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The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the 2025-26 season approaches its midway point.

With a new winner in each of the last three campaigns, the honor remains wide open. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to secure the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the hunt this campaign, but faces stiff rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of games remaining, other players still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was introduced in the 1967-68 by the France-based publication L'Equipe to honor the highest goalscorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

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

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA 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 jointly won on several instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the tie remains, the next deciding factor is the total of assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only if these tiebreakers are exhausted would the prize be shared.

Identifying 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 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 outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's 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 matches this term.

The rest of the current top ten is comprised of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Previous Winners

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

Portuguese legend Eusébio won the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He later secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate times during his long tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to ever 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 Manchester United before going on to win it three more times 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 scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The prize has seen a new 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 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his maiden Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the following year.

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

Now, the same trio are vying at the summit of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane presently leading the pack.