Gonzalo Higuain and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could break Messi-Ronaldo lock on Golden Boot award

Since 2009, Messi or Ronaldo have won every Golden Boot award but the front-runner at just over half way through the fixture schedules of most of the major European leagues is Higuain of Napoli, writes Ian Hawkey.

Gonzalo Higuain of Napoli in action during the Serie A match between Frosinone Calcio and SSC Napoli at Stadio Matusa on January 10, 2016 in Frosinone, Italy. (Photo by Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images)

Voters electing the best team in the world for the Ballon d'Or awards for 2015 had no doubt.

Most of the very finest players – eight out of 11 – are concentrated in Spain’s Primera Liga and the top strikers are only to be found there.

First place and second at the prize-giving went to the usual duo, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, with Messi’s Barcelona colleague Neymar on the podium alongside them.

It may be just as well the Fifa World Team of the Year does not have a second XI.

There would be a case, right now, for filling its front three positions with only Barcelona or Madrid players, too.

Luis Suarez, of Barca, is currently the Primera Liga’s Pichichi, the top marksman, as his 18 goals having taken him past the previous pacesetter in that personal race, Neymar.

The Brazilian has 16, the same amount as Madrid’s Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

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Thankfully, there is an alternative perspective, a less subjective gong, in the form of the Golden Shoe award, the prize for the best goalscorer in league football in Europe.

True, it does not often produce an alternative winner to either Ronaldo or Messi – the last man other than those two to scoop the trophy was The National's columnist Diego Forlan back in 2009 – but the front-runner at just over half way through the fixture schedules of most of the major European leagues is Gonzalo Higuain of Napoli.

His 20 goals put him ahead of the four Spanish strikers who are in the top 10 in the running.

Higuain’s goal-per-game productivity means that some long-term domestic records are in his grasp.

He would certainly savour an end-of-season where he was still outscoring Benzema or Ronaldo.

They were once teammates of his in Spain, and his joust with Benzema for the centre-forward role at Madrid, the club he joined in 2007 and left in 2013, was a defining theme of the five-and-a-half seasons they coincided.

Jose Mourinho once described Higuain as “a hunt-dog” next to Benzema’s “pussycat,” using a Portuguese figure of speech to laud the Argentinian over the Frenchman.

But the younger, feline predator was the one who stayed in the Spanish capital, and who, to Benzema’s credit, has certainly improved his all-round game in the last three campaigns.

Higuain, 28, has developed, too.

His clever movements in the opposition penalty box are a feature of his brilliant work with the Serie A leaders.

He could plausibly argue that goals are harder to come by in Serie A than they are in Spain.

The kinds of heavy scorelines that Suarez, Neymar, Ronaldo, Benzema, Gareth Bale and a fit Messi regularly festoon with hat-tricks or personal doubles are far rarer in what is an engrossing Italian title race.

The Bundesliga has not supplied a Golden Shoe winner since Gerd Muller in the early 1970s. Its disadvantage is a smaller top division, with four fewer fixtures than Italy, Spain or England’s upper tier.

But Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose pace is his most obvious asset and who could beat even Bale and Ronaldo in a 50-metre sprint, is a contender.

The Gabonese has 18 goals from 17 matches and had leapfrogged Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski – the Pole scored five times in one half against Wolfsburg – in the German scoring charts by the winter break.

He will resume his season for Borussia Dortmund freshly crowned as African Footballer the Year, and knowing that if he carries on at his current rate, he should be in the hunt for the Golden Shoe podium at least.

All of the candidates will be hoping, too, that Alex Teixeira, the Brazilian wanted by Liverpool among others, moves from Shakhtar Donetsk this month.

He has been firing in goals at a surreal rate in the Ukrainian league – where under the handicap season used by the Golden Shoe rankings, each goal is valued at 75 per cent of the worth of a goal in a top-ranked league – and may find them harder to come by if he steps up in class.

MATCH OF THE WEEK:

Borussia Monchengladbach v Borussia Dortmund, Saturday

Borussia Dortmund midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan says that Thomas Tuchel is the reason he stayed with the Bundesliga club this season.

After struggling with his form last term, the Armenian was reportedly considering a move away from Westphalia in the summer.

Italian champions Juventus were one of the clubs interested in signing the former Shakhtar Donetsk playmaker, but a chat with Tuchel was enough for Mkhitaryan to know he was at the right place in Dortmund.

“I met him for the first time in March and he convinced me to stay,” Mkhitaryan said ahead of the second-placed side in the league’s match at Borussia Monchengladbach today.

“I wanted to stay also, because I had some things to prove to the people, to show that I deserve to be here.

“That’s why I am trying to stay this year also, to show all my qualities in helping the team to win a lot of games.”

Mkhitaryan, 27, has produced some of his best form this season with six goals and 11 assists in 16 games. He credits Tuchel with that improvement.

“I’m very happy that I have the chance to work with him. Because really, from the first talk we had he told me that ‘Miki, I can bring you to a level of high class’,” Mkhitaryan said.

“At one point I doubted it, because I was not really confident that after a bad season he could make me a high-class player. But he did it and I’m thankful to him.

“He just gives you the confidence you need and he lets you to do what you can do. And that’s the whole reason that all the team’s players are all shining this year.”

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:

Francesco Totti Roma's captain will turn 40 in September and his hopes of staying involved with the side have been boosted by the return of Luciano Spalletti as coach.

Milestone target: Can Spalletti coax more match-winning performances out of Totti, as he did so regularly in the four years of his previous stint from 2005 to 2009? The veteran player, who has missed most of this season with injury, has a target he dreams of reaching before his hangs up his boots, and that is to add eight more goals to the 292 he has scored for Roma across all competitions.

False nine: Under Spalletti, who replaced Rudi Garcia as Roma coach earlier this month, Totti enjoyed some of his best years as a goalscorer, averaging 20 per season in Serie A alone as Spalletti evolved a role for the player as a deep-lying centre-forward, or a “false nine” before the term came into vogue. Totti was the Italian top division’s leading scorer in 2006/07 with 26.

History man: If Totti, likely to start tomorrow’s meeting with Juventus on the bench, gets a chance against the scudetto-holders, he will take third place in the rankings of players with the most Serie A appearances in history, with 593, 22 behind Javier Zanetti, formerly of Inter, and 57 shy of AC Milan great Paolo Maldini.

Rivals: Juve, against who Totti first played in May 1995, have been a vexing opponent. Four of the Roma captain’s Serie A runners-up medals have been won when Juve finished top of the table. Roma, silver-medallists behind Juventus last season, need Spalletti and Totti to regain ground in the joust for Uefa Champions League places. Juventus are second, seven points ahead of fifth-placed Roma.

Retirement: Totti, who made his Roma debut aged 16 in March 1993, talks of playing two more seasons. Though he has made it clear his playing days are not yet done, there are signs he is stepping towards an advisory role at the club.

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