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The battle for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the current season approaches its halfway mark.

With a different winner in each of the past three campaigns, the honor remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to claim the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the running this term, but encounters stiff competition from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many matches remaining, other players still have time to enter the fray.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to honor the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been overseen by European Sports Media, which introduced a points-based points system. Under this method, a player's tallies are weighted with a specific multiplier based on the strength ranking of their league.

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

For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA's rankings, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the honor has been jointly won on multiple instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 states 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 total of league assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be shared.

Who are the Main Challengers?

Currently, a three-horse battle exists for the 2025-26 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 games.
• Erling Haaland also has 19 goals (38 points) from 17 Premier League outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

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

Feyenoord forward 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 calendar year schedule.

A Look at Previous Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's most iconic 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 legend Lionel Messi has secured the most Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate occasions during his 17-year tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for most goals in a campaign with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

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

The inaugural player to win the award while at an English club was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored 32 goals for Liverpool.

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

Erling Haaland claimed the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical total for Bayern Munich the next year.

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

Now, the very three players are vying at the top of the leaderboard again this season, with Kane currently leading the way.