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The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the current season approaches its halfway mark.

With a different winner in each of the previous three campaigns, the prize remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based striker to win the award back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian striker is once again in the running this campaign, but faces formidable rivalry from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches remaining, other players still have time to throw their hat into the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

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

Since the 1997-98, the award has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a weighted points system. Under this format, a player's goals are weighted with a designated coefficient based on the strength ranking of their league.

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 each.

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

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

If the deadlock persists, the next tiebreaker is the number of assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only after these criteria are used would the prize be shared.

Identifying the Primary Contenders?

Currently, a three-horse tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners split 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 outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

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

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

Reviewing Previous Winners

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

Portuguese icon Eusébio won the inaugural 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 legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate times during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.

Messi established 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 date to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

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 club in England was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The award has seen a different winner in every one of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland won the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical goal tally for Bayern Munich the following year.

Kylian Mbappe is the reigning 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 summit of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane currently leading the way.