Why Luis Suarez is the best striker in the world today

Luis Suarez

The Champions League makes its much welcome return this week following its annual winter break, with every team now focused on lifting the esteemed trophy on Saturday 24 May.

Fame, fortune and prestige await the teams lucky enough to advance through the next three rounds unscathed, reaching this year’s final at Benfica’s Estádio da Luz, home of the late Eusébio – a coincidental tribute to one of European football’s greatest.

Many of the tournament’s most successful teams have been built around a midfield packed full of creative and inventive players, positioned ahead of a reliable and sturdy defence. But, while a solid defence can sometimes guarantee safe passage, it’s the players situated at the other end of the pitch who tend to grab the headlines, snatching late winners at historical venues – as Bayern Munich can attest after their late and dramatic collapse to a Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær inspired Manchester United in 1999.

Fifteen years have passed since that night. The aforementioned players, retired. Now the likes of Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovi? are the strikers to fear. However, along with those two supremely gifted individuals, there are other talented strikers terrorising opposition defences throughout Europe’s top five leagues, who may lift the trophy in the years ahead.

So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the best striker from their respective nation based on Squawka’s Performance Score, with a few other statistics thrown in for good measure.

Performance Score

Even though he’s only made 17 appearances in La Liga this season, Messi (1,347) is currently the most feared striker in Spain, and the rest of Europe, having achieved the greatest Performance Score – measured by positive on-the-ball actions and where said actions occur on the pitch.

Performance score

The miniscule Argentinian is closely followed by the Premier League’s Luis Suárez (1,252), while Ibrahimovi? (1,080), Carlos Tevez (988) and Max Kruse (807) are ranked first in France, Italy and Germany respectively, yet they all trail Messi by some distance.

Goals Scored

Hard work and assists aside, strikers are predominantly judged on the number of goals they score, and Europe’s leading light in this category is Liverpool’s Suárez. Considering he missed the first five league games through suspension, the Uruguayan has done incredibly well to find the back of the net a staggering 23 times in just 21 appearances.

Goals scored so far

Ibrahimovi? has played three games more, yet the colossal Swede trails Suárez by four goals, with Messi and Tevez positioned in joint third with 13 goals each. And at the back of the pack, with a mediocre eight goals, is Borussia Mönchengladbach striker Kruse. The German international’s proficiency in front of goal may be cause for concern, however the 25-year-old excels in other areas, outlined below.