Top 10 contenders for the Champions League Golden Boot
The new season of the Champions League is upon us, as the 27th edition of the premier club competition in Europe gets underway on Tuesday.
Real Madrid heads into the tournament as the defending champions, having triumphed in last season's final by defeating Liverpool 3-1 to win the trophy for the third time in succession and 13th time overall.
The Champions League is undoubtedly the holy grail of European club football, and the biggest clubs in the world seek to prove their mettle in the competition, as victory in it earns prestige and bragging rights of being the best of the best in Europe.
The marquee nature of the participating clubs means that the biggest players would be on display, and with the quality involved, we are bound to witness exciting fixtures all through the competition.
It is a well-known fact that goals win games, and with some of the best strikers on the continent on the show, the race to be crowned the Champions League highest goalscorer would be an intense one.
Ronaldo's status as one of the greatest goal scorers in history, alongside the small matter of having won the UCL Golden Boot in each of the last six seasons and being the tournament's all-time highest goalscorer would see him installed as one of the favourites to win the award once more, while Messi's quest to regain prominence after his recent snubs for individual awards would also see him in among the contenders.
However, beyond this likely pair, there are more than enough other contenders for the Champions League Golden Boot. Here are the top ten candidates to be crowned UCL top scorer come May next year.
#10 Mauro Icardi
The 24-year-old has been one of the more consistent performers in the Italian Serie A over the last five seasons, scoring 100 league goals in 160 matches since his 2013 transfer to Inter Milan from Sampdoria in 2013.
The Inter Milan captain finished as joint top scorer of the Serie A in 2015 and 2018, which made his then continuous exclusion from the Argentine national team one that drew a lot of ire from fans and pundits alike.
His 29 goals last season proved immensely beneficial in helping Inter Milan to a fourth place finish, and he would be looking to display his superb finishing abilities on the continent, and win the Champions League Golden Boot.
For a player of Icardi's ability, this would only be his first participation in the Champions League, as Inter Milan's recent struggles saw them miss out on Champions League qualification for the last seven seasons, and the Nerrazurri find themselves in a group containing Barcelona and Tottenham.
Despite this being his bow in the competition, Icardi is bound to take to the stage like a fish to water, and the rest of Europe would do well to keep his goal scoring instincts at bay.
#9 Kylian Mbappe
The prodigiously talented Mbappe announced himself to the world with his breathtaking performance for Monaco in their fairytale run to the semi-final of the 2017 Champions League.
In that campaign, he became the first player to score in each of his first four Champions League knockout matches, as well as the youngest player in history to reach the milestones of five and ten goals scored in the competition.
He took his performance levels a notch higher, by delivering on the grandest stage of all; the World Cup where he became the first teenager since Pele in 1958 to score a brace in a World Cup match, as well as in the final itself.
Mbappe is the second most expensive player in history, and on his young shoulders lie some of the hope for leading PSG into European glory, and if PSG is to lift its first Champions League trophy, then Mbappe would have a crucial role to play in that.