Who is Out in Front in the Pursuit for the Golden Boot Award?
The battle for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season nears its halfway mark.
With a new winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the award remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to claim the trophy back in 2022-23.
The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the hunt this campaign, but faces stiff competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many fixtures remaining, other talents still have time to enter the fray.
What is the European Golden Shoe Award?
The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based publication L'Equipe to honor the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.
Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a points-based points system. Under this method, a player's goals are multiplied by a designated coefficient based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.
Goals scored in the continent's top five leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are worth two points each.
For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA rankings, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues are worth one point.
While the honor has been jointly won on multiple instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 dictates that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.
If the deadlock remains, the next tiebreaker is the total of assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the prize be shared.
Who are the Primary Contenders?
As it stands, a three-horse battle exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners split by just a solitary 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 matches.
In fourth place is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side RFS, who has scored 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 fixtures this season.
The rest of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.
Reviewing Previous Winners
Throughout its 59-year history, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's most iconic stars.
Portuguese legend Eusébio won the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He then secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.
Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six times during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.
Messi established 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 Man Utd before proceeding to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.
The first player to win the award while at an English club was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted 32 goals for Liverpool.
The award has seen a new winner in each of the last three seasons.
Erling Haaland claimed the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the next season.
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 battling at the summit of the leaderboard again this season, with Kane presently out in front the pack.
