Who's Leading in the Contest for the Golden Shoe?

The battle for the prestigious Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the 2025-26 season passes its mid-season juncture.

With a new winner in every one of the last 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 prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the running this campaign, but encounters formidable competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches left to play, other players still have an opportunity to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to recognize the highest scorer in league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which implemented a weighted points 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 the continent's five major leagues—the English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are worth two points each.

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

While the honor has been shared on multiple occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie persists, the next tiebreaker is the total of assists, followed by the fewest goals from the penalty spot. Only if these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be split.

Who are the Leading Challengers?

At present, a three-horse battle exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners split by just a single goal.

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

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvian 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 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.

Reviewing Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's biggest stars.

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

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six separate times during his 17-year spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the record for most goals in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season 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 FC.

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

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

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

Now, the very trio are vying at the summit of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently out in front the way.