2023-04-27 00:01:17
Robert Lewandowski and Karim Benzema are going to compete for the ‘cheapest’ Pichichi of this 21st century in the last eight days of the League. The Polish striker for Barcelona, the current top scorer in the competition, has 18 goals in 32 games, closely followed by Benzema, who despite missing a third of the championship, has 14 goals. 16 years have passed since the top scorer in the First Division had such a poor number of goals at this point. It was Ruud van Nistelrooy, who with eight games remaining had 15 goals, and finished the season with 25.
Since the World Cup, Lewandowski’s performance has dropped alarmingly. Only four goals scored this 2023, and his scoring figures have plummeted. He started the League averaging 1.08 goals per game. Now, in the last 14 games, that scoring average has dropped to 0.28, a figure four times lower. The Pole, accustomed to surpassing 30 goals in the Bundesliga with relative ease, as he has shown in the last three seasons, is experiencing a moment of drought in a Barça team that has gone 1-0 and is having a hard time closing games in the scoring aspect .
If he continued with this average, Lewandowski would finish the league competition with a figure close to 21 goals, the lowest since the 2001-2002 season, when Diego Tristán scored the same amount with Deportivo to win the Pichichi. To see a lower recent figure, one would have to go back to the 1990-1991 season, when Emilio Butragueño scored 19 goals for Real Madrid. However, the top scorer with the lowest figure in history is Guillermo Gorostiza, Athletic Club striker in the 1931-1932 season, who was the top scorer in Primera scoring only 12 goals, although at that time there were fewer teams and consequently , fewer games were played.
Messi and Cristiano monopolized the table of top scorers in the League for more than a decade. Without them, the League has been ‘orphaned’ of battering rams that overcome the 30-goal barrier. Only Luis Suárez in the 2015-2016 season was able to break the hegemony of the Argentine and the Portuguese, scoring no more and no less than 40 goals.
Last season, now without Messi, Benzema was the top scorer with 25 goals. This season, the mathematics suggest that the figure will be lower. It is also surprising that players like Enes Ünal or Joselu, who play in teams that have salvation as their primary objective, have scored 13 and 12 goals respectively, placing themselves very close to the two top scorers in the competition.
Europe portrays them
The poor numbers of Lewandowski and Benzema contrast with the rest of the scorers in the major European leagues. Haaland is a separate case. The Norwegian striker has 33 goals and is on his way to breaking all goalscoring records in the English competition. In his sights is Andrew Cole, a Newcastle striker who scored 34 goals in the 1993-1994 season. It should be noted that Ivan Toney, the third top scorer in the Premier, has 19 goals, two more than the top scorer in the League.
In Ligue 1, Kylian Mbappé leads the scoring table with 22 goals, while Jonathan David (21) and Alexander Lacazette (20) follow closely behind. They are also surpassed by Serie A, where Víctor Osimhen has already accumulated 21 goals with Napoli.
The lack of striking strikers is portraying the League against the other competitions on the Old Continent. In the case of the Pole, for the first time in his career, it is becoming common for him not to score. “A striker cannot be reduced only to his goals,” Lewandowski explained in a recent interview. But the reality is that a ‘9’ like him lives for the goal. “He will be a bit sad for not scoring,” Xavi confessed after the duel against Atlético de Madrid, in which the culé striker had clear chances, but again left empty.
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