Feyenoord forward Cyriel Dessers has finished as top scorer of the inaugural Uefa Europa Conference League.
The Nigeria international, whose team lost 1-0 to AS Roma in the final on Wednesday evening, scored 10 goals in 13 appearances.
Dessers began his goal haul in the Dutch side’s 2-1 away triumph over German outfit Union Berlin in November 2021. He then followed it up with a brace against Slavia Prague.
The 27-year-old then found the net on three more occasions, before adding two more to his tally in the quarter-final tie against Peter Olayinka’s Slavia Prague.
Against Olympique Marseille in the first leg semi-final, he was on song twice as the Rotterdam based outfit claimed a 3-2 home win.
Dessers was unable to find the net in the reverse fixture and could not beat goalkeeper Rui Patricio at the Arena Kombetare.
His inability to get a goal saw him fail to become the third Nigerian to score in the final of a European cup after Alex Iwobi and Joe Aribo.
AS Roma’s Tammy Abraham finished the campaign as runner-up in the scoring chart following his nine goals in 14 appearances.
Nigeria's Yira Sor who represents Slavia Prague, Bodo/Glimt's Ola Solbakken and Feyenoord's Luis Sinisterra complete the top five with six goals each.
The average age of Feyenoord's starting XI in this match was 24 years and 176 days, the youngest in a major European final since Ajax in 2016-17 in the Europa League (22 years and 282 days).
Coincidentally, Ajax was also defeated by a Jose Mourinho coached side in that match (Manchester United).
Thanks to this triumph, Mourinho becomes the second manager to win five European titles after Giovanni Trapattoni, with the Portuguese now winning the Europa Conference League, the Champions League twice and also the Uefa Cup/Europa League twice.
"I've been at Roma for 11 months, I knew the moment I arrived what it meant to the people. They had been waiting for something like this," Mourinho told Sky Sports.
"This was not work tonight, this was history. We had to write history. We wrote it."
Europa Conference League 2021-22 top goalscorers
| Pos | Player | Club | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cyriel Dessers | Feyenoord | 10 |
| 2 | Tammy Abraham | AS Roma | 9 |
| =3 | Yira Sor | Slavia Prague | 6 |
| =3 | Ola Solbakken | Bodo/Glimt | 6 |
| =3 | Luis Sinisterra | Feyenoord | 6 |
| =6 | Arthur Cabral | FC Basel | 5 |
| =6 | Gaetan Laborde | Rennes | 5 |
| =6 | Amahl Pellegrino | Bodo/Glimt | 5 |
| =6 | Nicolo Zaniolo | AS Roma | 5 |
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