With the calendar year drawing to a close, here is a look at the 11 footballers, playing across Europe's top five leagues, who have scored the most goals in 2023, a list that is no longer dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo!
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No more Messi and Ronaldo
Although the Ballon d'Or has moved in line with the regular European season, it is still fun keeping tabs on which players representing clubs across the continent's strongest divisions are performing best between January and December. Back in the day, this ranking was year-by-year commanded by Ronaldo and Messi, like in 2012, when the Portuguese ended on 58 goals and his long-time rival on 79. Today, however, both legendary forwards play outside of Europe for Al Nassr and Inter Miami, respectively, but who is following in their footsteps?
Who is leading the way this year?
Tied in 11th place with 22 goals is Sevilla's Moroccan centre-forward Youssef En-Nesyri and Karim Benzema, who is, of course, currently playing for Al Ittihad in Saudi Arabia these days. The Frenchman, though, scored 22 times in the second half of last season at Real Madrid, but surely won't have a place among the top 11 for much longer, with Roma's on-loan striker Romelu Lukaku and Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski level on 21 club goals for 2023.
Stuttgart's Serhou Guirassy and RB Leipzig's Lois Openda have both netted on 23 occasions, one behind the tallies that have so far been reached by Liverpool superstar Mohamed Salah and Olympique Lyon's Alexandre Lacazette. In fifth place is Napoli forward Victor Osimhen, who has struck 27 times for the Italian side across all competitions since 1 January, with the Nigerian talisman currently trailing Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe and Inter Milan's Lautaro Martinez by six goals.
Here are Europe's top five leagues' 11 leading goalscorers in 2023 so far:
The latter has been in excellent form since the 2023/24 campaign got underway in August and since being made the Nerazzurri's club captain, having scored 13 goals in the 14 appearances he has made so far. The 26-year-old has done well to put his disappointing individual performances at the 2022 FIFA World Cup behind him after he failed to find the net in Qatar, which he would've reflected on with a bittersweet taste in his mouth considering Argentina still managed to win the tournament.
Martinez has performed so well in 2023, in fact, that he trails Bayern Munich No. 9 Harry Kane by just two goals. The England skipper, in second place, has scored 35 goals in this calendar year at this point, with plenty of them having come during the back-end of his final campaign at Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League. Kane's remarkable start to life in Germany means he is only behind Manchester City's Erling Haaland by three goals in the ranking, a familiar position after he finished second to the Norwegian international in the EPL scoring chart last season.
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