🔗 Share this article

The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season passes its halfway mark.

With a different winner in each of the previous three campaigns, the award remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to win the trophy back in 2022-23.

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

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

The European Golden Shoe was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which implemented a points-based scoring system. Under this method, a player's tallies are weighted with a specific coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues are worth one point.

While the honor has been shared on multiple occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 season states that in the event of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the subsequent tiebreaker is the total of assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are used would the prize be shared.

Who are the Leading Contenders?

At present, a three-way battle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated 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 outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth place is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this term.

The remainder of the top 10 is comprised of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.

A Look at Past Winners

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

Portuguese legend Eusebio won the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for Benfica. He then secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate occasions during his 17-year spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for most goals 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 megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before proceeding to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

The first player to win the award while at an club in England was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

The award has seen a new winner in every one 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 maiden Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the following year.

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

Now, the very three players are battling at the summit of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently out in front the way.