Vipers, the champions in the past three editions of the EHF Champions League Women, had a tumultuous season, which saw them exit in the quarter-finals with a 49:54 aggregate loss against Györi Audi ETO KC, where Vyakhireva scored 10 goals in the two matches.
Those goals also helped the 29-year-old right back set the benchmark this season for the number of goals scored. She hit double digits twice: against Team Esbjerg at home in the group phase, where she scored 11 goals; and against DVSC Schaeffler in the play-offs, also at home, where she netted 10 times.
In fact, Vyakhireva had 11 matches with at least seven goals scored this season, a superb run of consistency, which made her the top goal scorer of the European premium competition for the first time in her career.
“I am quite surprised that this is happening, that I am the top scorer of the competition, I just want to say that I am extremely proud, not just for myself, but for the team, it has been a tough season and we are sad that we are not in Budapest,” said Vyakhireva.
Vyakhireva announced herself as a top player since featuring in the younger age categories. She was the MVP of the W19 EHF EURO 2013, the All-star centre back at the W17 EHF EURO 2009 and the All-star right wing at the W17 EHF EURO 2011.
Her ascension to greatness was completed after she was named the MVP of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as well as the MVP of the EHF EURO 2018, where Russia finished second, behind France.
Vyakhireva, who played her ninth season in the EHF Champions League this year, was also the All-star right back of the competition in 2019 and 2020. Nevertheless, she was never in contention to be the top goal scorer in previous seasons, with this being the first time when the right back scored in triple digits in a single season.
This is also the first time Vyakhireva has ever been crowned the top scorer in a major international competition at senior level, a testament of her excellent performances for a struggling team this season.
In total, in her seasons played for Zvezda Zvenigorod, Rostov-Don and Vipers, Vyakhireva has scored 490 goals, with her best seasons by far coming at Vipers, where she scored 84 and 113 goals respectively, or 40 per cent of her total number of goals in the European premium competition.
In the past a string of household names like Ausra Fridrikas, Bojana Popović, Anita Görbicz, Cristina Neagu, Isabelle Gulldén, Jovanka Radicevic and Henny Reistad have been crowned as the top scorers of the competition.
Vyakhireva looked likely to clinch the top goal scorer title without any issue, but she eventually had to stave off a strong challenge from Nora Mørk and Reistad, who each scored 13 goals in the 3/4 placement match in the EHF FINAL4. Mørk finished second in the standings, with 110 goals, followed by Reistad and Metz's Sarah Bouktit, with 107 goals each.
