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The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season nears its halfway mark.

With a different winner in every one of the previous three campaigns, the award remains wide open. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based player to secure the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is once again in the mix this term, but encounters stiff rivalry from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of games remaining, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to celebrate the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

Since the 1997-98, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which implemented a points-based scoring system. Under this format, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their domestic competition.

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

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues are worth one point.

While the award has been shared on several instances 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 tie remains, the subsequent deciding factor is the total of league assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only after these criteria are used would the award be split.

Who are the Leading Contenders?

Currently, a three-way battle is underway for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a single 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvian club RFS, who has scored 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 season.

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

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's most iconic names.

Portuguese icon Eusebio claimed the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for Benfica. He later secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six separate occasions during his 17-year tenure 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 date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Man Utd before going on to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

The first 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 award has seen a new winner in every one of the last 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 identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the next year.

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

Now, the very trio are competing at the top of the leaderboard again this season, with Kane presently out in front the way.