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The competition for the European Golden Shoe is intensifying as the 2025-26 season passes its halfway mark.

With a different winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the honor remains up for grabs. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to claim the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the hunt this campaign, but faces tough rivalry from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches left to play, other talents still have an opportunity to throw their hat into the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was first launched in the 1967-68 season by the France-based publication L'Equipe to recognize the leading goalscorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

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

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

For competitions 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 carry one point.

While the award has been jointly won on multiple occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie persists, the next tiebreaker is the total of assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only if these criteria are used would the prize be split.

Who are the Main Contenders?

Currently, a three-horse race is underway for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the three previous winners separated by just a single 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 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.

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

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

A Look at Previous Recipients

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

Portuguese icon Eusebio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for Benfica. He later won the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six separate times during his long spell at Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for most goals in a single season with fifty 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 claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Manchester United 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 Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The award has seen a different winner in every one of the past three seasons.

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

Kylian Mbappe is the reigning winner of the award after scoring 31 goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.

Now, the very three players are battling at the top of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane presently leading the way.