Coronavirus: How the Golden Shoe will finish if season ends now

The coronavirus pandemic that has led to much of Europe being locked down has also left the sporting season up in the air, with no clear picture as to whether the suspended competitions, including LaLiga Santander, the Premier League, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, will be completed, with no club yet having claimed victory.

Golden Shoe not yet decided

Another competition left up in the air by Covid-19 is the 2019-2020 Golden Shoe, which recognises the top scorer in the the European leagues. (Note: the competition used to be called the Golden Boot, but is called the Golden Shoe by current organisers European Sports Media). Currently no decision has been taken as to what will happen if there is no more football played in a number of leagues this season - whether the Golden Shoe will be awarded on the basis of the goalscoring charts at the point most football stopped, or whether the prize simply won't be handed out.

If the Golden Boot 2019-2020 were to be awarded on the current standings the winner would be Ciro Immobile, who has hit 27 goals for Lazio, giving him 54 points to head the table, with goals in Serie being worth 2 points. Goals in the big five European leagues receive a 2-point coefficient, the next biggest leagues, for example Austria, 1.5 and the smaller leagues 1 point.

The Leo Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo duopoly

Clasificación actual de la Bota de Oro

Immobile would be the first Italian to take the award since the Leo Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo duopoly, which has only been broken by the Uruguayans Luis Suárez and Diego Forlan. Just before Ronaldo's arrival on the scene two Italians claimed the title: Francesco Totti in 2006-2007 and Luca Toni in 2005-2006.

Roberto Lewandowski would be second, with 25 goals for Bayern Munich, giving him 50 points. The 31-year-old Polish striker had a spectacular start to the season and how shown how the advancing years have done little to put the brakes on his goal-scoring abilities. Entirely the same as the player in third place: Cristiano Ronaldo, who at 35 had scored 21 for Juventus and notched in 11 successive league games for club, ignoring the match against Brescia for which he wasn't called up.

The Portuguese number 7, with 42 points is tied with Timo Werner (RB Leipzig) and Erling Haaland who has in fact scored four more goals than Ronaldo this season, but with his first 16 only counting at a coefficient of 1.5 as they were in Austria for RB Salzburg - his next 9 counting at 2 each, coming for his new club Borussia Dortmund.

Messi back in sixth

Next on the list is Leo Messi, the current champion, who has scored 19 for Barcelona, giving him 38 points. He's also set up 12 goals for his team-mates, but of course assists count for nothing in the Golden Shoe.

Messi has not been out of the top three since 2015-16, the year Luis Suárez won it, followed by Gonzalo Higuaín and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Europe's top scorer: Erik Sorga

The player with the highest number of goals in Europe is not even in the top 10. That distinction goes to Erik Sorga, who scored 31 for Flora Tallin in their last campaign - the one which counts for the 19/20 Golden Shoe - but with a coefficient of 1 his points tally sees him well off the top of the table.

At the moment it's still to be seen what will happen to the Golden Shoe, with the majority of football suspended in Europe. Some players however do still have the chance of adding to their tallies, with leagues still being played in Turkey and Russia for example. Alexander Sörloth (Trabzonspor) and Ilya Shkurin (CSKA Moscow), who are tied in 20th position with 19 goals and 28.5 points, still have the possibility to add to their totals.