Can Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Lionel Messi top as the world greatest players in their retirement?
Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Lionel Messi have all cut their gaps on Europe’s current top goalscorer Kylian Mbappe, while Lebo Mothiba slipped down the ranking.
Mbappe drew a blank in Paris Saint-Germain’s 4-0 win over struggling AS Monaco, during which his teammate Edinson Cavani netted a hat-trick and Neymar scored the other goal.
Sergio Aguero ranks 12th in @goal‘s list of top 20 players over the last 10 years.
Players ahead of him :
Ronaldo
Messi
Ibrahimovic
Iniesta
Suarez
Ramos
Neymar
Xavi
Lewandowski
Muller
Bale pic.twitter.com/ZhjZpFBJSa— Man City Delhi (@ManCityDelhi) November 15, 2018
As a consequence, the Brazilian is now just one goal shy of Mbappe, who currently leads the top goalscorer race alongside Nantes’ forward Emiliano Sala – the pair have scored 11 goals each.
Messi, who returned from his arm injury on the weekend, scored a brace in FC Barcelona’s 4-3 home defeat to Real Betis, and now sits on nine LaLiga goals for the campaign.
The Argentine is one of four players who have netted nine league goals already, while Ronaldo is one of 11 stars who have found the back of the net eight times so far.
Further down the ranking is Mothiba, who drew a blank during Strasbourg’s 0-0 draw with Lille on Friday and remains on seven goals in Ligue 1.
The composition of the all-time goalscorers list is mostly made up of players who are playing or played in the modern Champions League era (i.e. 1992 onwards) which has added more continental games to the modern day calendar. Specifically, of the 20 players in the list above, 15 of them played from the mid 1990s on.
However, despite that, two players who played in the pre-Champions League era (when the tournament was known as the European Cup) still figure prominently, with former Real Madrid star Alfredo di Stefano and Benfica icon Eusebio featuring in and around the top 10.
Ferenc Puskas and Francisco Gento, who shone for Real Madrid in the 1950s and 1960s, are also in the top 20. Former Bayern Munich striker Gerd Muller is in the top 20 and no player comes remotely close to his phenomenal goals-per-game ratio of 0.95.