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The battle for the European Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season nears its midway point.

With a new winner in every one of the last three campaigns, the honor remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based player to win the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the mix this season, but encounters formidable competition from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other players still have time to throw their hat into the contest.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to celebrate the highest goalscorer in league matches from a European top division league.

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

Goals scored in Europe's five major leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Ligue 1—are worth 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 shared on multiple instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

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

Identifying the Leading Challengers?

As it stands, 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 (England 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

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

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

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

A Look at Past Winners

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

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six separate times during his 17-year spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for most goals in a campaign with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first 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 Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

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

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

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

Now, the same three players are competing at the top of the standings again this campaign, with Kane currently leading the pack.