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The battle for the European Golden Shoe is intensifying as the current season approaches its midway point.

With a new winner in each of the past three campaigns, the honor remains up for grabs. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based player to claim the award back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the mix this term, but encounters formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures left to play, other talents still have time to throw their hat into the fray.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

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

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

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 each.

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

While the award has been shared on multiple occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 dictates that in the event of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the deadlock persists, the next deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these tiebreakers are exhausted would the prize be split.

Who are the Primary Challengers?

Currently, a three-way race is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three previous winners split by just a single 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 games.

In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvian club 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 remainder of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that operate on a January-to-December schedule.

Reviewing Previous Winners

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate times during his 17-year spell at FC Barcelona.

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

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

The award has seen a new 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 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally 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 standings once more this season, with Kane presently leading the pack.