After all the controversy about his failed summer exit and a difficult start to the season, Lionel Messi currently leads La Liga’s scoring chart.
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He netted his 17th and 18th goals of the season in Barcelona’s 3-0 win over Elche this morning.
Messi’s tally puts him two goals ahead of Atletico Madrid’s Luis Suarez, and is once again the favourite to take the Golden Boot that he’s won for the past four seasons.
The Argentine now also has 13 goals in 2021…putting him ahead of Robert Lewandowski (12) and Erling Haaland (10) for the calendar year so far.
Not bad for a player who turns 34 this year.
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Not to be outdone, Messi’s old rival Cristiano Ronaldo is also turning back the clock over in the Serie A.
The 36-year-old currently leads the Italian league’s scoring chart with 18 goals to his name, and is on course to finish as top scorer for the first time since 2015 (during his spell with Real Madrid).
The Portuguese superstar has also netted 25 goals for Juventus in all competitions this season – which is the 14th consecutive season that he’s reached the quarter-century mark.
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All this comes in a season when Ronaldo and Messi were supposed to ‘pass the torch’ over to the next generation, with Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland being hyped as the new (much younger) stars of 2021.
To be fair, Mbappe and Haaland have been in fine form for PSG and Borussia Dortmund, respectively, and they most definitely have what it takes to fill the shoes (or boots) of the older superstars.
But make no mistake, Ronaldo and Messi refuse to be written off just yet and are proving once again, that sometimes age really is just a number.
By: Nicholas Darren John
