They might as well send the trophy to Torreon now. Djaniny Tavares is running away with the Liga MX top scorer title, and nobody can stop him.
The Cape Verde international has scored 10 goals through seven matches, doubling the total of his closest rival Henry Martin of Club America, who has scored five times. Djaniny is outscoring 13 Liga MX teams. That's all but four. No one seems to be able to figure out how to stop Djaniny. Next up to try is Toluca, who will look to contain the 26-year-old in Sunday's match against Santos Laguna.
His hat trick against Leon during the week was a thing of beauty. His first goal came from the penalty spot but his second - a left-footed chip over goalkeeper William Yarbrough after nutmegging a center back - was one of the best goals scored in Mexico all season. He nodded in his third goal to complete the hat trick scored in eight minutes. Leon is particularly bad at the back, but scoring phenomenal goals has become common for Djaniny this season.
He opened the season with a hat trick against Lobos BUAP in which he headed in the first goal, used his right foot for his second and finished with his left for the third. The pair of hat tricks make him the first player with multiple trebles in the same tournament since the late Christian Benitez in the 2013 Apertura.
That year "Chucho" won the Golden Boot with a dozen goals. We're not even to the halfway point in the season and Djaniny is just two goals behind that pace. Last tournament, Aviles Hurtado and Mauro Boselli tied for the top scorer crown with 11 goals each.
Brought to Liga MX by then-Santos manager Pedro Caixinha ahead of the 2014 Apertura, Djaniny hasn't exactly flown under the radar in his first seven tournaments in the league. He's flashed potential, scoring 26 career goals before this campaign.
He's strong physically and as we've seen from his performances this season, he almost doesn't have a preference for which foot a ball arrives on. He takes his penalties with his right foot, but has scored four of his 10 goals this tournament with his left.
But even knowing his capabilities, who could've seen this coming? Well, apparently Santos manager Robert Siboldi, who said Friday that he was expecting a big season from his forward.
"To be honest, I'm not surprised. Why not? Well, because I see him, we see him every day. We see how he trains, how he works and the talent he has, the natural and physical conditions he has. I’m convinced that the stars shine when the team plays together," Siboldi said.
#NoTeLoPierdas
— LIGA Bancomer MX (@LIGABancomerMX) February 15, 2018
GLAAAAAZO de Djaniny Tavares@ClubSantos 3-1 @clubleonfc #Jornada7 #Clausura2018 #LIGABancomerMX
#SienteTuLiga #CreandoOportunidades #PorLaEducación #AbrazadosPorElFutbol pic.twitter.com/n7kQS2PHDt
That seems to be the difference. Santos is playing off of Djaniny and he's combining with teammates. In previous tournaments, Djaniny was a picture of what was eating Santos. The talent was there, the consistency was not. After a good week or a flash of hope for a few weeks in a row, things would once again fall back to the earth. Even when Los Guerreros won the Liga MX title in the 2015 Clausura, they entered the Liguilla as a No. 8 seed.
Siboldi now has his team sitting in second, unleashing Djaniny on the left but also letting him float inside with winger Brian Lozano working with Djaniny on the overlap. He's also relying more than ever on an experienced defense, anchored by Nestor Araujo and Carlos Izquierdoz in the middle, not only to stop opposition attacks but also to pass from the back to start moves going forward.
Having a player to finish off chances, many of which he's started himself, has been critical. The challenge for Djaniny will be avoiding an enormous drop-off of the kind that has dogged him and Santos in previous tournaments. If he's able to do even half of what he's done so far this year, he'll end up with the Golden Boot, a playoff spot and Santos's best chance at a title since their win in 2015.
