), La Liga(Spain), Bundesliga(Germany), Serie A(Italy) and Ligue 1(France). Players are awarded 2 points for every goal they score. However, for the rest of the European Leagues the coefficient is 1.5 for every goal.

Reason behind this proposed system is that the players who play in the top five leagues in Europe should be rewarded with more points as it is difficult to score in a league of higher standard.

SR	Player	Goals	Coefficient	Points
1	Ciro Immobile	35	2	70
2	Robert Lewandowski	34	2	68
3	Cristiano Ronaldo	31	2	62
4	Timo Werner	28	2	56
5	Erling Haaland	28	1.5/2.0	50
–	Lionel Messi	25	2	50

Now that all other leagues are wrapped up except Serie A. It will go down in the final match day of the league to determine this year’s Golden Boot winner. It will be very exciting to watch if Ronaldo is able to catch Immobile in the race.

Do you think Ronaldo will miraculously catch up with Immoble. Or Ciro Immobile will be this year’s European Golden Boot winner.

Something I find interesting is that in four out of Europe’s top five leagues except Bundesliga, a player can play maximum of 38 games to that of 34 games in Bundesliga(Only 18 teams participate). Which gives players from other leagues four extra matches to play. Do you think, if Robert Lewandowski had those four extra games, the rankings for the Golden Boot race this season would have been different?