How many goals does Victor Boniface need to defend his Europa League top-scorer crown

With Bayer Leverkusen through to the final of the 2023/2024 UEFA Europa League, Nigerian striker, Victor Boniface can still perform some magic to retain his top-scorer crown in the competition.

Recall that Boniface finished as joint top-scorer in the Europa League last season while representing Belgian side Royal Union Saint Gilloise.

Boniface scored six goals for Belgian club Union SG which reached the quarter-finals before losing to his current side Leverkusen. He shared the award with Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford.

This season, injury has hugely affected the goal returns from the Nigerian forward who has scored five times in the Europa League and trails leading scorer, Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang by five goals ahead of the final match against Atalanta in Dublin.

In Thursday’s semi-final, Victor Boniface was an unused substitute for the recently crowned German champions against AS Roma.

Ahead of the grand-finale, Victor Boniface (5-goals), Patrick Schick (5-goals) and Gianluca Scamacca (6-goals) are in the top-ten list of goalscorers but with significant work to do in one match to level Aubameyang’s 10-goal tally, with the Gabonese forward exiting the tournament in the semis.

2023/2024 UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE GOAL STATS 

In the 2023/24 UEFA Europa League season, Marseille’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leads the goalscoring charts with an impressive tally of ten goals. This achievement not only propelled Marseille but also allowed Aubameyang to surpass Radamel Falcao as the all-time leading scorer in the Europa League, with 34 goals to his name. Trailing behind Aubameyang is Roma’s Romelu Lukaku, who scored seven goals in the competition, followed closely by João Pedro of Brighton and Gianluca Scamacca of Atalanta, both with six goals each.

Assisting Marseille’s Aubameyang, Jonathan Clauss and Amine Harit top the assists rankings with six assists each. Leverkusen’s Alejandro Grimaldo and Florian Wirtz are also notable contributors, with five and four assists, respectively.

When considering both goals and assists combined, Aubameyang continues to shine, being involved in a total of 13 Europa League goals this season. He is followed by Mohamed Salah of Liverpool with nine contributions, while Lukaku, Marseille’s Clauss, and Leverkusen’s Wirtz share eight contributions each.

Additionally, the Europa League witnessed four hat-tricks this season, with Vincenzo Grifo of Freiburg, Michael Gregoritsch of Freiburg, Aubameyang of Marseille, and Benjamin Bourigeaud of Rennes all achieving this feat.

In the history of the Europa League, Radamel Falcao holds the record for the most goals scored in a single campaign, netting an incredible 17 goals for Porto in the 2010/11 season. Other notable top scorers include Olivier Giroud, Aritz Aduriz, and Ciro Immobile, each achieving significant goal tallies in their respective seasons.

EUROPA LEAGUE TOP TEN GOALSCORERS

10 Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Marseille)
7 Romelu Lukaku (Roma)
6 João Pedro (Brighton)
6 Gianluca Scamacca (Atalanta)
5 Victor Boniface (Leverkusen)
5 Michael Gregoritsch (Freiburg)
5 Viktor Gyökeres (Sporting CP)
5 Fotis Ioannidis (Panathinaikos)
5 Juninho (Qarabağ)
5 Mohammed Kudus (West Ham)
5 Darwin Núñez (Liverpool)
5 Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
5 Patrik Schick (Leverkusen)