A history of La Liga top scorers and shifting records
Not so long ago, Spanish football lived and breathed by the race for the top scorer title in every season. There were years when Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo lit up the standings, regularly surpassing 40 goals and sometimes averaging more than a goal per day. The apex of this scoring era arrived in the 2011-12 season, when Argentina’s Messi hit 50 and Portugal’s Ronaldo finished with 46, a historic landmark for La Liga.
Fast forward a decade, and the landscape in the Spanish First Division looks different in this respect. The most recently completed season crowned Karim Benzema as the top scorer for the first time in a long, storied career, with 24 goals. That tally stands out, because it’s a rare figure in the modern era of La Liga and harks back to seasons when a similar low-water mark for the leading scorer hadn’t occurred since Ronaldo Nazario in 2003/04 and Diego Tristán with 21 in 2001/02.
Aspas, Vinicius, De Tomas…
Benzema is, in fact, the only player to reach 20 goals this season, meaning he is the sole striker to average more than a goal every two games. Close behind him are Iago Aspas with 18, Vinicius Junior with 17, and Raul De Tomas with 17, according to the competition statistics compiled by El Periódico de España.
The season’s data marks a departure from recent La Liga trends. In the previous years, several forwards crossed the 20-goal threshold, including Lionel Messi with 30, Gerard Moreno with 23, Benzema with 23, and Luis Suárez with 21. Messi left Barcelona, Moreno’s appearances were limited, and Suárez’s effectiveness waned with age, illustrating a shift in the attacking landscape.
The record for most players scoring 20 or more goals in a season was set in 2015/16 with seven players reaching that mark. In the last 15 years, roughly five players per season have hit twenty, but going back to 2001/02 reveals a different era when only one player reached 20, as Tristán did with 21, followed by Morientes and Kluivert with 18 the next season.
The drop in top scorers also mirrors the total goals scored by all teams across 38 rounds. The latest season is not the least productive in recent memory, but it does show a gradual downward trend in overall scoring.
The 38-match season of 2016/17 still boasted the league’s highest total with 1,118 goals, averaging 29.4 per match. Between 2007 and 2018, totals consistently exceeded a thousand goals each season, but a downturn followed. The 2021/22 season closed with 951 goals, about 25 per date and 2.5 per game, the fourth-lowest figure of this century.
Multiple factors influence this downward trend, and no single cause fully explains it. The introduction of video assistant referee technology in 2018/19 is often cited as one contextual change that may have contributed to changing scoring dynamics, even as the league continues to grow in other areas.
Benzema will not appeal sentence for blackmailing Valbuena
Efe
Without Cristiano and Messi
The summer of 2018 marked Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure from Real Madrid to Juventus and the last season in which Messi surpassed the 30-goal threshold. In the following years, the market for top forwards cooled somewhat. Of the ten most expensive forwards signed in those seasons, only a handful actually delivered 20 goals in a season, and some have since moved away from Spain. The aging curve also affected legends like Luis Suárez, who saw a decline in effectiveness as time passed.
Meanwhile, forwards have become more common in other leagues. The German Bundesliga, with its shorter season and high-scoring talent pool, produced a new wave of prolific strikers, including Robert Lewandowski who was highlighted by Barcelona as a reference point for elite goal scorers.
In the English Premier League, the trend mirrors a past shift in La Liga. Achieving 22 or 23 goals has repeatedly been enough to claim the golden boot in recent seasons, underscoring how competition across Europe has evolved. As real-time developments unfold, recognizable names in La Liga such as Vinicius, Ansu Fati, and Danjuma are expected to intensify the scoring race again. Griezmann’s continued presence among top scorers and Aubameyang’s ongoing form also contribute to Spain’s enduring identity as a land of artillery, even if the path back to dominance in this metric is not straightforward.
Ultimately, the story of La Liga’s scorers is a portrait of changing teams, changing styles, and a shifting balance of power across Europe. The numbers reflect not only talent but also the evolving tactical landscape, transfer market dynamics, and the emergence of new generations ready to push the record books once more.