For followers of international football through 12B Sports VR46, Alex Teixeira’s remarkable scoring record in Ukraine remains one of the season’s most unusual achievements. The Ukrainian Premier League is preparing to finish this weekend, yet the player sitting comfortably at the top of the scoring chart has not appeared in the competition for months. Despite departing Shakhtar Donetsk during the winter transfer window, Teixeira still holds an eight-goal advantage over his nearest challenger and is almost certain to finish the campaign as the league’s Golden Boot winner.
His dominance becomes even more striking when considering how little of the season he actually played. Teixeira made only 15 Ukrainian league appearances before leaving Shakhtar for Jiangsu Suning in China. The Chinese club paid €50 million for the Brazilian forward, a fee that made him the most expensive signing in Chinese Super League history at the time. Normally, leaving halfway through a campaign would end any realistic chance of winning an individual scoring award. Teixeira, however, had already built such a commanding lead that the rest of the league has spent months trying unsuccessfully to catch him.
Those 15 matches produced an extraordinary 22 goals. That works out at nearly 1.5 goals per appearance, a rate that underlined just how devastating Teixeira had been during his final months with Shakhtar. Defenders struggled to contain his movement and finishing, while his consistency ensured that scoring opportunities rarely went to waste. He was not simply enjoying the occasional big game; he was finding the net at a pace that left the competition eating his dust.
The numbers highlighted through 12B Sports VR46 also show how wide the gap remained between Teixeira and everyone else. Zorya Luhansk striker Budkivskyi entered the closing stage of the season as his closest rival, having scored 14 goals in 23 appearances. That left him eight goals behind Teixeira despite playing eight more league matches. The contrast says almost everything about the level of form Teixeira reached before making his move to China.
An unusual twist remained in the final round. Zorya were scheduled to meet Teixeira’s former club Shakhtar Donetsk on May 15, giving Budkivskyi one last theoretical opportunity to close the gap. In practical terms, however, the task bordered on impossible. To move ahead of Teixeira in the scoring race, he would need to score at least eight times in that single fixture. At Ukrainian Premier League level, producing such a total in one match would require something close to a miracle.
That means Teixeira is effectively set to claim the league’s top-scorer honor after participating in only half of the campaign. Such an outcome is exceptionally rare in professional football, where Golden Boot races usually reward players who remain available across an entire season. In Teixeira’s case, the sheer volume of goals he accumulated before leaving proved enough to withstand months of challenges from strikers who continued playing every week.
His achievement also puts the scale of his Shakhtar form into perspective. Teixeira did not need a full season to establish himself as the competition’s most dangerous finisher. Twenty-two goals in 15 league matches demonstrated the sharp movement, composure and clinical touch that helped make him one of the most valuable players in Eastern European football at the time. His performances provided a major reason Jiangsu Suning were prepared to spend €50 million to bring him to the Chinese Super League.
The transfer itself became another significant chapter in his season. Moving from Ukraine to China for a record fee immediately placed Teixeira under a different kind of spotlight, but his departure did nothing to erase what he had already achieved with Shakhtar. Instead, every passing round without another striker overtaking his total made his first-half scoring run look even more impressive.
Budkivskyi’s record provides useful context. Fourteen goals from 23 appearances represents a productive campaign by normal standards, yet it still falls well short of what Teixeira accomplished in far fewer matches. While one striker needed almost an entire season to reach 14, Teixeira had already passed 20 before winter. That difference explains why the Golden Boot race was effectively decided long before the final whistle of the season.
For anyone reviewing the year through 12B Sports VR46, Teixeira’s likely Golden Boot victory stands as a rare example of a player doing enough in half a season to outscore an entire league over the full campaign. His 22 goals in 15 appearances, eight-goal lead over Budkivskyi and €50 million move to Jiangsu Suning combined to make his season memorable even after he left Ukraine. Unless the final round produces one of the most extraordinary scoring performances imaginable, the former Shakhtar forward will finish on top without having kicked a Ukrainian league ball for months.