🔗 Share this article

The competition for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season passes its mid-season juncture.

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

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

What is the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to honor the highest scorer in league matches from a European top division league.

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

Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are valued at two points each.

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been shared on multiple instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 dictates that in the event of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie remains, the next deciding factor is the number of assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are used would the prize be shared.

Identifying the Main Challengers?

At present, a three-horse tussle exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a solitary 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvian side RFS, who has scored 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 rest of the current top ten is comprised of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Previous Recipients

Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's biggest names.

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

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

Messi established the record for highest tally in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three successive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United before proceeding 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 prize has seen a different winner in each of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland scooped the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the following 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 top of the leaderboard once more this campaign, with Kane presently leading the way.