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To score three or more goals in a match is one of the most rewarding experiences for a striker in football. It continues to be a dream for all strikers to go out on the pitch and net a match-winning hat-trick for their teams.
It is seldom an easy task to find the back of the net 3 times in the 90 minutes, but to do so on multiple occasions is the true hallmark of excellence that sets these prolific goalscorers apart from the others.
It is common knowledge that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the leading hat-trick scorers in the world currently, with 56 and 53 respectively, but do you know who have bagged the most hat-tricks in Europe's top leagues?
Here, we take a look at the players who have achieved such glory and earned their places in history with the most hat-tricks in each of Europe's top five leagues.
#5. Premier League - Sergio Aguero: 12 (with Manchester City)
Sergio Aguero will go down as one of the greatest Premier League strikers of all-time. He joined Manchester City in 2011, the period when they were on the cusp of transitioning into a top-flight behemoth in England and has wreaked havoc against opposing defences since.
In less than a decade he has racked up 177 goals in the English top-flight and looks set to be on his way of becoming only the third player ever to cross the 200-goal barrier after Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney.
In his most recent outing, he scored his 177th goal for the Sky Blues, overtaking Arsenal legend Thierry Henry as the league's outright overseas top-scorer. His 53-minute hat-trick in the match was the 12th of his career, meaning he broke Shearer's 20-year record.
It is interesting to note that he hit his goalscoring peak with his current club itself, as he had only managed a single hat-trick with Atletico Madrid, that too in is last game with Los Colchoneros, signing off in quite some fashion.
Though now he has the most hat-tricks in the Premier League, amongst active players he ranks a joint fourth behind, Suarez, Messi and Ronaldo in terms of hat-tricks scored in league competitions.
Also See: 5 stats that prove Aguero is the best Argentinian player in Premier League's history
4. Mario Gomez - Bundesliga: 13 (with VfB Stuttgart and Bayern Munich)
Though Robert Lewandowski may be breaking every other goalscoring record in the Bundesliga currently, he still has some catching up to do with former Bayern Munich star Mario Gomez in terms of trebles scored.
The now-retired German international bagged a total of 13 hat-tricks in his top-flight career spanning over 15 years, with the first three coming for his boyhood club VFB Stuttgart and the latter 10 for the Bavarian giants.
Though he is now plying his trade in the second division with Die Schwaben he has been one of the top German strikers in recent memory and one of the finest traditional No.9s of the century.
He has won the Bundesliga thrice, the Bundesliga Golden Boot once, won the UEFA Champions League with Bayern and was even voted the German footballer of the Year in 2007, but unfortunately missed out on the ultimate prize in Die Mannschaft's 2014 World Cup triumph due to an injury spell that kept him out of the final squad.
Also See: Robert Lewandowski's five incredible Bundesliga records
3. Gunnar Nordahl, Giuseppe Meazza - Serie A: 17 each (Nordahl 17 with AC Milan & Meazza 17 with Inter Milan)
Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first hat-trick for Juventus recently, meaning that he has now scored hat-tricks with three different clubs in three different leagues.
Serie A has been blessed with some of the best strikers to have graced the game, with heavyweights Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan having played host to the best of them all.
Though Francesco Totti, Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi and Luca Toni have been the top scorers in recent memory, they haven't been able to match the exploits of Serie A legends Gunnar Nordahl and Giuseppe Meazza, who had bagged 17 hat-tricks apiece.
Both of the forwards are revered as icons at their clubs, with the latter even been honoured posthumously when San Siro, the principal stadium in his native city of Milan, which is today shared by two of his former clubs, was named Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in his honour on 3 March 1980.
Nordahl managed the impressive tally of 17 trebles with AC Milan in just five years, while Meazza managed the same in nine years. Of the two legendary strikers Rossoneri star Nordahl was more prolific, scoring 224 goals as compared to Meazza's 214 and even holds the record for most Capocannoniere wins, with five to his name and has won the title of pluricapocannoniere, with five successes in five consecutive seasons between 1950 and 1955.
#2. Thadée Cisowski - Ligue 1: 22 (With FC Metz and RC Paris)
Son of Polish immigrants, Thadée Cisowski was one of the most feared goal-scorers in the erstwhile Championnat de France. He scored 206 times in 286 appearances in his spells with FC Metz, Racing Club de France, and Valenciennes FC.
He is the fourth-highest scorer in the French top-flight but on top of it, he also holds the record for having scored the most hat-tricks in the competition's history, notching up a sizeable tally of 22 trebles in just 12 years.
His record remains unbroken for the last 70 years and with Paris Saint-Germain striker Edinson Cavani being the only active player in the top 20 of the hat-trick list with 5 in his tenure with the Ligue 1 behemoths, it is safe to say that his record will hold for at least another decade.
Interestingly, fewer and fewer strikers are able to bag hat-tricks in Ligue 1 now, which is a positive indicator of the rise in the level of defensive solidity across the league.
#1. Lionel Messi - La Liga: 35 (with Barcelona)
Though Cristiano Ronaldo is the player who has dominated the domain of hat-tricks over the last decade, he has been dethroned as the player with the most La Liga assists by his eternal rival Lionel Messi, who now has 35 hat-tricks with Barcelona in the Spanish top-flight.
It took the Argentine superstar more than a year since Ronaldo's departure from the league to surpass his tally of 34 hat-tricks and by doing so, he also boasts the records for most hat-tricks in any of Europe's domestic leagues, with no player currently even close to his remarkable tally of 35.
It is interesting to note that the six-time Ballon d'Or winner amassed his hat-tricks in 16 years, while his right-footed adversary had bagged 34 hat-tricks in just nine years with Real Madrid.
The duo shares the record for most hat-tricks in a single La Liga season with eight and also most hat-tricks at the UEFA Champions League with eight apiece.
Also See: 4 Reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo had a better decade than Lionel Messi
