Who is Leading in the Contest for the European Golden Shoe?
The battle for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season approaches its halfway mark.
With a different winner in each of the past three campaigns, the award remains wide open. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to win the award back in 2022-23.
The prolific Norwegian striker is once again in the hunt this season, but faces tough competition from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of games left to play, other talents still have time to enter the contest.
What is the European Golden Shoe Award?
The European Golden Shoe was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to celebrate the highest scorer in 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 points system. Under this method, a player's tallies are weighted with a specific coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.
Goals scored in the continent's top five leagues—the Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are valued at two points each.
For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.
While the award has been shared on several occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.
If the deadlock remains, the subsequent tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the prize be shared.
Identifying the Primary Challengers?
Currently, a three-horse race is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners separated by just a single goal.
- Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga games.
- 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 RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side RFS, who has scored 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 fixtures this term.
The rest of the top 10 is comprised of players from leagues that function on a calendar year schedule.
Reviewing Past Winners
Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's most iconic stars.
Portuguese legend Eusébio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for Benfica. He later secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.
Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six separate times during his 17-year spell at FC 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 to 2019.
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 club in England was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored 32 goals for Liverpool FC.
The award has seen a new winner in every one of the last three seasons.
Erling Haaland scooped the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the following year.
Kylian Mbappe is the current holder of the award after scoring thirty-one goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.
Now, the very three players are battling at the summit of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane currently out in front the way.
