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The competition for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the 2025-26 season passes its mid-season juncture.

With a new winner in each of the last three campaigns, the prize remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to claim the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian striker 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 plenty of games remaining, other talents still have time to throw their hat into the contest.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

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

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

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

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA 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 rule change from the 2019-20 season states that in the event of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the deadlock remains, the next deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are exhausted would the prize be split.

Identifying the Leading Challengers?

Currently, a three-way race exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (England 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 one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

In fourth place is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvian club RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

Dutch side Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is tied for fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this season.

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

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's biggest names.

Portuguese icon Eusebio won the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for SL Benfica. He then secured 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 award on six separate occasions during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for most goals in a campaign with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd 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 Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

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-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his maiden Golden Shoe with the identical total 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 same three players are competing at the top of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane currently out in front the pack.