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The contest for the European Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season nears its mid-season juncture.

With a different winner in every one of the last three campaigns, the honor remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to claim the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is once again in the mix this campaign, but faces formidable competition from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

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

Since the 1997-98, the prize has been overseen by European Sports Media, which implemented a points-based scoring system. Under this format, a player's goals are multiplied by a designated coefficient based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.

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

For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues are worth one point.

While the honor has been jointly won on multiple instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 dictates that in the case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the deadlock remains, the next tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only after these criteria are used would the prize be split.

Identifying the Leading Contenders?

At present, a three-way race exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners split by just a solitary 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 one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's 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 fixtures this term.

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

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's most iconic stars.

Portuguese legend Eusébio won 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 season.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six occasions during his long spell at Barcelona.

Messi set the record for most goals in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to ever to win it in three straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd 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 netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

The award has seen a different 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 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his maiden Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the next season.

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

Now, the very three players are battling at the top of the standings again this season, with Kane presently leading the way.