🔗 Share this article

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

With a new winner in every one of the previous three campaigns, the award remains highly contested. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to secure the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the running this campaign, but faces formidable rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures left to play, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The European Golden Shoe was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the French newspaper L'Equipe to celebrate the leading 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 scoring system. Under this method, 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 top five leagues—the Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Ligue 1—are valued at two points each.

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

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

If the deadlock persists, the subsequent tiebreaker is the total of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are used would the prize be shared.

Who are the Main Contenders?

Currently, a three-horse tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous 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 outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth is RFS striker 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 joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this season.

The remainder of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.

Reviewing Past Recipients

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's most iconic stars.

Portuguese legend Eusébio claimed 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 legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate times during his 17-year spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the record for most goals in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and 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 season with Manchester United before proceeding 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 prize has seen a different winner in each of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland won the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the next season.

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 battling at the top of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently leading the pack.