🔗 Share this article

The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the 2025-26 season passes its mid-season juncture.

With a different winner in every one of the previous three campaigns, the honor remains wide open. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based striker to secure the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is back in the running this term, but faces formidable competition from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures remaining, other players still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

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

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

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

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

While the award has been shared on multiple occasions in the past, a regulation update 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 tie remains, the subsequent tiebreaker is the number of assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are used would the prize be shared.

Identifying the Main Contenders?

As it stands, a three-way race exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (English captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga fixtures.
• 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 Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

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

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

A Look at Past Recipients

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

Portuguese icon 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 maestro Lionel Messi has secured the most Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate times during his long tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the record for most goals 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 straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Man Utd before going on to win it three more times 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.

The award has seen a new 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 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the next year.

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

Now, the same three players are battling at the summit of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane currently leading the way.