Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen. Harry Kane, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé are running the continental scoring race two goals apart, in three different leagues, against three different qualities of defence. The raw count flatters no one and the context flatters everyone.

Kane’s eighteen have come at the league’s fastest rate per minute, but against the Bundesliga’s most generous defences. Haaland’s seventeen carry the heaviest degree of difficulty — more of them have come away from home, more against top-six opposition. Mbappé’s sixteen are the most self-made: fewer touches per goal than anyone in Europe’s top five leagues.

The undercard

Behind the three, the picture is younger. Lamine Yamal’s ten goals and nine assists make him the only teenager in the conversation. Mason Greenwood is quietly authoring Marseille’s best title challenge in a decade. And Viktor Gyökeres has converted a Premier League move that was supposed to expose him into a case study in translation.

The boot will be decided, as it usually is, by April fixtures and May rotations. For now the race is a dead heat wearing three different kits.