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There's Three Surprising Names Ahead Of Lionel Messi For The Golden Shoe

There's Three Surprising Names Ahead Of Lionel Messi For The Golden Shoe

The Barcelona forward has been on brilliant form this season but there's five players ahead of him to be Europe's top marksman.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

Lionel Messi didn't manage to score a goal at the weekend but he's still top goalscorer in La Liga right now. That said he's still got a bit of catching up to do, with some surprise names, to be the Golden Shoe front runner.

In case you weren't aware Lionel Messi is quite good at football...Oh hold on I used this line in my earlier Lionel Messi article along with something about running out of stuff to say about him- looks like I was right.

Messi had to actually take a back seat on the weekend as Barcelona continued their excellent form at the top of the table. The Camp Nou side beat Sevilla 2-1 but it was Paolo Alcacer who scored a brace.

Alcacer stole the headlines on Saturday with his brace. Image: PA

Despite missing out on adding to his tally Barca's all time top goalscorer is still leading the scoring charts in Spain this season with 12 strikes to his name already, three ahead of Valencia's Simone Zaza in second.

However he's only seventh in Europe's Golden Shoe listings and three of the players are a big surprise, seeing as they're relatively unknown:

1. Ciro Immobile - 28 points
2. Rauno Sappinen - 27 points
3. Albert Prosa - 27 points
4. Radamel Falcao - 26 points
5. Edinson Cavani - 26 points
6. Igor Angulo - 24 points
7. Lionel Messi - 24 points

Ciro Immobile is top of the charts for his goals for Lazio this season. Image: PA

Of course Immobile, top of the charts for his goals in Serie A, isn't on 28 goals this season but the way the Golden Shoe works is goals get multiplied into points depending on how good you your league is.

For Serie A and La Liga that multiplier is two but Sappinen, who plays for FC Flora in Estonia, Prosa, playing in the same country for FCI Tallinn and Angulo who plays in Poland for Górnik Zabrze it's only a one and a half multiplier.

Falcao is also above Messi. Image: PA

There's a long way of the season to go for Messi and he's still got every chance to become the first man to win the European Golden Shoe award five times but first he'll have to get past the Estonian league's best!

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Football News, Barcelona, Ciro Immobile, Goals, Lionel Messi, Edinson Cavani, La Liga