Who will be top scorer in La Liga 2023/2024?
Tomorrow it's time for the start of the Spanish La Liga season again as Almeria host Rayo Vallecano at 19:30, and later in the evening Sevilla play Valencia.Last season ended with Barcelona as champions and Real Madrid as runners-up, 10 points behind, followed by Atlético Madrid and Real Sociedad, both also qualifying for the Champions League.
Favourites this season is Barcelona, who are thus expected to defend their title, especially after they won quite comfortably against worst competitor Real Madrid with 3-0 in a friendly match just over a week ago. The first challenger is, naturally, Real Madrid and just as obvious Atlético Madrid is the outsider. That any of the other teams in La Liga would have a chance to win the league is quite unlikely.
After Karim Benzema left Real and moved to Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Professional League, La Liga feels like it is lacking of profiles this season. Certainly, the league has been enriched with Jude Bellingham, one of the world's hottest young players, who joined Real Madrid and Ilkay Gündogan, who Barcelona picked up on a free transfer from Manchester City. There are of course many talented players in the league already, such as Robert Lewandowski, Luka Modric, Pedri and Vinicius Júnior to name a few, but the interest in the league would probably benefit from a couple of big signings coming in before the transfer window closes .
Robert Lewandowski - Pichichi Trophy winner 2022/2023 and favourite this season as well
Some candidates to win the top scorer title in La Liga, season 2023/2024
In normal cases, it is primarily a player from Barcelona or Real Madrid who wins the Pichichi Trophy (or Trofeo Pichichi in Spanish), as the top scorer title in La Liga is called. The last time a player from another club became top scorer was the 2008/2009 season when Diego Forlán won while playing for Atlético Madrid. Also, this season it is hardly likely that there will be any player who is not a player for Barca or Real who will be the Pichichi Trophy winner, and therefore we start by going through the candidates from these two clubs.Candidates to win the top scorer title from Barcelona
Robert Lewandowski won the Pichichi Trophy last season after scoring 23 goals for Barcelona. Many probably thought he would score even more goals given how many he used to score per season at Bayern Munich, but it's still a good result considering it was his first season at the club. Even though he will now turn 35 in August, he is still a big favourite to win the title again, especially given that Barcelona are the favourites to win the league this season as well.The other candidates from Barca are Ferran Torres, Ansu Fati and Raphinha. However, it does not seem likely that any of these players will score more goals than Lewandowski unless they exceed everyone's expectations by a large margin. Ansu Fati is indisputably a very big attacking talent, and possibly it should be he of these three who can really "explode" if he gets regular playing time.
Vinicius Júnior - hottest candidate from Real Madrid
Candidates to win the top scorer title from Real Madrid
If in Barca there is only one player who is a realistic candidate to win the top scorer league (albeit a big one), there are all the more possible candidates in Real Madrid.Vinicius Júnior only scored 10 league goals last season but has shown in the last two seasons that he is a very capable striker. He doesn't have the same clinical finishing ability as Karim Benzema (who scored 19 goals for Real last season), but in the Frenchman's absence, he will have more responsibility for the teams scoring, which can increase the goal yield considerably.
The 33-year-old Joselu scored 16 league goals last season at his then club Espanyol, and with Espanyol being a bottom team being relegated from La Liga, that's quite an impressive result. Before joining Espanyol, he scored over 10 goals in three consecutive seasons at Alavés, so he is a proven solid goalscorer when playing for smaller clubs. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how he can perform when he plays in a team full of world stars as support, and if it turns out to be a real success, we could see plenty of goals from this veteran player.
Real's other young Brazilian striker Rodrygo scored 9 goals last season. Rodrygo scores regularly but isn't exactly a lethal striker. So to be honest, even if he can improve on his nine goals from last season, he's unlikely to be a serious contender for the top-scoring league title.
Finally, we have Real's big prestige signing Jude Bellingham. The Englishman is a midfielder but has shown that he has a great eye for scoring. Bellingham will certainly score many important goals for Real, but also with him, it is hard to see him as a serious candidate to become the top scorer of La Liga.
Antoine Griezmann - Pichichi Trophy winner?
Candidates from other clubs who could be La Liga's top scorer
The eternal outsider Atlético Madrid is the club that would probably contain the league's top scorer if Lewandowski or someone else from Barca and Real are not the winner. Antoine Griezmann is a very fine player and a good goal scorer as well, but he rarely scores a massive number of goals. However, he had a fine season last season with 15 league goals. Other candidates from Atlético Madrid are Álvaro Morata and Memphis Depay, and both players have the potential to score a lot of goals. It is likely, however, that Atlético's goals will be distributed quite evenly between these three strikers, which means that it is likely that none of them will win the Pichichi Trophy in the end.Girona have made a very interesting signing in Ukrainian Artem Dovbyk from SK Dnipro-1. Last season he scored 24 goals in the Ukrainian Premjer-Liha, and five goals in the Europa Conference League as well. Girona are only a mid-team but they scored a lot of goals last season so it will be interesting to see what he can do in La Liga. The club also has 36-year-old veteran Cristhian Stuani, who scored many many goals for several seasons, but last season there were only nine goals, so age is probably starting to take its toll on this aging striker.
Sevilla did not have a great league season last year and finished only twelfth in La Liga. One of those who did not reach the normal standard was Youssef En-Nesyri who scored only eight league goals. En-Nesyri is normally a very potent striker and if he has a good season, he can be at fighting in the top section of the top scorer list.
Villareal's Gerard Moreno is another very good striker who did not reach normal standards last season. However, he is somewhat excused as he missed many matches last season due to various injuries. Villareal as a club had a good season last season and finished fifth in La Liga, and if Villareal can continue in the same way this season, and Moreno stays injury free, he could score a lot of goals again.
André Silva was brilliant at Eintracht Frankfurt in 2020/2021, scoring 28 goals, which led to RB Leipzig signing him ahead of the following season. His time at RB Leipzig has been somewhat unsuccessful and last season he scored just four league goals. This season he is on loan to Real Sociedad and if the Portuguese can get a fresh start in Spain, he can finish high up in the top scoring list.
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