UEFA Champions League: Top 5 candidates to win the top scorer award

Real Madrid Training And Press Conference — Cristiano Ronaldo will be looking to continue his incredible goalscoring record in the Champions League

Champions League is back! These four words are enough to send any football fan into a frenzy in the month of February. No, not even Valentine's day comes close to giving the sense of contentment that the competition's anthem gives when one's favourite team makes its way onto the field.

Real Madrid vs PSG. Chelsea vs Barcelona. Juventus vs Tottenham Hotspur. There are some mouth-watering ties lined up in the round of 16 with the top performers from the group stage now looking to continue their run in the knockout stages.

In a cut-throat tournament like the Champions League, it takes months of continued dominance to be the top scorer at the end of the competition. Being the leading goalscorer in the Champions League is an excellent achievement and this season too, there are many candidates fighting it out to claim the coveted honour.

In this segment, let us take a look at five such players who stand a chance to become the top scorer of the UEFA Champions League 2017/18 season:

#5 Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

FC Barcelona v Sporting CP - UEFA Champions League — Messi has his work cut out in the Champions League

Despite currently having a stellar season in La Liga, Lionel Messi did not have a great group stage in Europe by his own gigantic standards. Messi scored three in the group stage, two against Juventus in the opening game and one against Olympiakos. The Argentine did not score in the last three Champions League games.

But you simply can't afford to ignore the man that has scored 29 goals this season and is on course to be the league's top scorer. Also, FC Barcelona are performing at a consistently high level this season and are considered as one of the contenders to reach the final.

In that scenario, Messi will have enough games to get close to his competitors and may even surpass them if the Catalans do play as many games as possible. There's also the added motivation for Messi this time around to finally break his duck against Chelsea. He will be itching to score one against the Blues and may inflict some more damage than what has already been done on Antonio Conte.