They're back! After a lay-off of less than two months the new season is already upon us, with Champions League qualifiers and the Spanish Supercup taking place even before the league season starts. Our early leaders come from those competitions, with last year's top two goalscorers Rivaldo and Raúl starting where they left off, Rivaldo getting three in the first leg tie against Wisla Krakow to help Barça through to the league stage of the European tournament and Raúl completing his hat-trick in the return leg of the Supercup to give Real Madrid their first trophy of the season.

The first day of the league programme saw 31 goals in the ten first division matches, a good start. Four players scored two times each in their respective games, with Barça's Kluivert adding a brace to his goal in the Champions League qualifier to join the leaders. Spain's forgotten striker Ismael Urzaiz sent a message to Camacho that he is back with the winning goals in the Basque derby against Real Sociedad, and Darío Silva offered his two fingered salute to Betis president Ruiz de Lopera who spent most of the summer trying to sign him and then decided he wasn't worth it. Darío's goals helped Málaga to a 3-2 win over their local rivals, with Argentina's Gaston Casas getting the nod ahead of Amato and Ikpeba to wear the shirt that the Uruguayan striker would otherwise have been wearing, and scoring two himself, including one from the penalty spot. Nobody kept their shirts on for long though, with all the goalscorers stripping down to the waist in celebration of their goals now that it isn't a yellow card offence, and Darío Silva even swapping shirts with Dely Valdés, much to the confusion of the referee.

The mathematicians amongst you will work out that 23 other players scored in the league, and for the record five more scored in the other competitions referred to above. We don't have room for them all, but we publish those that appeared in our chart last season (it makes editing later on a bit easier we understand). These include another forgotten Spanish striker (Catanha), one who wasn't forgotten (Tristán) and his teammate at Deportivo (Makaay), who will probably be playing for Holland next weekend. (27.08.01)