The battle for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season approaches its midway point.
With a new winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the award remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to win the trophy back in 2022-23.
The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the running this term, but encounters tough competition from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches left to play, other players still have an opportunity to throw their hat into the contest.
What is the European Golden Shoe Award?
The European Golden Shoe was first launched in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to honor the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.
Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been overseen by European Sports Media, which implemented a weighted scoring system. Under this format, a player's goals are multiplied by a specific multiplier based on the strength ranking of their league.
Goals scored in Europe's top five leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are worth two points apiece.
For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry one point.
While the award has been jointly won on multiple occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 season states that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.
If the tie remains, the next deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the prize be split.
Identifying the Main Contenders?
As it stands, a three-horse race is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three previous winners split by just a solitary goal.
- Harry Kane (English captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga fixtures.
- Erling Haaland also has 19 goals (38 points) from 17 Premier League appearances.
- Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.
In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvian side RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.
Dutch side Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this term.
The rest of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that function on a calendar year schedule.
Reviewing Previous Recipients
Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's biggest legends.
Portuguese icon Eusébio won the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He later won the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.
Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six times during his 17-year spell at Barcelona.
Messi set the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three successive seasons from 2016 to 2019.
Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United before going on to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.
The inaugural player to win the award while at an club in England was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted 32 goals for Liverpool FC.
The award has seen a different winner in each of the past three seasons.
Erling Haaland scooped the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical total for Bayern Munich the next season.
Kylian Mbappe is the reigning holder of the award after scoring 31 goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.
Now, the same three players are vying at the top of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane currently out in front the pack.
