Champions League Top Goalscorer – Mbappe Leads the Odds
As we approach the final five games of the UEFA Champions League season, it’s time to start giving more thought to award winners. Best players and top scorers, specifically. We’re entering a very intriguing end-of-season race, with realistically only two players likely to win the top scorer award. Who do the Irish bookmakers reckon has the best shot of winning the Golden Boot?
The Clear Favourite: Kylian Mbappe (But…)
So, at the front of the pack is the wonderful Kylian Mbappe. If you want to back the Frenchman taking home the award, Bet365 are offering odds of 4/9.
The Frenchman has plundered a comical record of fifteen goals in the UCL this season, putting away around 27% of his chances. That’s a great return, as is his return of a goal every 61 minutes. 15 goals in 11 games is remarkable.
He’s currently sitting at a ridiculous return of 70 UCL goals in 98 games; he’s got as good a chance as anyone of beating Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 140 goals in 183 games. However, the fact that his team are out of the tournament – and the next favourite is still scoring away for fun, and in the competition – is an interesting spanner in the works!
The Contender: Harry Kane
12 goals in 11 games is never something to be sniffed at, and Kane continued his scoring run in the UCL with another goal against Real Madrid in the home leg victory on Wednesday night. If you fancy backing record-breaking Kane to win the top scorer award, you’ll get odds of 7/4 at Bet365.
The English forward has developed into one of the most fearsome strikers in world football – arguably the best of his generation alongside Robert Lewandowski – and he could easily take home the UCL title this year. He’s already in the top ten of all time for UCL goals, scoring 52 goals in just 68 games.
Given he’s spent large periods of his career out of the UCL with Tottenham, his return is even more impressive. A finalist in 2019 with Spurs – albeit mostly injured in the final – he could finally win the coveted ‘big ears’ and claim the top scorer prize. The fact that he’s still in the tournament obviously helps his cause; to win it, he would need four goals in three games. For Kane, that’s not impossible.
The Outsiders
There are only two other players who have even a mild chance of winning the top-scorer prize: Julian Alvarez of Atletico Madrid and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia of Paris Saint-Germain. However, Bet365’s offering of 50/1 odds for Alvarez and 80/1 odds for ‘Kvaradona’ tells you all you need to know!
Alvarez has hit nine goals and contributed four assists; he’s been the most prolific of Atletico’s main forwards. Kvaratshkelia, meanwhile, has plundered 8 goals and 5 assists so far for PSG. Neither really has much of a shot at winning the top scorer award, though it would be unwise to bet against PSG winning the title again.
Really, Alvarez is the clear outlier purely because his team is the ‘least best’ of the remaining four, and he’s got a six-goal margin to make up just to catch Mbappe at the top. If you are looking for a sensible bet on UCL top scorer, it’s either Kane to usurp Mbappe or the Frenchman to finish top scorer despite not playing in the semi-finals or final.