European Golden Shoe 2025/26: Gyokeres, Haaland, Mbappe and Kane impress

Carlo Garganese

• 15 Sept 2025 11:50 BST
• 13 min read

Feature

Kylian Mbappe is looking to defend his title in the European Golden Shoe award during the 2025/26 season, but he is facing stiff competition from some of the continent’s elite strikers.

Real Madrid and France forward Mbappe triumphed for the first time last season, courtesy of a magnificent run of form towards the end of the campaign.

Mbappe was not leading the race to win the European golden boot until Real Madrid’s 38th and final LaLiga match of the season.

But he still found a way to come out on top, finishing with 31 goals and 62 Golden Shoe points to narrowly edge out Viktor Gyokeres, Mohamed Salah and Robert Lewandowski in one of the closest races for many years.

Harry Kane was also in the mix, narrowly missing out on retaining the title he won in 2023/24, while Mateo Retegui, Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland all featured in a star-studded top eight in the continental scoring standings.

Mbappe would have liked his chances of winning the Golden Shoe race for the first time after moving from Paris Saint-Germain to Real Madrid ahead of 2024/25.

While Mbappe was yet to come out on top in the Golden Shoe charts prior to last season, he had been very close on multiple occasions, scoring at least 27 goals in five of his final six seasons playing for PSG in Ligue 1 and regularly challenging for a podium spot.

That run included a 33-goal season in 2018/19 that saw him finish just three short of Lionel Messi, which was the last time the Argentina great triumphed during his stunning career at Barcelona.

READ MORE: Premier League 2025/26 Top Scorers

As Real Madrid's new leading light, Mbappe impressively scored the most goals in Europe for 2024/25, even though LaLiga, Champions League and Copa del Rey glory eluded him on a team level.

He became the first Real Madrid winner of the award for 10 years, with Cristiano Ronaldo having been the last player from Los Blancos to prevail back in 2014/15.

READ MORE: Premier League Assists Standings

As for this season, Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Lamine Yamal are among a host of other top LaLiga contenders to score the most goals in Europe’s top five leagues.

Ousmane Dembele, meanwhile, came into the Ligue 1 campaign on a high after achieving Champions League glory with PSG and Serhou Guirassy is a threat from the Bundesliga after impressing both domestically and in Europe last season.

As well as Salah, Isak and Haaland, candidates from the Premier League are likely to include Cole Palmer, Omar Marmoush and Hugo Ekitike, while Benjamin Sesko will hope to boost Manchester United.

READ MORE: Manchester United 2025/26 Top Scorers

Gyokeres is also playing his football in England this season after joining Arsenal from Sporting CP and impressing so much in the Golden Shoe race last time around.

He had been in the top 10 of the Golden Shoe charts for much of last season but then found another gear towards the end of the year, scoring a hat-trick against Moreirense before netting a stunning four-goal haul in a match with Boavista in the space of nine days to charge up the standings.

Gyokeres ultimately finished as Golden Shoe runner-up with an astonishing 39 goals in the Primeira Liga, helping Sporting to title glory with a goal in the 2-0 win over Vitoria on the final day of the season.

READ MORE: Most Assists In Europe 2025/26

His goals in Portugal's top flight were worth 1.5 points per strike, so he had to score more goals than his main rivals to remain in with a fighting chance of becoming the first player for 23 years to win the Golden Shoe from outside the major European leagues.

After falling agonisingly short of what would have been seen as a shock triumph, Gyokeres' league goals with the Gunners will now be worth 2 points each, so he is hoping to go one better this season, and this time came into the campaign among the favourites.

The big names often triumph in this award, but there have also been surprise winners in the past, including Lazio’s Ciro Immobile in 2019/20.

This page will be updated throughout the 2025/26 season with regular updates on the European Golden Shoe standings.

READ MORE: Champions League 2025/26 Top Scorers

For the time being our table below tracking the European Golden Shoe standings will only list players from the top five European leagues, where the winner is most likely to emerge from.

Players from outside the top-five leagues in Europe are eligible to win the Golden Shoe, but the winner has not come from one of those divisions since 2002, although the chances of a shock triumph should not be completely discounted after Gyokeres' exploits in Portugal last season.

European Golden Shoe Standings

A host of notable players are battling for the early lead in the European golden boot scoring standings, with Erling Haaland among a large group of frontrunners after improving his tally with a lethal double in Sunday's Manchester derby.

Defending champion Kylian Mbappe has also made a fast start this season.

Club football returned this weekend after the first international break of the 2025/26 campaign.

After impressing for Norway during the break, Haaland had a crucial fixture as struggling Man City take on rivals Man Utd, helping his side to a 3-0 victory.

Mbappe was in action a day earlier, with Real Madrid travelling to play Real Sociedad. As expected it proved to be away fixture on Saturday, but the striker impressed with a goal and an assist as his side battled to a 2-1 victory.

That put Mbappe one clear of Haaland ahead of his match, but the Norway star's double means he is now the joint leader along with in-form Bayern attacker Harry Kane.

Robert Lewandowski is now up and running after netting twice as Barcelona thrashed Valencia 6-0 on September 14. Raphinha also scored a double, ensuring he moves up to three goals for the league campaign.

The 2025/26 action in Europe's top five leagues is now fully under way, with the continent's leading teams all having completed their pre-season campaigns and then played either two or three top-flight matches so far.

Premier League, LaLiga and Ligue 1 action arrived first, with those three competitions all getting started on Friday August 15.

There was one week longer to wait before Serie A and the Bundesliga start, but the kick-off for those two competitions has now also arrived, with Bayern Munich opening the campaign in Germany against RB Leipzig on August 22.

That gave Kane an early chance to make his mark on the continental scoring standings, knowing key rivals like Haaland were already well up and running.

And Kane took full advantage of the opportunity, smashing his eighth Bundesliga hat-trick as Bayern earned a rampant 6-0 win over RB Leipzig.

Napoli, AC Milan and Roma were among the teams in action on day one in Serie A, which started on August 23.

Haaland is already among the early leaders in this season’s scoring standings after scoring twice when Manchester City thumped Wolves 4-0 at Molineux in the Premier League. That performance was an early statement after he was beaten in England's Golden Boot race last season, ending a run of two straight successes.

Mohamed Salah also got off the mark swiftly as he scored a late goal to clinch Liverpool's dramatic 4-2 home win over Bournemouth on the Premier League's opening night. His last-gasp MD4 penalty against Burnley kept him in touch with the early leaders.

His team-mate Hugo Ekitike also scored in that opening game with Bournemouth, and he added another strike when Liverpool recorded another thrilling win in their second match, defeating Newcastle 3-2 at St James' Park.

Lamine Yamal was a goalscorer when Barcelona won 3-0 at Mallorca in LaLiga, scoring with a magnificent effort into the top corner, having earlier set up a header for Raphinha.

Yamal later added his second goal of the campaign from the penalty spot against Rayo Vallecano on MD3.

Ferran Torres also has two league goals for Barca, having netted against Mallorca and then adding another strike in a dramatic match two at Levante.

Viktor Gyokeres started his bid for glory when Arsenal travelled to play Man Utd, but he produced a disappointing debut performance. However, the Gunners were still able to grind out a 1-0 away win.

He then burst into life in the second match, scoring a strong double against Leeds in a 5-0 home victory. Another home goal against Nottingham Forest on MD4 made him the first Arsenal player to score in his first two home EPL matches for the club since Alexandre Lacazette in 2017.

Fans of Mbappe had to wait until Tuesday on MD1 before Real Madrid started their campaign, as they faced Osasuna.

The France star was eager to immediately join the standings and he did exactly that by converting a penalty he had won himself early in the second half, as Los Blancos won 1-0 at home.

Mbappe then impressively scored twice in Madrid's second game, a 3-0 away victory against promoted side Real Oviedo.

As of the end of MD1, four Premier League players had already scored two goals, with the only other star outside England's top flight to hit a double on that first weekend being Kamory Doumbia in Brest's dramatic 3-3 draw against Lille in Ligue 1.

But Kane and team-mate Michael Olise both charged into the standings at the start of MD2, and further notable players joined them on two or more goals over the course of that weekend, so the early standings were already looking intriguing.

Haaland's goal at Brighton on MD3 meant he also moved on to three goals for the campaign and features in a large leading group.

Serhou Guirassy is also involved towards the top of the standings after netting a double in Dortmund's 3-0 home win over Union Berlin and then striking again in a 2-0 away triumph at Heidenheim. In a fine run dating back to last season, he has now scored in eight consecutive Bundesliga matches.

Who won the European Golden Shoe - Previous Winners

Lionel Messi has won the most European Golden Shoe titles. The Inter Miami forward has triumphed on six occasions.

Messi's last success was in 2018/19 for Barcelona and he did not win the award during either of his two years playing with PSG.

Cristiano Ronaldo is his closest challenger with four career wins, though the Al-Nassr attacker has not come out on top since 2014/15 when he was at Real Madrid, with his second spell at Manchester United not hitting the heights of his first.

Robert Lewandowski’s triumph in 2021/22 means there are 10 players who have two Golden Shoe awards each, a list that also includes Luis Suarez and Thierry Henry.

Messi holds the record for most goals and points in a season as well. He remarkably scored 50 goals in 2011/12, earning himself 100 points.

Ronaldo has come closest to breaking that, scoring 48 goals for 96 Golden Shoe points when he last won the crown in 2014/15.

Argentina forward Messi is the only player in European Golden Shoe history to win the title three years in a row, doing so from 2016/17 until 2018/19. Lewandowski is the last to win it back-to-back.

However, Ronaldo (Man Utd and Real Madrid) does share one key Golden Shoe record. He is one of only four players to have won the title with different clubs, with the others to have achieved that feat being Suarez (Liverpool and Barcelona), Diego Forlan (Villarreal and Atletico Madrid) and Mario Jardel (Porto and Sporting CP).

Lewandowski became the first Bundesliga winner since 1972 with the first of his two triumphs in the 2020/21 season, with his remarkable 41 goals from 29 games for Bayern remaining the best winning goal tally we have seen since 2015.

That memorable campaign came after Ciro Immobile won the 2019/20 European Golden Shoe, scoring 36 goals for Lazio in a tremendous Serie A season.

It was Immobile's only title, with the striker becoming the first Serie A player to score the most goals in Europe since Francesco Totti triumphed for Lazio's rivals Roma in 2006/07.

Ligue 1 has not produced a winner since Josip Skoblar in 1971.

France's top flight might have expected to win multiple Golden Shoe titles in the modern era given the likes of Messi, Mbappe, Neymar and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have played in the league, but the competition looks likely to have to wait a while longer for one of its players to be crowned, particularly with Mbappe now thriving in Spain.

Success for Erling Haaland in 2022/23 gave the Norway star his first European Golden Boot title.

Haaland was the first Premier League winner since Suarez achieved the feat with Liverpool in 2013/14.

Harry Kane dethroned Haaland in 2023/24, meaning a Bayern player has impressively won the award in three of the last five campaigns.

What are the European Golden Shoe rules and weightings?

Only league goals are eligible for points in the European Golden Shoe award.

Each strike earns points in a weighted system depending on the quality of league.

The five elite leagues - Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 - all carry a weighting of 2, meaning that a player will be awarded two points for every goal they score in these competitions.

For the leagues ranked sixth to 21 in Uefa's coefficients rankings - which includes the top-flights in Portugal and Netherlands - goals scored are given a weighting of 1.5, and goals scored in a league outside the top 21 are given a weighting of 1.

A great example of how important the scoring system can occasionally be came in the 2024/25 season. Viktor Gyokeres scored 39 goals for Sporting CP, but the Golden Shoe winner that year was Kylian Mbappe, who netted 31 goals for Real Madrid, with the France star's strikes given a higher weighting.

Last season was the first time since 2009/10 (Lionel Messi, Barcelona) that the Golden Shoe winner was not also the top scorer in the whole continent. That year Messi netted 34 times and won the Golden Shoe, but Luis Suarez had 35 goals for Ajax in the Netherlands, with those goals receiving a lower weighting.

The current scoring system has not always been in operation for the European Golden Shoe. From 1968 until 1991, the award simply went to the highest goalscorer on the continent, regardless of the strength of league.

Awards were not initially handed out between 1991 until 1996, when the new system came into force. Since then, the changes have heavily favoured star names representing the leading clubs, as only two players playing outside what were the five highest-ranked leagues at the time have ever won the Golden Shoe - Henrik Larsson (2000/01 with Celtic) and Mario Jardel (2001/02 with Sporting CP).

The Golden Shoe has been tied in the past, most recently when Suarez and Ronaldo shared the honour in 2013/14. Going forward, though, the award will be given to the player who has played the fewest minutes if two of them end up on the same number of points.

This page covers the 2025/26 European Golden Shoe race. This link will display all the information for the 2024/25 season, while all the details from the 2023/24 season can be found here.