Cristiano Ronaldo nears top spot in European Golden Shoe award

The Portugal international enjoyed a fruitful week as he netted five goals in his last two games to pile the pressure on Nerijus Valskis

Cristiano Ronaldo is closing in on top spot in the European Golden Shoe rankings following his fine performances for Real Madrid in the past seven days.

The Portugal international netted a hat-trick in his side's 7-3 win over Sevilla in midweek before adding two more goals to his tally in the 3-2 victory against Rayo Vallecano at the weekend and now trails leader Nerijus Valskis - who did not play this week - by just one point.

Meanwhile, Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa continued his rise to the top with a productive week of his own. The Brazil-born attacker found the net once against both Granada and Athletic Bilbao and is level on points with Ronaldo.

Other big names who are on the verge of breaking into the top 10 are Robert Lewandowski, Giuseppe Rossi and Edinson Cavani, who are all on 18 points at the moment - along with 10th-placed Konstantinos Mitroglou - but the aforementioned trio have played more games than the Olympiakos man.

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi has to settle for a spot outside the top 20 for now after failing to find the net in his last four league games.

Rank	Player	Country	Club	League	Weight	Goals	Points
1	Nerijus Valskis	LTU	Suduva	LTU	1	27	27
2	C. Ronaldo	POR	Real Madrid	ESP	2	13	26
=	Diego Costa	ESP	Atletico Madrid	ESP	2	13	26
4	Frode Johnson	NOR	Odds	NOR	1.5	15	22.5
5	Abderrazak Hamdallah	MOR	Aalesund	NOR	1.5	14	21
=	Kamil Bilinski	POL	Zalgiris	LTU	1	21	21
7	Evaldas Razulis	LTU	Atlantas	LTU	1	20	20
8	Marko Devic	UKR	Metalist Kharkiv	UKR	1.5	13	19.5
9	Rimo Hunt	EST	Levadia Tallinn	EST	1	19	19
10	Konstantinos Mitroglou	GRE	Olympiakos	GRE	1.5	12	18

* = league season finished

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 all 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.