Senegalese international Mbaye Diagne is not losing steam as the top scorer in Turkey's Süper Lig, despite a mid-season switch to Galatasaray from Kasımpaşa.

The 27-year-old forward is in 10th on the list of Europe's top scorers with 23 goals, trailing FC Copenhagen's Robert Skov by only one goal.

The top scorers of European leagues are awarded European Golden Boot awards every year and Argentine football legend Lionel Messi of Barcelona won his fifth last year. Messi still tops the list with 29 goals and further cemented his place on the list with a hattrick in Barcelona's 4-1 win over Real Betis.

Galatasaray's Diagne, scored his third goal for the Lions over the weekend, bringing his total number of goals in the Super League this season to 23. He has been on a two-week goal scoring streak. His last goal against Bursaspor helped Galatasaray equalize in a game it eventually won 3-2.

Diagne's goals this season have largely come from the spot. He scored 20 goals for Kasımpaşa in the first half of the season before he closed the first half with a three-match ban with a red card. Diagne started out the second half with one goal against Trabzonspor before a month-long dry spell. He has made a remarkable ascent to the list of top scorers in just seven years. He started out his career in 2012 in Bra, a little-known team in Italy where he arrived from Senegal to live with his uncle. He impressed fans with 20 goals in his first season and soon, joined third-tier league's Brandizzo where he scored 40 goals, drawing the attention of Italian giants Juventus. He only played for a season at Juventus in 2013, moving to AC Ajaccio. He traveled a lot on loan from Juventus, from Saudi to Chinese teams, with occasional returns to Juventus, before deciding to continue his career in Turkey.

He still has big shoes to fill, so to speak, to dethrone Messi, who won his first Golden Boot in 2009-2010 season with 34 goals. Judging by his performance against Real Betis, he is likely to win his sixth Golden Boot this year.

He scored the 51st hat-trick of his career in Sunday's game and drew the applause of even the fans of Real Betis, awed by three goals including one from a long-range free-kick, a toe-poke with the assistance of a backheel from Luis Suarez and a chip from inside the box which went in off the crossbar.

Cristiano Ronaldo who has been the closest rival of Messi in the fight for the Golden Boot so far failed to reach the second position. Ronaldo boasts 19 goals for Juventus, he joined this season. The closest to Messi is Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe with 26 goals. Mbappe also shares the title of player with the most non-penalty goals in European leagues with Messi, at 25 goals. Sampdoria's Fabio Quagliarella follows him with 21.