Mbappe adds a little lustre to Real season with Golden Shoe

Real Madrid may have won no trophies, but their French Galactico Kylian Mbappe ended his first season in Spain by collecting two individual scoring awards: the European Golden Shoe and the award for top scorer in La Liga.

Mbappe scored twice in Real Madrid’s final league game on Saturday to overtake Viktor Gyokeres, whose league season at Sporting Lisbon ended the previous week, at the top of the weighted table which counts only league goals.

Mbappe ended with 31 league goals as he became the third Real Madrid player to win the award, after Mexicans Hugo Sanchez (1989-1990) and Cristiano Ronaldo (2010-2011, 2013-2014, 2014-2015). 

The last Frenchman to collect the Golden Shoe was Thierry Henry, who won it in 2004 and 2005 with Arsenal.

Mbappe could have been caught on Sunday, while he was in Monaco watching the Formula One Grand Prix.

Mohammed Salah, who needed a hat-trick in English champions Liverpool’s last league game, scored once to finish third with 29 goals.

Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski, already certain to finish ahead of Real Madrid in the race for the Spanish league title, scored twice at Bilbao. He totalled 27 goals, for fourth place in Europe and second in the Pichichi, the award for the top scorer in La Liga.

The Pole won the Golden Shoe twice with Bayern and claimed the Pichichi in 2023.

Last year’s Golden Shoe winner, Harry Kane, finished fifth with 26 Bundesliga goals to go with his league champion’s medal at Bayern Munich. Mateo Retegui, with 25 for Atalanta, was the top Serie A player, in sixth place.

Gyokeres out-scored Mbappe with 39 goals, but the table is weighted. Each goal in the ‘big five’ European competitions — La Liga, Premier League, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A — is doubled. For the next 16 ranked leagues, goals are multiplied by 1.5.

Below that a goal is just a goal. 

Estonian Alex Tamm totalled 34 league goals, spread over two seasons but finished only 27th. He hit 28 for Kalju in his native Estonia, which plays a summer season, and six more after moving to Olimpija Ljubljana in Slovenia in Februray. 

Gyokeres did score on Sunday as Sporting lost the Portuguese cup final 3-1 to Benfica to finish the season with 53 goals in 51 games in all competitions.

Mbappe, the top scorer in the 2022 World Cup, hit 43 in all competitions for Real this season.