🔗 Share this article

The contest for the European Golden Shoe is intensifying as the 2025-26 season nears its midway point.

With a different winner in each of the previous three campaigns, the prize remains highly contested. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based player to secure the award back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the hunt this term, but encounters formidable rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other players still have time to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the leading scorer in league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a points-based scoring system. Under this format, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific coefficient based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.

Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1—are worth two points each.

For competitions ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues are worth one point.

While the award has been shared on multiple occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the next tiebreaker is the total of league assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only after these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be shared.

Who are the Primary Contenders?

As it stands, a three-horse battle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga matches.
• 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 Latvia's 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 matches this term.

The rest of the current top ten is comprised of players from leagues that operate on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Previous Winners

Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's biggest stars.

Portuguese icon Eusébio claimed the inaugural 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 legend Lionel Messi has secured the most Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six times during his 17-year spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to date to win it in three straight seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United before proceeding to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

The inaugural player to win the award while at an English club was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted 32 goals for Liverpool FC.

The prize has seen a different winner in each of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland scooped the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the identical total for Bayern Munich the next season.

Kylian Mbappe is the reigning winner of the award after scoring thirty-one goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.

Now, the same three players are competing at the summit of the standings once more this season, with Kane currently leading the pack.