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The competition for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season nears its mid-season juncture.

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

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the mix this term, but faces stiff competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many fixtures remaining, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The European Golden Shoe was first launched in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the highest 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 introduced a weighted points system. Under this method, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific coefficient based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.

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

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

While the honor has been jointly won on several instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie persists, the next tiebreaker is the number of assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are exhausted would the prize be shared.

Identifying the Main Challengers?

At present, a three-way race is underway for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the three 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 is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvia's club RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

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

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

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's biggest legends.

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six separate times during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for most goals in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date 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 going on to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

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

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

Erling Haaland won the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the following year.

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

Now, the same three players are battling at the top of the leaderboard once more this campaign, with Kane presently out in front the way.