Reigning World and European Footballer of the Year, Lionel Messi, has won this year’s ESM Golden Shoe award.
The award, given to Europe’s leading goalscorer, comes on the back of the Barcelona striker’s 34-goal haul during the 2009-10 season.
Although Ajax’s Luis Suarez scored 35 goals in the 2009-10 season, Messi takes the title by virtue of a a higher coefficient applying to the Spanish league. Only the leading five countries (Spain, Italy, Germany, France and England) on the UEFA Ranking have 2 as their mutiplier, whereas in Holland that figure is 1.5.
In joint second place behind Messi, were Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and Udinese’s Antonio Di Natale, both of whom scored 29 goals.
Wayne Rooney, pacesetter for much of the season before injury interrupted his campaign, came in joint sixth place with 26 goals, level with former team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.
Full details of this season’s ESM Golden Shoe standings cam be found here.
