With the midway point of the season in the major European leagues fast approaching, several interesting trends are beginning to emerge. While the heavyweight clubs are ruling the roost in their respective leagues, the same cannot be said of Europe's big-name forwards.

The likes of Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto'o, Didier Drogba and Francesco Totti are rapidly losing ground in the race for this season's European Golden Shoe, with a new wave of sharpshooters looking to cement their place at the top of the tree. FIFA.com presents a mid-season rundown of the young guns currently terrorising goalkeepers across the continent.

The first thing to note is that the top-scorers' battle is generally very open in all the major leagues, with no strikers leaving their closest challengers far behind. Furthermore, the only home-grown stars to lead the scoring charts in their native leagues are the Netherlands' Klaas Jan Huntelaar and France's Karim Benzema.

Trezeguet bucks the trend
There is, of course, an exception to every rule and in this case it is Italy, where experienced stalwarts are calling the shots and veteran goal machine David Trezeguet has been most prolific since the start of the season. A penalty-box predator with an inconspicuous style, the Juventus frontman has notched up 124 goals in Serie A and 27 in the UEFA Champions League during his eight seasons with La Vecchia Signora. Thirty-year-old Trezegol has shown he has not lost his touch with 12 goals already this term, three more than Inter Milan's seasoned strike pairing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Julio Cruz, and five more than the FIFA World Player of the Year 2007, AC Milan's Brazilian ace Kaka.

In his first season in charge of the Bianconeri, coach Claudio Ranieri has fallen under the spell of the French striker. "David will finish on top," the former Chelsea supremo recently told la Gazzetta dello Sport. "You don't hear much about him because, unlike Ibrahimovic, he keeps a low profile during matches. He hides away but you can't hide his goalscoring record, it's phenomenal."

The competition is fiercer in England, where a trio of marksmen are neck-and-neck on nine goals each in the race to succeed Drogba as the Premier League's top scorer. Manchester United's Portuguese dynamo Cristiano Ronaldo has picked up where he left off last season, when he bagged an exceptional 17 league goals in 34 matches and three more in the UEFA Champions League. The 22-year-old is on course to beat this tally in his fifth season with the Red Devils, having already hit nine goals in 13 league games and five goals in as many Champions League encounters.

Nigeria's Ayegbeni Yakubu is also into his fifth season in the Premier League and his first with Everton, where he has netted nine times in 15 matches. The 25-year-old sharpshooter bagged 29 goals in two seasons at Portsmouth, before chalking up another 24 in a two-year spell with Middlesbrough. After spending several seasons in the international wilderness due to differences with a succession of national coaches, the clinical striker hopes to make up for lost time by helping the Super Eagles to victory at the forthcoming CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana.

Finally, Togolese international centre-forward Emmanuel Adebayor is hitting his peak after spending five seasons learning the ropes in the French league, where he scored 15 goals for Metz and 18 goals for Monaco. The 23-year-old Arsenal striker has led the line admirably since Henry's departure to Barcelona, scoring nine goals in 15 games compared with his previous season's total of eight in 29.

Luis Fabiano on fire
In Spain, a 27-year-old Brazilian forward is overshadowing all the big guns in La Liga. Luis Fabiano is the great revelation so far this season with ten goals in eleven matches for Sevilla, together with a haul of seven from eight Champions League games. Even at this early stage he has overtaken his total for last season (ten and three).

This flying start has even earned the former Stade Rennais frontman a berth in the senior Brazil squad. "This is the highlight of my career so far," explains the Sevillista sensation, who scored both goals in Brazil's last match, a 2-1 home victory over Uruguay. "Right now I'm fully focused on staking a permanent place in the team. My dream is to play in the World Cup and I'll continue working hard to get there".

As he awaits his chance for international glory, the Rojiblanco centre-forward is already topping the Spanish scoring charts, two goals ahead of an illustrious quartet made up of Argentina's Lionel Messi and Diego Milito, Dutch hitman Ruud van Nistelrooy and evergreen Merengue forward Raul, who is back to his best in his 16th season with Real Madrid.

In Germany, a pack of four attackers is tightly bunched at the top of the table with nine goals apiece. Bayern Munich's veteran pairing of 29-year-old Miroslav Klose and 30-year-old Italian international Luca Toni are vying for supremacy with a new wave of goalgetters led by Werder Bremen's 22-year-old Brazilian maestro Diego and Hamburger SV's 24-year-old Dutch attacking midfielder Rafael van der Vaart.

Benzema blossoming, Bellion back on form
Meanwhile in France, the youngsters are leading the way. At just 20 years old, Karim Benzema has set Ligue 1 alight with 12 goals in the league, three in the Champions League and two for the senior national side. A product of the Olympique Lyonnais youth academy, his ball control has already earned him comparisons with a certain Zinedine Zidane.

Lying in second spot with ten goals apiece is a trio consisting of Le Mans' athletic 22-year-old Brazilian forward Tulio de Melo, Toulouse's 26-year-old Swedish phenomenon Johan Elmander and 25-year-old David Bellion, who has finally rediscovered the finishing instinct which won him a move to Manchester United earlier in his career.

In Scotland, Celtic's 24-year-old Australian forward Scott McDonald is riding high with 11 goals. Finally in the Netherlands, lethal 24-year-old striker Huntelaar is attracting the attention of an ever-increasing number of Europe's major players, alerted by his 13 league goals for Ajax so far.

For Totti, Drogba, Henry, Ronaldinho, Diego Forlan, Pedro Pauleta and other fully paid-up members of the goalscorers union, a stunning start to 2008 will be required to prevent this new generation of hotshots taking all the glory.