Barcelona’s Lionel Messi appears where he ended last season’s standings – top of the pile! The Argentinian has enjoyed an astonishing start to the season which has seen him score 23 goals in just 15 matches. 

Real Madrid’s, Cristiano Ronaldo, has maintained his incredible strike rate of scoring at more or less a goal a game, but he still trails his Barcelona rival by 20 points.

Behind Ronaldo is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose chances of winning the ESM Golden Shoe are diminished by the fact that his goal coefficient has dropped from 2 to 1.5 following his move from Italy to France.

POS PLAYER TEAM GOALS FACTOR PTS

1. Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) 23 x 2 = 46
2. Arturas Rimkevicius (FK Siauliai) 35 x 1 = 35
3. Radamel Falcao (Atlético Madrid) 16 x 2 = 32
4. Philipp Hosiner (Austria Wien) 20 x 1.5 = 30
5. Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Shakhtar Donetsk) 18 x 1.5 = 27
6. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 13 x 2 = 26
Stephan El Shaarawy (Milan) 13 x 2 = 26
8. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Paris Saint-Germain) 17 x 1.5 = 25.5
Raul Rusescu (Steaua Bucharest) 17 x 1,5 = 25.5
10. Miguel Pérez Cuesta ‘Michu’ (Swansea City) 12 x 2 = 24
11. Waris Majeed Abdul (BK Häcken) 23 x 1 = 23
Vladislav Ivanov (Trans Narva) 23 x 1 = 23
13. Carlos Bacca (Club Brugge) 15 x 1.5 = 22.5
Wilfried Bony (Vitesse) 15 x 1.5 = 22.5
15. Edinson Cavani (Napoli) 11 x 2 = 22
Tarmo Neemelo (Nomme Kalju) 22 x 1 = 22
Robin van Persie (Manchester United) 11 x 2 = 22
Gary Twigg (Shamrock Rovers) 22 x 1 = 22
19. Andreas Cornelius (FC Copenhagen) 14 x 1.5 = 21
Ebrahim Savaneh ‘Ibou’ (Oud-Heverlee Leuven) 14 x 1.5 = 21
Aron Jóhannsson (Aarhus) 14 x 1.5 = 21
‘Rafael’ Pompeu Ledesma (Suduva) 21 x 1 = 21
* Standings last updated 12/12/2012

**Rules

Only the leading five countries – Spain, Italy, Germany, France and England – in the UEFA rankings have two as their multiplier. This is to emphasise the difference in (international) performance level between clubs from those countries and those of other nations.A player cannot play first in a summer league (e.g. Norway) and then in a winter league (e.g. Spain) and combine the points totals for each season.