Who's Leading in the Pursuit for the European Golden Shoe?
The battle for the prestigious Golden Shoe is intensifying as the 2025-26 season nears its mid-season juncture.
With a different winner in each of the past three campaigns, the honor remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to win the award back in the 2022-23 season.
The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the running this term, but encounters formidable competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of games remaining, other players still have time to enter the contest.
What is the Golden Shoe?
The European Golden Shoe was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the leading 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 implemented a points-based scoring system. Under this method, a player's goals are multiplied by a designated multiplier based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.
Goals scored in Europe's top five leagues—the English Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are valued at two points apiece.
For competitions ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.
While the honor has been jointly won on several occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.
If the deadlock persists, the subsequent deciding factor is the number of assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only if these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be split.
Who are the Leading Contenders?
Currently, a three-way tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners separated by just a solitary goal.
- Harry Kane (English 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 games.
In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across their 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 January-to-December schedule.
A Look at Past Winners
Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's most iconic legends.
Portuguese legend Eusebio claimed the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73.
Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate times during his long tenure at FC Barcelona.
Messi set the record for most goals 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 consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2019.
Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before proceeding to win it on three further occasions 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 32 goals for Liverpool.
The award has seen a different winner in every one of the past three seasons.
Erling Haaland scooped the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the following 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 vying at the summit of the standings once more this season, with Kane currently out in front the way.
