Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and from very recently, Baghdad Bounedjah.
Not every season a Middle Eastern player is grabbing a top spot in the worldwide top scorers' chart, but in the past weekend, Al-Sadd’s Algerian striker made worldwide headlines.
In his team’s 4-1 victory against Al-Shahaniya last week, Bounedjah was again on the score-sheet, the 7th match in-a-row, with a brace, but this time it was special. With these two goals, the 27 years old has set a new record in the Qatari League, as he became the player to score the most goals in a single season - 29.
The amazing thing is Bounedjah made it in only 14 games (!), while former record holder, Clemerson, has scored 27 goals in 27 games back in 2007. Bounedjah is a true goal machine. Earlier this season, he scored 7 goals in one match, when Al-Sadd has beaten Al-Arabi 10-1 in the league.
All in all, in 2018, he nailed no less than 58 goals, standing above players like Lionel Messi & Cristiano Ronaldo, (who scored 47 & 45 respectively). Bounedjah has scored 39 goals in 19 Qatari Super League matches, 13 goals in 12 Asian Champions League matches, 6 goals in 8 games with the Algerian national team and played two matches in the Qatari Crown Prince Cup without scoring.
In total: 42 matches, 58 goals and a ratio of 1.38 goals per game. That’s almost surrealistic for the Algerian, who grew up in Oran, as he consistently paves his way up in Middle Eastern football.
With another goal in the win against Al-Duhail this week, it seems that the world’s top scorer for 2018 will come from the Middle East, while he is setting the stage for a European move soon, as rumours already connect him to Olympique Marseille from the French Ligue 1 and Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United .