🔗 Share this article

The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season nears its mid-season juncture.

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

The prolific Norwegian striker is once again in the mix this term, but faces formidable competition from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many fixtures remaining, other talents still have time to throw their hat into the contest.

What is the Golden Shoe?

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

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

Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, 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 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been shared on several instances 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 fewest minutes played.

If the tie remains, the subsequent deciding factor is the number of assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only after these criteria are used would the prize be split.

Who are the Primary Challengers?

At present, a three-way battle exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a single goal.

• Harry Kane (English 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 is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvian club 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 term.

The remainder of the current top ten is comprised of players from leagues that operate on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Previous Winners

Throughout its 59-year history, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's most iconic legends.

Portuguese legend Eusebio won the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six times during his long spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set 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 ever to win it in three straight 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 English club was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored 32 goals for Liverpool FC.

The prize has seen a new winner in every one of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland claimed the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the next 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 same three players are vying at the summit of the standings once more this season, with Kane currently out in front the pack.