The mercurial
Argentine scored an insurmountable 50 goals in Barcelona's La Liga
campaign, finishing the season four goals ahead of the runnerup
Cristiano Ronaldo.
A sublime run of
nine goals in his final four league matches, including all the goals in
the 4-0 win over Espanyol in Pep Guardiola's final home game, saw Messi
surge past his Real Madrid rival to claim the accolade ahead of Ronaldo,
who despite scoring in all of his last four league games, could not
retain the Pichichi and European Golden Shoe honours he won last season.
Robin van Persie
secured third spot by matching Arsenal legend Thierry Henry's record
30-goal haul in a single season. In his most prolific campaign for
Arsene Wenger's side, the Dutch striker helped the Gunners secure
Champions League football for the 15th consecutive season.
Klaas-Jan
Huntelaar was the Bundesliga's highest scorer with a tally of 29 goals
as he finished just two points shy of Van Persie. He in turn ended the
same distance ahead of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who became the first player
to win the capocannoniere with two different Serie A clubs.
Wayne Rooney found
the net 27 times for Manchester United but it was not enough to stop
the Premier League title from going to his team's fiercest rivals,
Manchester City. He scored the only goal as the Red Devils defeated
Sunderland on the final day of the season to complete the campaign with
54 points.
That goal allowed
him to move clear of Mario Gomez, who was unable to find the net on the
final day of the Bundesliga despite his Bayern Munich side thrashing
relegated Koln 4-1.
The remaining
places were made up of four different players, each achieving a points
total of 48. Burak Yilmaz and Bas Dost both scored an impressive 32
times for their respective clubs but finished lower in the rankings by
virtue of playing in a lower-ranking league.
Radamel Falcao
found the net on 24 occasions in La Liga in his debut season with Europa
League champions Atletico Madrid while despite a disappointing campaign
for Inter as a club, Diego Milito also racked up the same amount of
goals.
No comments:
Post a Comment