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The battle for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the current season approaches its halfway mark.

With a different winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the prize remains highly contested. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based striker to claim the award back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is once again in the mix this term, but encounters tough rivalry from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other talents still have an opportunity to enter the fray.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the French publication L'Equipe to celebrate the leading scorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

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

For competitions ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been jointly won on multiple occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 dictates that in the case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the tie remains, the subsequent deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only if these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be split.

Who are the Main Contenders?

At present, a three-way battle is underway for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners split by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (England 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

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

Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this season.

The rest of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Past Winners

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

Portuguese legend Eusebio won the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for Benfica. He then secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six occasions during his long tenure 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 straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

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 English club was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

The prize has seen a new winner in each of the last 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 secured his maiden Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the following 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 very three players are competing at the summit of the standings once more this season, with Kane currently out in front the pack.