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

With a new winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the honor remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to secure the award back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the mix this term, but encounters stiff rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches remaining, other players still have time to enter the contest.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The European Golden Shoe was first launched in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to celebrate the leading scorer in domestic 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 weighted points system. Under this format, a player's tallies 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, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Ligue 1—are worth two points apiece.

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

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

If the tie persists, the next tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only after these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be shared.

Identifying the Leading Challengers?

At present, a three-horse battle exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners split by just a solitary 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvian club RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

Dutch side Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is tied for fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this term.

The rest of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.

A Look at Past Winners

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

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

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate times during his long spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for highest tally in a campaign with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Man Utd before going on to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

The inaugural player to win the award while at an club in England was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored 32 goals for Liverpool FC.

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 thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the following year.

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

Now, the same three players are vying at the summit of the standings again this campaign, with Kane currently out in front the way.