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The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is intensifying as the 2025-26 season nears its halfway mark.

With a new winner in every one of the last three campaigns, the prize remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to secure the award back in the 2022-23 season.

The prolific Norwegian striker is back in the running this campaign, but encounters formidable competition from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures remaining, other players still have an opportunity to throw their hat into the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

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

Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a weighted scoring system. Under this method, a player's tallies are weighted with a designated coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are worth two points each.

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been jointly won on several occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

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

Who are the Main Contenders?

As it stands, a three-way battle is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga matches.
• 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 matches.

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

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

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

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its 59-year history, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's biggest legends.

Portuguese icon Eusébio claimed the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for Benfica. He then secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the most Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate occasions during his long spell at Barcelona.

Messi set the record for highest tally in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 season with Manchester United before going on to win it three more times with Real Madrid.

The first player to win the award while at an club in England was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool.

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

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

Kylian Mbappe is the reigning holder of the award after scoring 31 goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.

Now, the very three players are competing at the top of the standings once more this season, with Kane currently leading the way.