🔗 Share this article

The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season passes its halfway mark.

With a new winner in each of the past three campaigns, the prize remains up for grabs. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to win the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is back in the running this season, but encounters formidable competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches left to play, other players still have time to throw their hat into the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was introduced in the 1967-68 by the French newspaper L'Equipe to honor the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

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

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's rankings, 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 jointly won on multiple occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season states that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie persists, the subsequent deciding factor is the number of assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are exhausted would the prize be shared.

Identifying the Main Challengers?

Currently, a three-horse tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a single goal.

• Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga fixtures.
• 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 place 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 fixtures this season.

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

Reviewing Past Recipients

Throughout its 59-year history, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's most iconic stars.

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate times during his long spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the record for highest tally in a campaign 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 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United 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 netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The prize has seen a new winner in every one of the past 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 secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the next 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 battling at the top of the standings again this campaign, with Kane presently leading the pack.