The former Ajax star shares the individual award with the Portugal international after the latter did not feature at the weekend due to injury
Liverpool star Luis Suarez and Real Madrid attacker Cristiano Ronaldo are joint winners of the European Golden Shoe this season after scoring 31 goals each in the Premier League and La Liga respectively.
Last year’s winner Lionel Messi has to settle for third spot this campaign following his 28 goals for Barcelona in 2013-14.
Suarez was in danger of missing out on the prestigious individual award as Ronaldo still had one game to add to his tally at the weekend, but the Portuguese forward eventually missed his side’s victory over Espanyol due to injury.
Both Messi and fourth-placed Diego Costa failed to find the net in Barca’s 1-1 draw with Atletico Madrid, while Torino star Ciro Immobile did not score either in his side’s 2-2 draw against Fiorentina.
Red Bull Salzburg forward Jonatan Soriano and Heerenveen striker Alfred Finnbogason are the only players from outside Europe’s top five leagues to make the top 10, while Manchester City’s Yaya Toure is the only midfielder in there after scoring an impressive 20 goals for the Premier League champions.
Players such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alexis Sanchez, Carlos Tevez and Mario Mandzukic all nearly missed out on a spot among Europe’s 10 best goalscorers.
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.