Diego Costa joins Suarez & Ronaldo in European Golden Shoe race

With last week's top two not bagging any league goals in the subsequent seven days, the Atletico Madrid man took his chance to go four points off the top spot.

 

Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa took advantage of Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez's continued silence up front to drag himself into contention in the European Golden Shoe. The Brazilian-born attacker scored once as Diego Simeone's men triumphed 3-0 over Valladolid on Saturday to take him one point adrift of the Ballon d'Or winner in the standings.

Liverpool featured in the FA Cup at the weekend and Suarez failed to score in his third Premier League game in a row in midweek - although team-mate Daniel Sturridge bagged a goal against Fulham to move ahead of Heerenveen's Alfred Finnbogason. Suarez remains in top spot, however, as Ronaldo continued his in los Blancos' suspension-induced absence as his team triumphed 3-0 at Getafe on Sunday.

Alexis Sanchez's strike as Barcelona swept past Rayo Vallecano in a 6-0 hammering saw him jump up from joint-seventh to joint-sixth - level with injured Manchester City attacker Sergio Aguero. Finally, there are three new faces in the top 10 this week: Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored as Paris Saint-Germain thrashed Valenciennes to jump to eighth, Robert Lewandowski's penalty for Borussia Dortmund saw him go joint-ninth along with Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema.

Rank	Player	Country	Club	League	Weight	Goals	Points
1	Luis Suarez	URU	Liverpool	ENG	2	23	46
=	C. Ronaldo	POR	Real Madrid	ESP	2	22	44
3	Diego Costa	ESP	Atletico Madrid	ESP	2	21	42
4	Daniel Sturridge	ENG	Liverpool	ENG	2	16 (+1)	32
5	A. Finnbogason	ISL	Heerenveen	NED	1.5	21	31.5
6	Sergio Aguero	ARG	Man City	ENG	2	15	30
=	Alexis Sanchez	CHI	Barcelona	ESP	2	15 (+1)	30
8	Z. Ibrahimovic	SWE	PSG	FRA	1.5	19 (+1)	28.5
9	A. Griezmann	FRA	Real Sociedad	ESP	2	14	28
=	Adrian Ramos	COL	Hertha Berlin	GER	2	14	28
=	Giuseppe Rossi	ITA	Fiorentina	ITA	2	14	28
=	J. Martinez	COL	Porto	POR	2	14	28
=	R. Lewandowski	POL	Dortmund	GER	2	14 (+1)	28
=	Karim Benzema	FRA	Real Madrid	SPA	2	14 (+1)	28

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.