Only he is ahead of Haaland and Lewandowski. “He flourished in his thirties. The game of the season of life”

Not Erling Haaland, not Robert Lewandowski, not Kylian Mbappe, Neymar or Leo Messi. The current leader of the Golden Boot ranking is Amahl Pellegrino from Bodo / Glimt. And although in a moment the 32-year-old Norwegian will be “absorbed” by the stars of the greatest format, it is still worth paying some attention to him. He is simply brilliant this season.

His career was hardly any kind of film material for a long time. The list of clubs represented by Drammen FK, Baerum SK, Lillestrom, Mjøndalen, Strømsgodset, Kristiansund, Damac FC and finally, from August 2021, the Norwegian revelation – Bodo / Glimt, is also not very impressive.

One foreign episode

Pellegrino spent virtually all his football life in his homeland – Norway. He only managed to escape to Saudi Arabia for a few months, but he did not delight there. He played in 12 games, scored two goals and quickly returned to the country.

– In Saudi Arabia, he was only there to set up his family financially, which he himself emphasized – tells us Remigiusz Fornalik, who runs the profile “Bodo / Glimt Polska” on Twitter.

So why today we deal with a 32-year-old valued by the portal “Transfermarkt” for only 700,000 euros? Well, because Pellegrino has been taking the first place in the Golden Boot classification for a long time. Sure, it will drop lower in a moment, because the Norwegian league plays a different system and there are only three rounds left until the end. But in this case, the Norwegian was not in the company of Robert Lewandowski or Erling Haaland. He had to shoot. Shoot a lot.

Winger goal-shooter

Interestingly, Pellegrino is not even a typical striker, but a winger. Extremely effective under the opponent’s goal.

– Its biggest advantage is positioning on the pitch. He can perfectly predict the pitch situation and find himself in the right place to place the ball in the opponent’s net like a true striker (…). It is also distinguished by speed. For a tall player [ma 190 com wzrostu – przyp. red.], he can easily break away from the defense of rivals and go alone with the goalkeeper – adds Fornalik.

Pellegrino belongs to the group of “late maturing” footballers. Over the years, he was balancing somewhere between the first and second tiers in Norway, and he did not impress at all. He could remember the 2017 season best, when he scored 20 goals for Mjondalen. However, what is not without significance – he did it in the back of the local top league.

Life form

The breakthrough came two years ago, when Pellegrino started approaching the thirties and finally turned two in front into three. He then played a great season for Kristiansund. He scored 25 goals. Interestingly, this did not give him the crown of the top scorer of the Norwegian Premier League, because the then Bodo / Glimt forward Kasper Junker scored two more hits.

Such an excellent year resulted in the aforementioned transfer to Saudi Arabia. After a few months, however, the player born in Drammen returned to his homeland, this time joining the ranks of Bodo / Glimt. The national champion from the 2020 and 2021 games, currently the team that takes second place in the Norwegian league three rounds before the end of this season.

A league debut in new colors? Dreamed up. A hat-trick against the club he represented just a few months earlier – Kristiansund BK. Even when he was going through a tragic family situation, he was in good shape on the grass.

– A little over a year ago (September 19, 2021), before the match of the 19th round with Viking FK, his family experienced a very dramatic situation. Amahl’s wife had a miscarriage a few hours before the game. At the same time, in all this tragedy, she wanted him to go and play a good match – Amahl showed an amazing side. He scored a rollover goal and dedicated it to his wife – recalls Fornalik.

Ten months later, this story had some kind of continuation. This time with a happy end.

– Before the home game against Jerv, in the morning our player’s wife gave birth to their second child in her home bathroom. The whole event was quite dramatic. Despite another hard day, Amahl made it to the match in which he completed a hat-trick – adds our interlocutor.

Today, just over a year after the transfer, Pellegrino has a track record of 40 goals and 16 assists in 65 games played for Bodo / Glimt. This is a great result for the winger. The 32-year-old himself is going through this season. In the league, he scored 23 goals and seven assists (in 24 matches). On top of that, he has made four goalscorers in the Champions League qualifiers and scored one hit in yesterday’s Conference League meeting against FC Zurich.

He also performed well in the cups in the previous season. Bodo / Glimt then reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League with Pellegrino scoring five goals. He added AS Roma, AZ Alkmaar (twice), Celtic Glasgow and Zoria Luhansk to the list of his victims.

Him, Haaland and Lewandowski

At this point, Pellegrino leads the race for the Golden Boot, an award for the most successful football player in the league in Europe. 23 goals scored give him 34.5 points, because the Norwegian league coefficient is 1.5.

To a large extent, Pellegrino’s current leadership position is of course due to the fact that the Norwegian league plays a different system than most European leagues and is about to end the season. There are three more queues left.

The Norwegian winger will therefore soon be overtaken in the ranking by the stars of the highest format. Erling Haaland and Robert Lewandowski are already lurking behind his back. It does not change the fact that Pellegrino can be proud of itself. He’s just playing a great season, and his name means more and more. At the end of the year, his contract with the club ends. What’s next?

– Yes, that’s right. He has a contract with Bodo until the end of this year, although I’m calm because the same situation happened a year ago. The contract expired at the end of the year. Then the whole thing ended happily for the fans. After 10 days “without a club” he signed a one-year contract. Now in the north of Norway we have money that the club is not afraid to spend, maybe there will be European cups in the spring and I believe that he will stay with us. Amazing man, great footballer – tells us the creator of “Bodo / Glimt Polska”.

Interestingly, Pellegrino has not yet made his debut for the Norwegian national team.