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The competition for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the current season nears its midway point.

With a new winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the honor remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to win the award back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the running this term, but encounters stiff competition from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many fixtures remaining, other talents still have an opportunity to throw their hat into the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was introduced in the 1967-68 by the French newspaper L'Equipe to celebrate the top scorer 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 domestic competition.

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

For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been jointly won on several occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the next tiebreaker is the number of assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only if these criteria are used would the award be shared.

Identifying the Leading Challengers?

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

• Harry Kane (English 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

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

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

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

Reviewing Previous Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's biggest legends.

Portuguese icon Eusébio 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 legend Lionel Messi has secured the most Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six separate times during his long spell at Barcelona.

Messi established 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 consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

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

The prize has seen a different winner in every one of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland claimed the award 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 same goal tally for Bayern Munich the following season.

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

Now, the very three players are competing at the top of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane presently out in front the way.