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The competition for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season approaches its mid-season juncture.

With a different winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the award remains wide open. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to secure the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is back in the hunt this term, but encounters stiff rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches remaining, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was first launched in the 1967-68 season by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the leading goalscorer in league matches from a European top-flight league.

Since the 1997-98, the award has been overseen by European Sports Media, which implemented a points-based scoring system. Under this method, a player's tallies are weighted with a designated coefficient based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.

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

For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been shared on multiple instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the next tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only if these tiebreakers are used would the prize be shared.

Identifying the Main Contenders?

Currently, a three-way race is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a single goal.

• Harry Kane (English captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga games.
• Erling Haaland also has 19 goals (38 points) from 17 Premier League outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvian club RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this season.

The rest of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.

Reviewing Past Recipients

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's biggest stars.

Portuguese legend Eusébio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six occasions during his long tenure at Barcelona.

Messi set the record for most goals in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to date to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

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

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

Erling Haaland claimed the award 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 following year.

Kylian Mbappe is the reigning holder of the award after scoring 31 goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.

Now, the same trio are competing at the summit of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane presently out in front the way.