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The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the current season nears its midway point.

With a different winner in each of the past three campaigns, the award remains wide open. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to win the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian striker is back in the mix this season, but faces stiff competition from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of fixtures remaining, other players still have time to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was first launched in the 1967-68 by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to celebrate the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

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

For leagues ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA list, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues carry 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 case of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

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

Who are the Main Contenders?

At present, a three-way race exists 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 matches.
• 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 netted 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Dutch side Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is tied for fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this term.

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

Reviewing Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's biggest legends.

Portuguese legend Eusebio claimed the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for SL Benfica. He later secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate occasions during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.

Messi established the record for most goals in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar 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 first player to win the award while at an club in England was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored 32 goals for Liverpool.

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

Erling Haaland scooped the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 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 battling at the top of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane presently leading the way.