Lionel Messi Claims Sixth European Golden Shoe

Lionel Messi has added another European golden shoe to his gallery, the sixth of his career for scoring the most goals across Europe’s top-flight leagues.

Messi’s 36 goals in 34 appearances in the Laloga Santander was enough to get him the individual prize with Kylian Mbappe lurking around with only three goals behind the Argentine.

To usurp Messi’s overwhelming goal tally this season, Mbappe had to score five against Reims on the final days of Ligue 1 proceedings but could only manage one as they slumped to a 3-1 defeat.

This is the third consecutive year Messi has claimed the Golden boot and the 11th straight campaign where the winner comes from the LaLiga Santander, although both Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez shared the boot in 2014.

Ronaldo was the last player away from the Laliga to earn the golden boot after a magnificent 2007/08 Premier League season with Manchester United where he bagged 31 goals.

Lionel Messi has now become the second oldest player to claim the prize with an age of 31 years, 11 months and 25 days. Hugo Sanchez, the oldest player to have won the shoe was a month and a day older than Messi when he won the prize in 1990.

Despite this mammoth achievement, Messi is still haunted by Barcelona’s horrifying loss to Liverpool in the Champions League semifinals.

“I’m not thinking about [the Golden Shoe],” the Argentine told reporters on Friday.

I don’t have this award in my head. We’re still hurting from the Liverpool defeat, or at least I am. I’m not thinking about myself.”

The 31-yr-old said that things could get even worse if Barcelona lose their Copa del Rey final to Valencia on Saturday.

“This is a final and not winning it would leave us much worse than we are now,” he maintained.

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