Which European forward will be first to lay claim to Lionel Messi’s double-double crown?
Even though he no longer plays in a major European league, the shadow of Lionel Messi continues to loom.
The 36-year-old, now plying his trade in Major League Soccer for Inter Miami, recently picked up a record-extending eighth Ballon d’Or.
His excellence is now the standard — rightly or wrongly — by which forwards are measured. There may never be another like him, but the Argentine consistently produced when it came to scoring goals and creating them.
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Since the start of the 2007/08 season, Messi bagged at least 10 goals and 10 assists in 15 of his 16 league campaigns for boyhood club Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. The only failure to — to borrow a basketball term — rack up a double-double came in his debut campaign in France.
Among those playing in Europe’s top seven leagues during the 2022/23 campaign, no fewer than 13 players (including Messi) hit double figures for both goals and assists.
So far, we await the first to achieve this feat this season. However, some are very close.
Within touching distance
Without Messi and his nemesis Cristiano Ronaldo, there’s a credible argument to be made that Mohamed Salah is the best footballer playing on this continent. Since joining Liverpool, he’s been nothing short of ruthlessly consistent, managing a double-double in five of his previous six campaigns.
Salah, who is currently nursing a hamstring injury while on international duty, is two assists away from making it six seasons from eight at Anfield in which he has achieved a double-double. The sole blemish so far came in 2020/21 when he scored 22 goals but ended up with five assists.
This may look like like new ground for Viktor Gyökeres, who swapped Covernty for Sporting last summer, but it felt like it was coming following a productive final Championship season (21 goals and 10 assists). However, this is also the Swede’s first real run in a first-tier season; he was previously an unused subroutine in three Brighton games during their 2018/19 campaign.
Gyökeres, having scored 13 goals, needs two assists, like Salah, which could very well come before the Egyptian’s next outing for Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Treble needed
While he is no stranger to producing a double-double, it’s been a while since Luuk de Jong managed one. His last came in 2017/18 when he posted 12 goals and 10 assists for PSV, where he’s since returned and hasn’t let up. De Jong needs three more assists to claim a fifth double-double (alongside 15 goals so far), and that doesn’t seem too far away, given how utterly rampant PSV’s attack is under Peter Bosz.
A one-time Premier League player, De Jong never reached the heights of Olivier Giroud; but the Frenchman has only pulled off this feat once before, and that came in his final season with Montpellier. Giroud was one assist shy in the 2013/14 season from doing so in Arsenal red. He can make amends with AC Milan, as he needs to provide three more assists to complement those 10 goal.
Another in a similar boat is Victor Boniface; the Nigerian forward has stood out for Bayern Leverkusen with his 10 goals, but he’s currently sidelined.
A brace away
Someone quietly enjoying a productive campaign is former Manchester City man Leroy Sané, who ranks number one across Europe’s top seven leagues when it comes to assists. The Bayern Munich forward was the first to reach double figures in this metric. That leaves Sané needing two goals to produce a third double-double, and his first since 2018/19 when he was playing under Pep Guardiola.
One crazy performance
Likely, the first player to achieve this impressive feat in 2023/24 will come from those who have already posted double figures in one of the required statistics. But football is a funny old game. For example, Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins needs one more goal and two assists.
That could easily happen in a single game.
Bayer Leverkusen wing-back Álex Grimaldo has an outside chance after incredibly posting seven goals and eight assists. His former Benfica teammate Rafa needs one more assist but four goals, much like Borussia Dortmund midfielder Julian Brandt, though the German international has one fewer assist..
