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The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is intensifying as the 2025-26 season approaches its mid-season juncture.

With a different winner in every one of the previous three campaigns, the award remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based player to win the award back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the mix this season, but encounters tough competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many games left to play, other players 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 French newspaper L'Equipe to celebrate the top goalscorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98, the award has been overseen by European Sports Media, which introduced a weighted scoring system. Under this format, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

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

For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been jointly won on multiple occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 season states that in the case of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie remains, the next tiebreaker is the total of league assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only if these criteria are exhausted would the award be split.

Identifying the Primary Challengers?

As it stands, a three-way race exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated 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 RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvian club RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

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

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

Reviewing Past Recipients

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

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six times during his 17-year tenure at 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 consecutive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 season with Manchester United before proceeding 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.

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

Erling Haaland claimed 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 season.

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

Now, the very three players are battling at the top of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently out in front the pack.