The 2021/22 European Golden Shoe race is under way, with the continent’s most prolific goalscorers all vying to win one of football’s most prestigious individual awards.
Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski saw off the challenge of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to finish at the top of the European Golden Shoe rankings last season.
READ MORE: Premier League Golden Boot: Current standings and past winners
Lewandowski scored an astonishing 41 league goals from 29 appearances, giving him 82 Golden Shoe points and the highest winning score since Ronaldo in 2014/15.
Manchester United star Ronaldo and Messi – who has moved from Barcelona to PSG – both entered the new campaign expecting to challenge again in the standings for the most goals in Europe.
READ MORE: Who will be the European Assists King for 2021/22?
Messi’s PSG team-mate Kylian Mbappe and a fellow young star in Erling Haaland were also expected to be in the mix to top the Golden Shoe rankings and take the crown from Lewandowski.
Along with Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku, Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah started the season as the top Premier League candidates, though surprise winners have also emerged in the past.
Keep an eye on this page throughout the 2021/22 season for regular updates on the European Golden Shoe standings.
2021/22 EUROPEAN GOLDEN SHOE STANDINGS
Robert Lewandowski sits top of the standings as he pursues back-to-back European Golden Shoe titles and he still looks difficult to catch at the top.
Bayern striker Lewandowski did not score in the 3-0 win over Bielefeld on Sunday, instead registering an assist.
He had scored a late penalty against Augsburg the previous week, meaning his magnificent goal total this season stands at 32 goals from 30 Bundesliga appearances.
That puts him in first place in the battle to win the European golden boot as he has the highest total in all of Europe’s five major leagues.
Even though he did not score this weekend, none of his main rivals did major damage so Lewandowski’s position at the top still looks strong and another week has been ticked off the calendar.
His two closest rivals are Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema and Lazio striker Ciro Immobile.
Both players have improved their league totals to 25 goals, which is seven behind Lewandowski in the Golden Shoe race.
Benzema’s league-leading Primera Division total has come from just 28 top-flight appearances.
The France forward netted a last-gasp winner in the 3-2 comeback win over Sevilla, meaning he has now recorded his best league goalscoring campaign (beating the 24 goals in 2015/16) that he has had in 13 seasons with Real Madrid.
Former Golden Shoe winner Immobile moved into a tie for second place with his strike in the 1-1 draw against Torino.
Immobile is on form having recently scored a hat-trick as Lazio thrashed Genoa 4-1 and his 25 goals mark the best total in Serie A.
Juventus forward Dusan Vlahovic scored in the 1-1 draw against Bologna and sits fourth in the golden shoe charts.
In-form PSG star Kylian Mbappe is now in the top five, with his penalty in the 2-1 win over rivals Marseille moving him on to 21 goals.
Mbappe previously scored a hat-trick as his team romped to a 6-1 win at Clermont Foot and he is on a remarkable run of form for club and country.
Mohamed Salah, who leads the Premier League golden boot race, sits level with Patrik Schick on 20 goals and 40 Golden Shoe points.
Liverpool forward Salah has slowed up in recent weeks, scoring just once in five top-flight appearances.
Wissam Ben Yedder had spent much of the season as the top scorer in Ligue 1 and has 19 goals, though it is Mbappe – who also produced an incredible performance against Lorient this month with two goals and three assists – who tops the standings in France.
Erling Haaland has had an injury Interrupted campaign but he scored a double – his first league goals since January – as Dortmund thrashed Wolfsburg 6-1, meaning he is back in the top 10.
Lewandowski only has four league games left to play given the Bundesliga season is shorter than the other major divisions in Europe.
But the Poland star will be increasingly confident that he has built a sufficient lead to secure glory in this award once more.
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.
2021/22 European Golden Shoe
Who are the previous European Golden Shoe winners?
Lionel Messi has won the most European Golden Shoe titles.
The PSG forward has triumphed on six occasions, most recently in 2018/19 for Barcelona.
Cristiano Ronaldo is his closest challenger with four career wins, though the Man Utd attacker has not come out on top since 2014/15 when he was at Real Madrid.
Nine players have two awards apiece, including 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 points when he last won the crown more than six years ago.
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.
Ronaldo, though, is one of only four players to have won the title with different clubs. The others are Luis Suarez, Diego Forlan and Mario Jardel.
Robert Lewandowski became the first Bundesliga winner since 1972 last season, with his 41 goals being the best tally for six seasons.
That came after Ciro Immobile won the 2019/20 European Golden Shoe, scoring 36 goals for Lazio in a tremendous Serie A season.
It was his first title, with the striker becoming the first Serie A player to have 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, a statistic the likes of Messi and Mbappe are hoping to change soon.
What are the European Golden Shoe rules and weightings?
Only league goals are eligible for the European Golden Shoe, with each strike earning 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, Netherlands and Russia – goals scored are given a weighting of 1.5, and goals scored in a league outwith the top 21 are given a weighting of 1.
That was not always the case in 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, 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) and Mario Jardel (2001/02).
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 2021/22 European Golden Shoe race.
Last season’s standings can be found here and if you want to see the final results for the 2019/20 European Golden Shoe, follow this link.