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The contest for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season nears its halfway mark.

With a different winner in every one of the last three campaigns, the award remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based striker to claim the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is back in the mix this term, but faces tough rivalry from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of games remaining, other talents still have an opportunity to enter the contest.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to honor the top goalscorer in league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's rankings, 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 jointly won 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 fewest minutes played.

If the tie persists, the subsequent tiebreaker is the total of league assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the award be split.

Who are the Leading Contenders?

As it stands, a three-way tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three previous winners separated 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 appearances.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

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

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

The remainder of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that operate on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Past Winners

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

Portuguese legend Eusébio won the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six times during his 17-year tenure at 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 ever to win it in three straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Manchester United before proceeding to win it three more times with Real Madrid.

The first player to win the award while at an English club was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

The prize has seen a different winner in each of the past three seasons.

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

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

Now, the very trio are vying at the summit of the standings again this campaign, with Kane presently leading the pack.