Will Cristiano Ronaldo win the AFC Champions League Elite Golden Boot?
The AFC Champions League Elite reaches its finals stage this month as Saudi Arabia hosts the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final at the end of April. Three Saudi clubs – Al Ahli, Al Hilal and Al Nassr – are among the eight teams vying for continental glory.
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But beyond winning Asia's top club trophy, there is a secondary prize at stake for eight individuals still competing in this season's ACL Elite. One of them will become the first winner of the new-look tournament's Golden Boot – awarded to the competition's top scorer.
Al Nassr captain Cristiano Ronaldo, Al Hilal's Saudi Arabian skipper Salem al-Dawsari and Al Ahli winger Riyad Mahrez are among those players in contention. Here, Al Arabiya English examines the octet of players out to become Asia's leading goal scorer.
Jasir Asani (Gwangju) – 9 Goals
The surprise name currently at the top of the ACL Elite scoring charts is Jasir Asani of South Korea's competition debutant Gwangju. Just a couple of years ago, Asani was playing in Hungary for now-Second Division side Kisvarda; fast forward to 2025 and he is fending off the likes of Ronaldo and Mahrez in a bid to be Asia's top scorer, having led the race for the Golden Boot since the very first game week.
He scored a hat-trick in Gwangju's opening 7-3 victory over last season's losing finalist Yokohama F. Marinos, and has particularly thrived against Japanese opposition. The Albanian winger also netted the winning goal against Kawasaki Frontale in the group stage before inspiring Gwangju's come-from-behind win over Vissel Kobe in the last-16. Gwangju lost the first leg 2-0 but Asani's late penalty levelled the tie at 2-2 in the second leg, before the 29-year-old hit the match-winning goal with two minutes left in extra-time to send his team through.
Salem al-Dawsari (Al Hilal) – 8 Goals
A more familiar name sits just behind Asani in the top scorer rankings, with Al Hilal's captain Salem al-Dawsari having netted eight times this season. The two players will come face to face when Al Hilal meets Gwangju in the quarter-finals. Al-Dawsari's standout game so far was Al Hilal's 5-4 away victory over reigning champion Al Ain, in which he scored a 30-minute hat-trick to help his team gain a modicum revenge after losing to the Emiratis in last year's semi-final.
The 2021 AFC Champions League MVP and 2022 Asian Player of the Year also found the net against Al Shorta, Persepolis and Al Wasl, while he put the punctuation mark on Al Hilal's last-16 triumph over Pakhtakor with his team's fourth goal in a 4-0 win. The 33-year-old is one of the continent's most decorated individuals but has never claimed an AFC Golden Boot trophy.
Al Dawsari is currently fifth on the list of all-time leading goal scorers in the AFC Champions League on 29 goals and has a realistic chance of leapfrogging Brazilian Elkeson (30) and former Green Falcons star Nasser al-Shamrani (32) should Hilal progress further in this year's ACL Elite. The Saudi captain has already made more appearances (100) than any other player in the history of the competition; should he win his first AFC Golden Boot award it would cement his status as one of Asia's greatest ever players.
Riyad Mahrez (Al Ahli) – 8 Goals
One of two men level with Al Dawsari on eight goals is Al Ahli star Riyad Mahrez. The Algerian ace was a winner of the UEFA Champions League with Manchester City in 2023 and has taken to Asia's equivalent competition like a duck to water in his maiden campaign. Mahrez has scored in each of his past four games for Ahli, including a brace in the last-16 second-leg win against Qatar's Al Rayyan. Having also contributed seven assists, no-one in this season's ACL Elite has more than Mahrez's 15 goal contributions.
The Algerian's performances have helped Al Ahli emerge as a genuine contender to win its first ever AFC Champions League title, with Matthias Jaissle's side the only unbeaten team left in this season's competition. The 2016 African Footballer of the Year scored 20 goals in the UEFA Champions League during his time with Leicester City and Manchester City, with seven of those coming in knockout games – against RB Leipzig, Sporting, Real Madrid, PSG and Borussia Dortmund. Ahli will be hoping he can replicate that sort of return in this season's ACL Elite finals stage.
Anderson Lopes (Yokohama F. Marinos) – 8 Goals
Another player who loves to score in continental knockout matches is Yokohama F. Marinos striker Anderson Lopes. The Brazilian's goals helped Yokohama reach last year's final, with Lopes netting in every round apart from the two-legged showpiece against Al Ain. He picked up where he left off this season and has bagged eight goals in his past eight games to help his team progress to a quarter-final against Al Nassr.
Lopes' eight-goal haul includes a match-winning strike in the last-16 first leg away to Chinese Double winner Shanghai Port, while he added two more in a comfortable 4-1 home victory a week later. Lopes would actually be joint-top in the race for the ACL Elite Golden Boot but had the misfortune of having one of his goals chalked off. He scored against Shandong Taishan in the East Asian group stage but the Chinese club was later disqualified from this season's competition – meaning Lopes' goal in the 2-2 draw no longer counted.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Al Nassr) – 7 Goals
Aiming to end Lopes' hopes of winning the Golden Boot is Al Nassr captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who will be leading his side's line against Yokohama in their quarter-final on April 26. Ronaldo is a seven-time UEFA Champions League Golden Boot winner, as well as the European competition's all-time record goal scorer with 140 goals. He has starred in the AFC Champions League too since arriving at Al Nassr, netting six times as the club reached the quarter-finals last year and surpassing that total already this season.
In the 2024-25 campaign, Ronaldo has only featured in six of Al Nassr's 10 matches but has averaged more than a goal per game. Among his seven goals were successive doubles against Qatar's Al Gharafa and UAE's Al Wasl in the group stage. The Portuguese No. 7 has only failed to find the net once – against Esteghlal – in this season's tournament, though he did break through the Iranians' defense at the second attempt; having missed the 0-0 last-16 first leg draw, Ronaldo made a scoring return to the starting XI to helping Stefano Pioli's team to a 3-0 second-leg win that sent it through.
Akram Afif (Al Sadd), Aleksandar Mitrovic (Al Hilal), Ivan Toney (Al Ahli) – 5 Goals
There are three players a couple of steps further back, who will need to demonstrate every ounce of their goalscoring pedigree if they are to chase down Ronaldo, Lopes, Mahrez, al-Dawsari and Asani. Reigning AFC Player of the Year Akram Afif has produced some virtuoso displays to drag his Al Sadd team through to a last-eight encounter with Japan's Kawasaki Frontale, while Aleksandar Mitrovic is finding his feet again after a lengthy injury lay-off – without which he may have been in closer contention for the ACL Elite Golden Boot. Last on the list of potential Golden Boot winners is Ivan Toney, who failed to score in each of his first four AFC games but has netted five in his past six continental contests.
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