Barcelona star Lionel Messi has been awarded a record third Golden Shoe trophy after finishing with the most league goals in Europe last season.
The Argentina ace netted 46 times in La Liga as the Catalan giants reclaimed their title back from Real Madrid and he was presented with the trophy in Barcelona on Wednesday.
Messi, 26, also won the award following the 2009/10 season, when he scored 34 goals, and again after the 2011/12 campaign when he found the back of the net 50 times.
He scored 31 times in the 2010/11 season but that was not enough to win the Golden Shoe with Cristiano Ronaldo taking the honours after notching 40 times for Madrid.
Messi, who is currently sidelined for eight weeks with a hamstring injury, is the only player to win the trophy three times.
A modest Messi said after being presented with the trophy by former Barca and Bulgaria forward Hristo Stoichkov, who was joint-winner in 1990: "I dedicate this award to my family, to the people who are there in the toughest times, and my team-mates.
"I want to thank them because without them I wouldn't have achieved anything. It's a prize for the squad."
Regarding his injury and the possibility of being back in action by 2014, Messi said: "I'm better, improving little by little, I'm nearly without any pain and starting to do little things.
"I haven't put a return date, if everything goes well this will be the date (first game of next year) to return, but we'll see how the recovery goes. It will happen when it has to happen."
Messi enjoyed a typically successful start to the season with eight goals in 11 Primera Divison appearances before tearing his hamstring against Real Betis earlier this month.
However, his chances of winning a fourth Golden Shoe this season will have been badly hit by that injury, with Ronaldo already having notched 16 times in La Liga this term, with two hat-tricks in his last three matches.
Not that Messi is overly concerned about that, saying: "It's not my objective to win a fourth. It wasn't even when I was fit, much less now.
"I have to strengthen my body so that nothing else happens, so that I can play with calm and without injury."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article