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The battle for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the current season nears its midway point.

With a different winner in each of the last three campaigns, the honor remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to claim the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the hunt this campaign, but faces formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many fixtures left to play, other talents still have an opportunity to enter the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The European Golden Shoe was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to celebrate the highest scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

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

Goals scored in Europe's five major leagues—the English Premier League, 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 all other European leagues carry one point.

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

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

Who are the Main Challengers?

As it stands, a three-horse battle is underway for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners split 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 appearances.
• Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's club RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

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

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

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's biggest stars.

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

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six occasions during his 17-year tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the record for most goals in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before going on 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 scored 32 goals for Liverpool.

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

Erling Haaland claimed the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the following year.

Kylian Mbappe is the current 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 summit of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane presently out in front the pack.