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The battle for the European Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season passes its halfway mark.

With a different winner in every one of the last three campaigns, the honor remains wide open. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to win the award back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the running this campaign, but encounters formidable rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other talents 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 France-based publication L'Equipe to honor the leading scorer in league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

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

For competitions ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's rankings, 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 several occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 dictates that in the case of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the subsequent deciding factor is the total of league assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only if these criteria are used would the award be shared.

Who are the Primary Contenders?

Currently, a three-way race is underway for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners split 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 appearances.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side 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 remainder of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.

Reviewing Previous Winners

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

Portuguese icon Eusebio won the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for SL Benfica. He later secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the record number of 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 campaign with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three successive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before proceeding to win it three more times 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 scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

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

Erling Haaland claimed the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally 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 top of the leaderboard again this season, with Kane presently leading the pack.