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

With a different winner in every one of the previous three campaigns, the award remains wide open. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based striker to secure the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is once again in the running this campaign, but faces formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With many matches remaining, other talents still have an opportunity to enter the fray.

Understanding the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based publication L'Equipe to celebrate the top goalscorer in league matches from a European top division league.

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

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's rankings, such as the Portuguese league, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues are worth one point.

While the honor has been jointly won on several occasions in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 states that in the case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.

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

Identifying the Leading Challengers?

Currently, a three-horse race is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of 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 Darko Lemajic of Latvia's club RFS, who has scored 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 term.

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

Reviewing Previous Winners

Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's most iconic names.

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

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the award on six separate times during his long tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark 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 successive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United before proceeding 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 thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

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

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

Now, the very trio are competing at the summit of the leaderboard once more this season, with Kane presently out in front the pack.