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The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is heating up as the 2025-26 season approaches its midway point.

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

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the hunt this term, but faces stiff competition from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures left to play, other players still have time to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the France-based publication L'Equipe to celebrate the leading scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

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

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

For competitions 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 shared on multiple instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season states that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the tie persists, the subsequent deciding factor is the total of assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only if these tiebreakers are used would the prize be split.

Identifying the Main Challengers?

Currently, a three-horse battle is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners split by just a solitary 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 appearances.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind 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 striker Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this season.

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

A Look at Previous Winners

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

Portuguese icon Eusébio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six separate occasions during his long tenure at Barcelona.

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

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 with Man Utd before going on to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

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

The prize has seen a new winner in every one of the last 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 same goal tally for Bayern Munich the next season.

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 competing at the summit of the standings again this season, with Kane presently out in front the pack.