5 players apart from Ronaldo and Messi who could realistically win the Pichichi in 2015/16

Messi and Ronaldo have won the Pichichi trophy thrice in the last six seasonsIn football, the Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi rivalry is certainly going beyond the phase of enthusiasm now. No longer do events like the Ballon d’Or or the Golden Boot exude the amount of gusto like they once did because people already know that one of Ronaldo or Messi is going to win it. The rest are there just to fill up the space.However, there is a slight glimmer of hope, at least by what we are witnessing in the first phase of the season, that someone not named Messi or Ronaldo might just win the award for the top goalscorer in the La Liga season – the Pichichi Trophy.We take a look at five other contenders who can stake a claim to the award which has been won by Ronaldo and Messi in the past six years.

#6 Honourable mentions

Will Antoine Griezmann top Atletico Madrid’s goalscoring charts again this season?

While it is quite impossible to see a non-Messi-Cristiano player score 40 league goals this season, we can let our fantasies run loose a little because, who knows, miracles do happen and it could happen this year in the form of the aforementioned 5 players.

However, there are some more players who deserve a mention but are very, very unlikely trouble the elite duo.

Antione Griezmann has had a terrific start to the season and is the top scorer for Atletico Madrid so far. He is a constant scoring threat but isn’t the type of player who can score in every game. Similarly, Iago Aspas and Nolito have also made a superb start to the season, but they aren’t 40 goals-a-season players.

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#5 Aritz Aduriz - Athletic Bilbao

The Basque player is one of the best late-blooming strikers in the game and his constant knack of finding the net puts him on this list. However, he is the least likely to accomplish this herculean feat. But who knows?

The former Valencia man has been scoring for fun this year and has, thus far, scored 4 league goals and has been one of the few bright spots in Athletic’s underwhelming start to the season. So much so that fans look solely at him for rescuing the team from dire situations.

They have used the ‘hoof-the-ball-to-Aduriz-and-hope-for-the-best’ tactic that and his current form has helped them get out of sticky situations. At 34, he is unlikely to be at his best for long, but the candle sparks brightest just before fading away and that might just be enough.

Not a great suggestion but one could bet a small amount on him and hope that he pulls off a miracle, making the said person a millionaire by the end of the season.

#4 Jackson Martinez - Atletico Madrid

Since the departure of Diego Costa to Chelsea, the absence of a fiery goal-machine would have been felt (coupled with the dark arts of the game) at the Vicente Calderon. This season, however, that void has been filled, and that too without the murky sides, with the arrival of Jackson Martinez.

A genuine goalscorer, he is yet to blast onto the scene for the Rojiblancos. But he is one of those players who can consistently score 30 goals every season – his time at Porto is an apt testament to that. And it is for this reason that he cost Atletico Madrid a fortune. His cunning off-the-ball movements and a blistering turn of pace confuse many defenders, allowing him to score a number of goals.

Currently, he has found the net only once for his new team, but it is only a matter of time before starts banging them in week in and week out. And, like Ruud van Nistelrooy once said, once the ketchup starts falling from the bottle, it doesn’t stop.

#3 Neymar - Barcelona

At only 23 years of age, he has established himself as one of the most revered forwards in the world and his performances give a good example why. He was unarguably the most coveted player while he was at Santos and his records since transferring to Europe is proof of his world class quality.

Currently, he leads Barcelona’s scoring charts in La Liga with 4 goals in 6 games and has taken a huge burden of scoring from Lionel Messi, whom he can now outrun given his knee injury. Also, the fact that the defensive responsibility expected of him goes down by a landslide with the absence of the Argentine could help him be more expressive.

Last season, he scored 22 goals in 33 league games – something he will definitely have to improve on if he has to break barriers. Although he has never scored more times in the league than the aforementioned figure, he has all the necessary skills to do so and is someone who could be looked at as the adequate one.

#2 Karim Benzema - Real Madrid

The current leader in the race for the Pichichi, Karim Benzema has never really exploded as the goalscorer that many hoped he would. Not that it is a bad thing since his game is built more around sophisticated playmaking that helps his fellow attackers.

With Lionel Messi out injured and the Portuguese having an on-and-off patch of form, the Frenchman could seize the moment to do the impossible. His surge has taken a hit, though, as he injured himself while on international duty and will definitely miss a game at least.

However, the part that seems inscrutable about him is that he has a tendency to miss sitters, even when he is having a terrific game and isn’t as hungry for goals like the other two. This could put him back a little.

He won’t be out for long, though. And with the kind of form that he finds himself in, and the freedom in Benitez’s 4-3-1-2/4-4-2, he could just take this down the wire.

#1 Luis Suarez - Barcelona

Suarez is the most likely to win the Pichichi after Messi and Ronaldo. The former Liverpool player is a scoring machine himself and his time at Ajax and Liverpool are a testament to that. When Messi and Ronaldo were beginning to make 50-goals-a-season the norm, Suarez did the same as he finished the 2009/10 season with 49 goals in all competition for Ajax.

Since then, however, he hasn’t been able to replicate that feat as only once after that has he been able to break the 30 goals barrier. But despite being banned for the first few months of his Barcelona career, he ended up scoring a respectable 25 goals.

The key thing that makes him the most likely to be the one to stake a claim is because of his playing position at the Catalan club. He is the closest to goal and, in the absence of Messi, he becomes the focal point and main scorer in the system.

So far this season, he has scored three goals in six games. But if he can repeat history again, then there might just be a glimmer of hope for the Uruguayan striker.