Who's Leading in the Race for the Golden Boot Award?

The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the current season approaches its midway point.

With a new winner in each of the last three campaigns, the honor remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based player to claim the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the hunt this campaign, but encounters formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many games left to play, other talents still have time to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to honor the highest goalscorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

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

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's rankings, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues carry one point.

While the award has been jointly won on several instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 states that in the event of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the tie persists, the next deciding factor is the total of assists, followed by the least goals from the penalty spot. Only if these criteria are exhausted would the award be shared.

Identifying the Primary Challengers?

As it stands, a three-horse race exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a single 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 outings.
• Kylian Mbappe sits just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

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

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

The remainder of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.

Reviewing Previous Winners

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

Portuguese icon Eusébio won the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for SL Benfica. He later secured the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six occasions during his long spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for highest tally in a single season 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 claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Man Utd 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 32 goals for Liverpool FC.

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

Erling Haaland claimed the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his maiden Golden Shoe with the identical total for Bayern Munich the following 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 same three players are vying at the summit of the leaderboard once more this campaign, with Kane currently out in front the pack.