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Scoring goals is art, so scoring hat-tricks should be considered a masterpiece. La Liga has been home to some of the most elite goalscorers, from young guns to legends of the game. However, all hat-trick records in La Liga have been dominated by two of the best players in the league's history and this generation. In addition to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, some of the top players in the world have had hat-tricks to their name in the Spanish top-flight.
Honorable mentions for La Liga hat-tricks in the last decade
Since this list features only the best players with the most hat-tricks, some really good players just miss out. Roberto Soldado was a menace in the early parts of the decade, and more recently big-name players like Antoine Griezmann, Gareth Bale and Wissam Ben Yedder have also scored hat-tricks. All of these players have scored three hat-tricks each during their time in La Liga over the last decade.
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With that said, we have considered only the five greatest players with the most La Liga hat-tricks in the last decade on this list:
#5 Neymar Jr. (3) | FC Barcelona
Neymar's move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain is still talked about to this day. After all, it's the most expensive transfer in the history of football. There's always talk about what the Brazilian's career could have been, had he stayed, because he was lighting up the Spanish League during his time at Barcelona.
He was one of three members of arguably the most deadly trio the footballing world had seen. Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar formed a lethal attacking unit that looked unstoppable.
Neymar put on a show in La Liga with his skills but his goal-scoring ability was underrated during his time at the Catalan club. The current PSG number 10 has three hat-tricks to his name in La Liga in the last decade.
One of his hat-tricks came against Rayo Vallecano, where he scored four goals in a single game. An elite talent, Neymar could have been the face of La Liga in the future, if he had not left for PSG.
#4 Radamel Falcao (4) | Atletico Madrid
In a long list of world class strikers produced by Atletico Madrid, it's not easy to forget just how good Radamel Falcao was for Los Rojiblancos. The Colombian was simply unplayable during his peak, scoring 52 goals in just 68 league games for the red side of Madrid. El Tigre enjoyed the most prolific part of his career in La Liga, with hat-tricks being a regular occurrence for the striker.
In his two years in La Liga, the former Porto man scored four stunning hat-tricks to clearly show his goal-scoring abilities. The Colombian was a predator inside the box and had no problems finishing from the tightest of angles.
One of his hat-tricks saw him score five goals in a single game against Deportivo La Coruña during the 2012-13 season, further solidifying his prowess as a lethal finisher. The striker, who currently plays for Turkish club Galatasaray, will go down as one of the elite La Liga goal scorers of the last decade.
#3 Luis Suarez (10) | FC Barcelona
Luis Suarez makes the list as the only player with double-digit hat-tricks apart from the two greatest players in La Liga. It just highlights how underrated the Uruguayan was to the Catalan side and what a grave mistake they made by letting him go. And eventually there was salt in the wounds for all Barcelona fans as Suarez helped Atletico Madrid win La Liga last season.
The former Liverpool striker was nothing short of exemplary during his time at Barcelona, scoring goals for fun. While his 10 hat-tricks with them is a testament to his goal-scoring abilities, Suarez was a complete striker, forming a deadly trio with Neymar and Lionel Messi.
Beyond his hat-tricks, he was also the only player to win the La Liga Golden Boot apart from Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the last decade.
#2 Lionel Messi (31) | FC Barcelona
What more can be said about the magic of Lionel Messi that hasn't been said already. Messi has broken record after record with Barcelona and is without a doubt the greatest player to ever play for the club. He is the club's all-time top goal scorer as well as in La Liga. When you're a record goal scorer, hat-tricks are sure to follow as well.
The Argentine has scored a staggering 31 La Liga hat-tricks for his club since the start of the last decade, the joint most in the competition. He's also scored a four-goal haul in La Liga on four different occasions.
While the former Barcelona number 10 leads the all-time list of La Liga hat-tricks with 36 to his name, Messi only features at number two on this list. This is due to the fact that he took three more La Liga seasons to score the same number of hat-tricks as his greatest rival.
#1 Cristiano Ronaldo (31) | Real Madrid
There's always an ongoing debate about who's the greatest between the two, but Cristiano Ronaldo comes out on top of this list. Despite being second all-time in terms of La Liga hat-tricks, Ronaldo and Messi have equal number of hat-tricks this decade.
Both these legends also hold the joint record for most hat-tricks in a single La Liga season with eight apiece. Despite these equal numbers, it's easy to justify why the Portuguese makes it to the top of this list.
The former Manchester United man took La Liga by storm, becoming the second leading goal-scorer with 311 goals in just 292 appearances. Comparing it to Messi's 474 goals in 520 appearances, it makes you realize just how good Ronaldo was in the new league.
It's also amazing how Ronaldo hit 34 hat-tricks in a matter of nine seasons, starting in 2009 and leaving for Juventus in 2018.
All of the above statistics place Ronaldo slightly ahead of Messi in the list of the most prolific hat-trick scorers in La Liga in the last decade.
