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The competition for the prestigious Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season nears its halfway mark.

With a new winner in each of the past three campaigns, the award remains highly contested. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based forward to secure the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the running this campaign, but faces formidable competition from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many games left to play, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was first launched in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to honor the highest goalscorer in league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been overseen by European Sports Media, which implemented a points-based scoring system. Under this method, a player's tallies are multiplied by a designated coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

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

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's rankings, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the honor has been jointly won on multiple instances in the past, a rule change 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 remains, the next deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the award be split.

Identifying the Leading Contenders?

Currently, a three-way battle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners split 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 is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvia's side RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

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

The rest of the top 10 is comprised of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.

Reviewing Previous Winners

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

Portuguese legend Eusebio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate times during his long spell at Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date to win it in three straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before going on to win it three more times with Real Madrid.

The first player to win the award while at an club in England was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

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

Erling Haaland won the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the next season.

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

Now, the same trio are vying at the summit of the leaderboard once more this campaign, with Kane currently leading the way.