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The battle 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 previous three campaigns, the honor remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based player 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 marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches left to play, other players still have an opportunity 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 France-based publication L'Equipe to honor the highest scorer in league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

Goals scored in Europe's top five leagues—the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1—are valued at two points each.

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

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

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

Who are the Leading Contenders?

As it stands, a three-way battle is underway 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 place is Darko Lemajic of Latvian side RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this season.

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

A Look at Past Recipients

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

Portuguese legend Eusebio won the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for Benfica. He then secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate occasions during his long spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the record for most goals in a campaign with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Manchester United before proceeding to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

The inaugural player to win the award while at an English club was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The award 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 thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his maiden 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 very trio are competing at the summit of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently out in front the pack.