Suarez fails to take lead over Ronaldo in Golden Shoe race

The former Ajax star can only hope the Portugal international does not add to his tally in the last game of La Liga’s campaign

Liverpool star Luis Suarez has failed to move clear of Real Madrid attacker Cristiano Ronaldo at the top of the rankings for the European Golden Shoe in his final game of the league season.

The Uruguay international did not find the net in his side’s 2-1 win over Newcastle United and ends the 2013-14 campaign on 31 goals.

Ronaldo, meanwhile, did not add to his tally either as he did not feature against Celta, while Lionel Messi and Diego Costa failed to find the net, too.

However, unlike the Liverpool star, Ronaldo, Messi and Costa all have one more game to go to boost their goalscoring record.

Elsewhere, Ciro Immobile moved to sixth place following his goal in Torino’s 1-1 draw with Parma, while Daniel Sturridge got his 21st goal of the season as Liverpool beat Newcastle.

Luca Toni (Hellas Verona), Jackson Martinez (Porto) and Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund) all enjoyed a fruitful weekend and now share 10th spot with Yaya Toure, the only midfielder in the list.

History & How It Works

Players such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Diego Forlan have won the European Golden Shoe in the past few seasons, with the Argentina international as the latest winner of the award following his 46 goals in 2012-13.

Other noteworthy winners include the likes of Francesco Totti, Luca Toni, Ronaldo, Marco van Basten, Eusebio and Gerd Muller.

The weightings are determined by the league’s ranking on the Uefa coefficients, which in turn depend on the results of each league’s clubs in European competition over the previous five seasons. Goals scored in the top five leagues according to the Uefa coefficients are multiplied by a factor of two, and goals scored in the leagues ranked six to 21 are multiplied by 1.5. Goals in all other leagues are worth one single point.

This measure has prevented players from so-called weaker leagues from winning the European Golden Shoe, since a goal scored in, for example, Armenia, Estonia or Azerbaijan, carries less weight than a goal scored in Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga or the Premier League.

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