Barcelona captain Lionel Messi collected a-record fifth Golden Shoe award on Tuesday for emerging top scorer in Europe’s top leagues last term.
The performance saw the Argentine playmaker topple rival Cristiano Ronaldo with his fifth award.
The Barcelona superstar netted 34 times in the Spanish topflight last campaign as the Catalan outfit emerged La Liga champions.
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Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah claimed the second leading scorer of Europe’s domestic leagues with 32 goals in the English Premier League.
Previously, Messi has had the honour to claim the prestigious award in 2009-10 (34 goals), 2011-12 (50), 2012-13 (46) and 2016-17 (37).
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Messi is currently leading all contenders in Europe’s top leagues this term with 14 goals so far.
“I love football, but when I started I didn’t expect all this. My dream was to be a professional player,” Messi said.
“This is thanks to the hard work and effort I have put in, and above all to my teammates. I have the best players in the world at their positions playing beside me,” admitted the 31-year-old Argentine, who also doubles as Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer with 572 goals from 655 matches.
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Interestingly, the Golden Shoe award is presented yearly by European Sports Media, an association of European sports newspapers and magazines.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously had reported that Real Madrid superstar Luka Modric has lashed out at the duo of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for deliberately missing this year's Ballon d'Or awards.
The Croatian became the first ever player to win the prestigious prize outside of the two stars, who won the last ten editions.
Modric helped his country reach the first ever FIFA World Cup final in Russia - shortly after winning the UEFA Champions League title with Los Blancos.
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Source: Legit.ng