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

With a new winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the award remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to secure the award back in 2022-23.

The prolific Norwegian striker is back in the hunt this term, but faces stiff competition from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Real Madrid phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many games remaining, other players still have time to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The European Golden Shoe was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the highest scorer in league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98, the prize has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a weighted points system. Under this format, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific multiplier based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

Goals scored in Europe's five major leagues—the Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, 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 one and a half points. Goals in lower-ranked European leagues are worth one point.

While the honor has been jointly won on multiple occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 dictates that in the event of a tie, the award goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.

If the tie remains, the subsequent deciding factor is the total of assists, followed by the fewest penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are exhausted would the prize be split.

Identifying the Leading Challengers?

At present, a three-horse battle exists for the 2025-26 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 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 matches.

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

Dutch side Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this season.

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

Reviewing Past Recipients

Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's biggest names.

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

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six occasions during his 17-year spell at Barcelona.

Messi set the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with fifty 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 megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first 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 English club was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted 32 goals for Liverpool.

The prize has seen a new winner in each of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland won the prize 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 next year.

Kylian Mbappe is the current winner of the award after scoring 31 goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.

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