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

With a different winner in each of the past three campaigns, the prize remains wide open. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based striker to secure the award back in the 2022-23 season.

The prolific Norwegian striker is back in the running this season, but encounters tough competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many games left to play, other players still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was introduced in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to celebrate the leading goalscorer in league matches from a European top-flight league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which implemented a points-based points system. Under this method, a player's tallies are weighted with a specific multiplier based on the UEFA coefficient of their domestic competition.

Goals scored in Europe's top five leagues—the English Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, 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 Primeira Liga, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry one point.

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

If the deadlock persists, the next tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the award be split.

Identifying the Leading Contenders?

At present, a three-horse tussle is underway for the current season's 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 fixtures.
• Erling Haaland also has 19 goals (38 points) from 17 Premier League appearances.
• 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 the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Dutch side Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is joint-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 function on a calendar year schedule.

A Look at Previous Winners

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

Portuguese icon Eusebio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 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, claiming the award on six times during his long spell at Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before proceeding to win it on three further occasions 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 award has seen a different winner in every one of the last three seasons.

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

Kylian Mbappe is the reigning holder 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 season, with Kane presently leading the pack.