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The competition for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season passes its midway point.

With a different winner in each of the last three campaigns, the prize remains highly contested. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based player to secure the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the mix this campaign, but faces formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many fixtures remaining, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a weighted scoring system. Under this method, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific multiplier based on the strength ranking of their league.

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

For leagues 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 all other European leagues are worth one point.

While the honor has been shared on multiple occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the event of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

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

Identifying the Primary Challengers?

Currently, a three-horse tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners separated by just a single goal.

• Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga fixtures.
• 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 Latvian side RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this term.

The remainder 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 claimed by some of football's biggest stars.

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate occasions during his 17-year spell at FC 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 straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 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 scored 32 goals for Liverpool.

The prize has seen a new winner in each of the last three seasons.

Erling Haaland won the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the identical total for Bayern Munich the following year.

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

Now, the same three players are battling at the top of the standings once more this season, with Kane currently leading the pack.