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The competition for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the 2025-26 season approaches its halfway mark.

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

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the hunt this season, but faces formidable competition from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many games left to play, other players still have time to throw their hat into the contest.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

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

Since the 1997-98, the prize has been overseen by European Sports Media, which implemented a weighted scoring system. Under this method, a player's goals are weighted with a designated multiplier based on the strength ranking of their league.

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been shared on several instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

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

Who are the Main Contenders?

As it stands, a three-horse tussle exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the three 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 appearances.
• Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth is RFS striker Darko Lemajic of Latvian side RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Dutch side Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is tied for fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this season.

The rest of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.

Reviewing Previous Recipients

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

Portuguese legend Eusébio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six times during his 17-year spell at Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for most goals in a campaign with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three straight seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United 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 Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

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

Erling Haaland scooped the award 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 next year.

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

Now, the same trio are battling at the summit of the leaderboard again this season, with Kane currently leading the pack.