The battle for the Golden Boot trophy is heating up as the current season nears its midway point.
With a different winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the honor remains up for grabs. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to win the trophy back in 2022-23.
The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the running this term, but encounters stiff competition from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of games left to play, other players still have time to throw their hat into the contest.
The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to honor the top goalscorer in league matches from a European top division league.
Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been overseen by European Sports Media, which introduced a points-based points system. Under this method, a player's goals are multiplied by a designated coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.
Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the English Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1—are worth two points each.
For leagues 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 shared on multiple instances in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season states that in the case of a tie, the trophy goes to the player with the fewest minutes played.
If the tie persists, the subsequent tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are exhausted would the award be shared.
Currently, a three-way tussle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a solitary goal.
In fourth is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's club RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.
Dutch side Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this term.
The remainder of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that operate on a calendar year schedule.
Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's biggest stars.
Portuguese icon Eusébio claimed the inaugural 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 won the most Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six occasions during his 17-year tenure at FC Barcelona.
Messi set the record for highest tally in a campaign 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 superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Man Utd before proceeding to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.
The first player to win the award while at an club in England was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted 32 goals for Liverpool FC.
The prize has seen a new winner in every one of the last three seasons.
Erling Haaland won the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the same goal tally 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 same three players are vying at the top of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane presently out in front the pack.
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