Golden Shoe 2015-16: Top Goalscorers in Europe, Latest Points and Standings

Benfica star Jonas managed to keep his opponents at bay in the race to the 2015-16 European Golden Shoe, scoring once against Braga to keep his one-goal lead over Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Napoli's Gonzalo Higuain intact.

Ronaldo scored the winner in Saturday's Clasico against Barcelona, and Higuain got on the scoresheet against Udinese the following day, but the Argentina international ran into a red card as well and will have to deal with a suspension.

Barcelona stars Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi failed to find the target this week, as did Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski. That means the gap between the top three and the rest continues to grow, and one of Jonas, Ronaldo and Higuain is now likely to win this year's Golden Shoe.

Here's a look at the latest standings, accurate on the morning of Monday, April 4:

Position	Player	Team	Goals x Factor	Overall
1	Jonas	Benfica	30 x 2.0	60.0
T2.	Cristiano Ronaldo	Real Madrid	29 x 2.0	58.0
T2.	Gonzalo Higuain	Napoli	29 x 2.0	58.0
4.	Luis Suarez	Barcelona	26 x 2.0	52.0
5.	Robert Lewandowski	Bayern Munich	25 X 2.0	50.0
6	Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang	Borussia Dortmund	23 x 2.0	46.0
7	Zlatan Ibrahimovic	PSG	30 x 1.5	45.0
T8	Lionel Messi	Barcelona	22 x 2.0	44.0
T8	Harry Kane	Tottenham Hotspur	22 x 2.0	44.0
10	Neymar	Barcelona	21 x 2.0	42.0

Rules: All leagues are attributed a difficulty constant between one and two, which is then multiplied by the number of goals scored to calculate a final points tally.

For example, Jonas' goals are doubled because the Primeira Liga has the highest difficulty constant, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic's goals are only multiplied by 1.5 due to Ligue 1's lower rating.

In-Form Stars Continue Run

Benfica's 5-1 win over Braga on Friday was as routine as they come, and Jonas scored yet another goal in the easy win to take his tally for the season up to 30.

His team is by far the most in-form side in Portugal right now, and Friday's match was a prime example―Braga entered the contest in fourth place in the standings and had lost just one of their last five domestic matches, per WhoScored.com.

As shared by Jan Hagen of Sport Witness, scoring frequently hasn't been a hard thing to do for Benfica's duo of Jonas and Kostas Mitroglou:

While that's good news for Jonas' chances of finishing the season at the top of these rankings, the fact the Portuguese league has only 18 teams is a major setback. Benfica will play just 34 matches this season, which is two less than Napoli or Real Madrid.

Higuian has led these rankings for most of the season, but a controversial second yellow card in the 3-1 loss against Udinese may have killed his chances of winning the Golden Shoe.

As you can see in the video below, he completely lost it after he was given a―harsh―red for an incident off the ball and put his hands on the official:

According to Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia), his decision to go after the official could lead to a three-match suspension, and if Ronaldo and Jonas keep scoring at the same rate, his bid to finish the season as Europe's top scorer may be over by the time he returns.

His manager Maurizio Sarri thought the international break may have had an impact on the match, and he backed his star striker, per Mediaset Premium (h/t beIN Sports):

"

Gonzalo is attached to this shirt, he felt the victim of an injustice and reacted with anger.

I think the Italian league has seen much worse.

It was a difficult game, Udinese played perhaps their best match of the season.

It was impossible to do better. We have many South American players who had a single workout with us having spent dozens of hours on the plane.

"

Out of the current favourites to win the Golden Shoe, Ronaldo seems to be in the best position after Saturday's 2-1 win over Barcelona. The 31-year-old bagged a late winner to take his season tally up to 29, just one behind Jonas.

Here's a look at the goal, via MrRealmadrid7cr1, which came after a wonderful cross from Gareth Bale:

Per WhoScored.com, Ronaldo has scored at least once in four of his five last domestic matches, and he's had multiple-goal outings throughout the season.

With the exception of the clash with Villarreal later this month, Los Blancos will mainly face lower-ranked teams for the rest of the season, including the likes of Rayo Vallecano and Valencia, who have struggled defensively.

Add Eibar and Getafe to that list, and Ronaldo should have plenty of opportunities to boost his tally and finish the season with more than 35 goals, barring an injury. As of right now, he's the favourite to win the Golden Shoe yet again, which would be his third in a row.

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