Lionel Messi scored twice in Barcelona’s 3-0 defeat of Elche Wednesday evening in a rescheduled LaLiga game to move clear in the Pichichi race with 18 goals and joint second with Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus) and Andre Silva (Frankfurt).
The Barcelona captain’s brace has pushed Nigeria and RC Genk of Belgium forward,Paul Onuachu down from fourth to fifth in the standing.
Onuachu has scored 23 goals from 27 games so far this term, five more than Messi,Ronaldo and Silva but his total points tally is 34.5%,1.5% behind the trio who are joint second because of the quality of Belgian Jupiler league which is not among the top five major leagues in Europe.
The five elite leagues in Europe-Premier League, Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A and Ligue 1- all carry a weighting of two,meaning a player will be awarded two points scored while for the leagues ranked sixth to 30 in UEFA’s coefficients rankings goals scored are given a weighting of 1.5 points.
Onuachu will need to almost double what the trio has scored to stand a chance of finishing in the top three.
Bayern Munich star, Robert Lewandoswki is the runaway leader with 52 points from the 26 goals he has scored in the German Bundesliga.
The trio of Mo Salah (Liverpool), Erling Haaland (Dortmund) and Romelu Lukaku (Inter Milan) are behind Onuachu in sixth position with the 17 league goals they have scored individually.