The 10 players with the most goals + assists in a major European league season since 2000
Mohamed Salah is enjoying himself one of the greatest individual campaigns we’ve seen in the modern era.
Liverpool’s Egyptian King is well on course to break the Premier League record for goals and assists in a season, but he’s still some way off reaching the mindblowing figures notched by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in La Liga.
With 21 goals and 13 assists so far, Salah is currently tracking to end the 2024-25 campaign with 56 goal contributions. That would smash the Premier League record of 47 held by Alan Shearer and Andy Cole in the early 90s, as well as the 38-game record of 44 held by Thierry Henry (2002-03) and Erling Haaland (2022-23).
However, no Premier League player features in the top 10 for combined goals and assists in a major European league in the 21st century. That list is dominated players from La Liga, and two names in particular.
Before we get cracking on the top 10, an honourable mention to some of the incredible individual campaigns that didn’t quite make it:
Lionel Messi notched 46 goal contributions in three La Liga campaigns (2016-17, 2017-18 and 2019-20) as well as 44 in 2009-10, Cristiano Ronaldo notched 46 in 2015-16, Ciro Immobile registered 45 combined goals and assists in the 2019-20 Serie A campaign and Kylian Mbappe did the same in the 2021-22 Ligue 1 season. Robert Lewandowski just misses out with 48 for Bayern Munich in the 2020-21 Bundesliga season.
Without further ado, here’s the top 10:
10. Lionel Messi – 49 – 2010-11
31 goals, 18 assists
This was around the time that Messi transcended the ‘best in the world’ debates and started to be considered among the greatest players of all time in his early twenties, such was the ridiculousness of what he was producing on a weekly basis.
The star man when Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Barcelona were at their absolute pomp, winning a third successive La Liga title with a mammoth 96-point haul (and the Champions League to boot).
Incredibly, that year Messi scored nine goals fewer than that year’s Pichichi winner (more on him later) and only tied Real Madrid’s Mesut Ozil for the most assists. Jose Mourinho’s Blancos only finished four points off Barca. The competition was fierce.
The best, of course, would be yet to come…
9. Lionel Messi – 49 – 2018-19
36 goals, 13 assists
The only entry from the last seven years to feature, Messi really stepped up in his early thirties to guide Ernesto Valverde’s Barcelona to a second successive league title following the departure of Neymar and severely questionable recruitment under Josep Maria Bartomeu.
That year Barcelona finished a colossal 19 points ahead of third-placed Real Madrid, while Messi ended up both La Liga’s top goalscorer and assister.
His efforts were recognised later that year with a record sixth Ballon d’Or, and his first in four years.
8. Cristiano Ronaldo – 51 – 2010-11
40 goals, 11 assists – 2913 minutes
Back to 2010-11.
Ronaldo won his first Pichichi award with 40 La Liga goals – a tally that was, at that point, an all-time record.
That season Real Madrid were pipped to the title by Messi’s Barcelona, and dumped out by their old rivals in the Champions League semi-finals, but Ronaldo did at least pick up some silverware by scoring the match-winning header in the Copa del Rey final.
All three competitions that year came down to four Clasicos in 18 days. An unforgettable saga.
READ: ‘We’re the best, f*ck you’: The story of Barca & Real’s four Clasicos in 18 days
7. Zlatan Ibrahimovic – 51 – 2015-16
38 goals, 13 assists – 2553 minutes
The only player from outside La Liga to feature in this top 10, Ibra’s final year in the French capital was arguably the finest of his career.
He missed out on the European Golden Shoe to a certain Uruguayan, but he made Ligue 1 look like child’s play. PSG finished 31 points clear of runners-up Lyon.
Incredibly, the Swede only started 29 of PSG’s 38 games that years and missed seven entirely. His rate of a goal or assist every 50 minutes isn’t far off the all-timer at the top of this list.
6. Luis Suarez – 56 – 2015-16
40 goals, 16 assists
In twelve successive seasons between 2009 and 2021, either Messi or Ronaldo picked up the Pichichi award. Except one.
Having helped fire Barcelona to the treble in his debut season, Suarez hit new heights in year two. He topped the scoring charts with five more goals than Ronaldo and tied Messi at the top of the assists chart with 16.
Luis Enrique’s Barcelona pipped Madrid to the title to the title by just one point that season, with Suarez’s contributions proving the difference maker. Yet he somehow didn’t even make the Ballon d’Or podium that year.
READ NEXT: The 10 players with the most goals + assists in Premier League history: Salah overtakes Henry…
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the top 50 goalscorers across Europe’s major leagues since 2000?
5. Cristiano Ronaldo – 58 – 2011-12
46 goals, 12 assists
One of the best seasons of Ronaldo’s career, he thrived as the focal point for Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid as they finished the season with a record number of points (100) and goals scored (121), leaving Guardiola’s Barcelona eating their dust.
Yet he only finished runner-up in the top scorers chart and a distant fourth in the top assisters that season. Daft.
4. Lionel Messi – 58 – 2012-13
46 goals, 12 assists
Another season, another miraculous Messi return. Barcelona reclaimed their La Liga crown in 2012-13, inspired to match Madrid’s 100-point tally from the season before with their talisman at the very top of his game.
The remarkable thing about that year is that Messi missed a portion through injury. There were 10 league games he didn’t start and six he missed entirely.
That meant that he was registering a direct goal contribution every 45 minutes. A goal or an assist in every half of football he played, on average. We’ll surely never see the like ever again.
3. Lionel Messi – 61 – 2014-15
43 goals, 18 assists
Yes, him again.
Imagine a season in which you score 43 goals and provide a further 18 assists and don’t come out on top for goal contributions that year.
Messi won’t care much about that, given that he got his hands on the La Liga trophy – as well as the Champions League and Copa del Rey – after dovetailing sensationally with a pair of fellow South Americans.
That year Barcelona’s fearsome trident notched a combined 81 goals and 39 assists. In La Liga alone.
READ: The top 10 goalscorers in the history of Europe’s top five leagues: Messi or Ronaldo top?
2. Cristiano Ronaldo – 64 – 2014-15
48 goals, 16 assists
Ronaldo’s best-ever season for both goals and assists. Unfortunately for him, his outrageous exploits counted for little that year.
Real Madrid ended the season empty-handed as Barcelona’s front three of Messi, Suarez and Neymar fired Barcelona to a historic treble.
That’s gotta sting.
1. Lionel Messi – 66 – 2011-12
50 goals, 16 assists
Who else but him?
Three of the top four best goals and assists seasons of the 21st century belong to the Argentinian, and five of the top 10. No Premier League player has ever notched more than 44 combined goals and assists in a 38-game campaign. Messi did so in La Liga eight times.
Unbelievably, Messi’s historic 50-goal season didn’t end with the league title. Only once in the entire history of Europe’s five major leagues – Dixie Dean with 60 goals for Everton in 1927-28 – has a player scored more.
The 2011-12 season was Barcelona’s era of dominance under Guardiola come to an end. The legendary manager waved goodbye with another Copa del Rey, but they finished 15 points behind Mourinho’s record-breaking Madrid.
Ronaldo, as mentioned above, finished four goals behind Messi in the Pichichi race. But Mesut Ozil notched one more assist, while Angel Di Maria had as many. No wonder Los Blancos scored a record 121 La Liga goals that year.