Who is Leading in the Race for the Golden Shoe?

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

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

The prodigious Norwegian striker is once again in the running this term, but encounters formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures remaining, other talents still have time to throw their hat into the contest.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

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

Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been overseen by European Sports Media, which introduced a weighted scoring system. Under this format, a player's goals are weighted with a specific coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

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

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

While the honor has been shared on several instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season states that in the case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the tie persists, the subsequent deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are exhausted would the prize be shared.

Who are the Primary Contenders?

Currently, a three-horse tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a single goal.

• Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga fixtures.
• Erling Haaland also has 19 goals (38 points) from 17 Premier League outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvian side RFS, who has scored 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 fixtures this term.

The rest of the top 10 is comprised of players from leagues that function on a calendar year schedule.

A Look at Past Recipients

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

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six separate times during his 17-year tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date 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 first player to win the award while at an English club was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The prize has seen a different winner in every one of the last three seasons.

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

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

Now, the same three players are battling at the summit of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently out in front the way.