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The contest for the European Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season approaches its mid-season juncture.

With a new winner in each of the past three campaigns, the prize remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based player to secure the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prolific Norwegian striker is back in the hunt this season, but encounters stiff competition from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other talents still have an opportunity to enter the fray.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

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

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

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

For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the honor has been jointly won on multiple instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the next deciding factor is the number of assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are used would the prize be split.

Identifying the Primary Challengers?

At present, a three-horse tussle is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three previous winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (English captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga matches.
• 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 matches.

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.

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

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

Reviewing Previous Winners

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

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

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

Messi set the benchmark for highest tally 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 successive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United before going on to win it three more times with Real Madrid.

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

The award has seen a new winner in each of the last three seasons.

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

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

Now, the very three players are vying at the summit of the leaderboard once more this campaign, with Kane currently leading the way.