In the 2001-2002 season, Diego Tristan he scored 21 goals for the Deportivo de La Coruña. The League was won by Valencia and the bad domestic moment of Real Madrid and Barcelona He left the worst scoring table of the 21st century in Spanish football. Just as soon as I started it. The Sevillian attacker was the only one capable of exceeding 20 goals and won the Pichichi Trophy with the lowest average in terms of goals per game in the last 30 years: 0,62. In Kluivert ni Morientes, both with 18 points, managed to hunt him down. The scoring shortage in Spanish football was alarming until they arrived Ronaldo, Forlan, Eto’o, Ruud van Nistelrooy and of course, Leo Messi y Cristiano Ronaldo. But 22 years later, the problem repeats itself.
The Ukrainian Artem Dovbyk (17), followed by Jude Bellingham (16) y Ante Budimir (15) fight for the Pichichi of the League. The Croatian from Osasuna will no longer be able to add more, since in the match against Valencia he fractured three ribs and is out for the remainder of the season. With seven days left in the competition, we are officially close to the worst Pichichi of the 21st century.
The departures of Messi, Cristiano, Luis Suárez about Benzema and the physical decline of Lewandowski, top scorer last year with 23 goals in 34 games (0.68 per game) have left the League orphaned of great scorers. Messi and Cristiano are a unique case, insatiable scorers beyond their time who raised the ceiling of the Pichichi award to 40 goals per season, but Spanish football has always had scoring references. Something that right now hangs by a thread, and a very fine thread.
Sorloth’s example
Dovbyk receives Cádiz tonight with Girona. The Ukrainian had not seen the net since January 21, but against Betis he scored a double that raised his positions in the standings and the goal scored against Atlético leaves him as the sole leader. Bellingham will try to regain his scoring instinct in tomorrow’s classic at the Bernabéu, because after an extraordinary start to the season, he has only three goals in the League in 2024, two of them against Girona.
Budimir, for his part, was the fittest attacker in the championship. He had accumulated six goals in the last eight games and had a good chance of winning the trophy, but that injury kept him out of the race. Behind all of them appears Borja Mayoral, 15, also injured until May after tearing his meniscus. With 14 they are Álvaro Moratawho has a goal in the last two months, and AlexanderSorlothon a streak, with six goals in the last six games.
The example of the Norwegian from Villarreal works for everyone: a good streak puts you fully into the fight. Let them tell that to Lewandowski, who between October and January only scored three goals and whose good February, combined with his goal at the Metropolitano, has taken him to 13 goals, four away from revalidating the Pichichi. They are still in the fight Guruzeta y Griezmann (13), Vinicius and Hugo Duro (12), and forwards who in other years have rubbed shoulders with the best, such as Gerard Moreno (10).
Juanito and Da Silva
The reality, despite everything, is that whoever wins the prize will be one of the cheapest, or the most, of the century. At this point last season, after 31 days, Lewandowski had 18 goals and finished with 23 after a good final stretch. In 21-22, Benzema was already 24, and if we go back to the good years of Cristiano and Messi, the Portuguese and the Argentine had already surpassed 25 or 30 at this point in several of their seasons. You have to go back to that 01-02 to find such a poor Pichichi on matchday 32. In that campaign, Morientes and Kluivert led with 16 goals, compared to 15 for Tristán, who came back in the end to the 21 that gave him the trophy .
We have to travel even further into the past to discover a matchday 32 worse than the current one at a scoring level. In 1990-1991, ManoloAtlético forward, accumulated 15 goals, one less than the current Pichichis, while Butragueñowho ended up being Pichichi with 19, had only 10. El Buitre woke up at the end and managed to avoid being the worst top scorer in the last 50 years in the League, a mention that they still have on their shoulders Juanita y Jorge Moth Da Silvawho scored 17 in 83-84.
Dovbyk, Bellingham, Morata or Lewandowski will try to avoid in these last seven days going down in history as the worst Pichichi of the 21st century (they need to reach 22) or the worst of the last 50 years.