Predicting the 2023/2024 Champions League top scorers

The Champions League is one of the most challenging competitions in the world, but some players have made it easy to score goals in it over the years.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi made it their playground at the height of their careers before they both left the European scene.

The likes of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland are now looking to take over from them and have started their spell very well.

Last season, the Norwegian won the Golden Boot as he scored 12 goals in 11 games and helped Manchester City to win the title.

That was Haaland's first season at Manchester, and they finally ended their wait to win a Champions League trophy.

The striker has taken centre stage in the football world and is now being tipped to win the next Ballon d'Or ahead of Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.

Haaland was expected to struggle in England after swapping Borussia Dortmund for City, but the striker has now delivered top performances.

We now expect him to begin to show even more of his abilities in the next campaign when City returns to defend their title.

The striker is one of many players who will challenge for the Golden Boot in the next Champions League season, and he is one player fans buy Champions League tickets here so they can watch him score always.

In this article, we consider attackers we believe can end the next campaign with the Golden Boot award and some interesting names feature.

Erling Haaland, Manchester City

We start our list with Haaland. Why not? The Norwegian has solidified himself as a goal machine and proved last season that he can do it in the toughest league in the world.

When Mohamed Salah broke the record for the most goals scored in an individual season in the Premier League, we thought it would take a long time before anyone came close to scoring 32 goals in a league season in England.

However, Haaland scored 36 in 35 matches last season to prove he is one of the best the game has ever seen.

He also scored 12 goals in 11 Champions League games to help Manchester City end the term as Champions of England and Europe.

There have been great strikers in European football, but Haaland is a phenomenon, and we expect him to do even better in the next campaign.

The Norwegian will still get all the support he needs from his teammates at City as he did last season, and probably will even get better as he now understands all the competitions and how City plays.

He might even score as many as 15 goals or more in the UCL now that he knows about the competition and would have most of the same teammates behind him at the club.

Robert Lewandowski, Barcelona

Lewandowski is one of the few unlucky players who were in top form when Messi and Ronaldo were the kings of European football.

The Pole delivered at Borussia Dortmund and turned them into Champions League finalists, having joined them while they were a struggling giant in Germany.

He moved to Bayern Munich and continued to deliver top performances there. He became even better as a player in Bavaria and broke some impressive records.

Now at Barcelona, Lewandowski remains one of the biggest players in the game and plays for a Barca side that is re-emerging from a poor spell.

They won the last La Liga title with him scoring 23 goals in 34 matches, which is impressive, considering that was his first season in a new league since 2010.

The Pole is one player that guarantees goals, and after scoring 91 goals in Champions League matches for different clubs over the years, there is little doubt that he is one of the favourites to end next season as the highest goal-scorers in the competition.

It would be much easier for him to score more goals for Barca when the new term begins because he now knows how the team plays, and they will practice different scoring moves in pre-season before the campaign begins properly.

Kylian Mbappe, PSG/Real Madrid

Kylian Mbappe has told PSG he will not stay at the club beyond next season, and their stance is that he must leave this summer or sign a new deal.

This means the Frenchman could start the next campaign as a player for Real Madrid, but one constant is that he will score goals wherever he goes.

At 24, Mbappe is already a World Cup winner and finalist. He scored a hat trick in the final of Qatar 2022.

At the club level, he is already PSG's leading goal-scorer and is one reason they have competed favourably as the leading team in France over the last few seasons.

The striker will surely be among the Champions League's top scorers if he stays in Paris or moves to Madrid after scoring 34 goals in the competition for PSG since 2018.

Madrid will be prepared to break the world record to take him to their camp, but it seems Mbappe wants to run down his contract at PSG, and there are talks that he might be relegated to a bench role next season.

Victor Osimhen, Napoli

Osimhen fired Napoli to their first league title in three decades as he scored 26 times to help the Naples club deliver the decade-long dream of the Italian state.

Several top European sides are targeting him at the moment, but the Nigerian could very well remain in Naples as Napoli is quoting a huge fee to let their star man leave.

Osimhen was injured when AC Milan eliminated Napoli from the last Champions League at the quarter-final stage.

The Nigerian scored five times in six games in the competition, and it is obvious that he could have helped them overcome their Milan counterpart, especially in the first leg of the game.

If Osimhen remains in Naples or moves to another club, one constant is that he will be one of the top scorers in Europe next term.

He will be the top scorer in Naples, except a change of management significantly affects Napoli, and they have a dismal campaign in Europe.

Marcus Rashford, Manchester United

Rashford was in superb form last season, and it ended as the best in his career since he broke through at the club.

Under Erik Ten Hag, the Englishman found a new lease on life and ended the term with 23 goals in the league and Europa League.

United are back in the Champions League partly because of his fine form in the last campaign, and the England international will take much of it to the European stage.

Ten Hag was the manager of the Ajax side that reached the semi-final of the Champions League in 2019 against all odds, and United fans dream of their fairytale run in the competition next season.

For that to happen, Rashford will be in superb form, and the Englishman seems to finally be getting close to the peak of his career, so we expect him to prove his worth in the Champions League next season.

Lautaro Martinez, Inter Milan

Inter Milan reached the final of the last Champions League after a late turn of form, and they are now arguably the best club in Italy, despite not winning the league.

The Nerazzurri won the league three seasons ago under Antonio Conte, who promptly left them, but they have continued to do well under Simone Inzaghi.

One man who has shouldered most of the club's goal-scoring responsibilities is Lautaro Martinez, and the Argentinian is expected to remain a key man for the team next season.

He scored just three times in 13 Champions League games last season, but the Argentinian is a player with the potential to do much better.

He misses many chances, which is one reason he has scored just a few times, but because he knows how to get into good positions, he remains a player who can score on a good day.

If Inter can get him to finish better, the World Cup winner will certainly be in the running to become one of the top scorers in the Champions League next season.