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
As Bayern celebrated Bundesliga title glory, Robert Lewandowski strengthened his position at the top of the standings as he pursues back-to-back European Golden Shoe titles.
Lewandowski pounced on a defensive error to score against his former club Dortmund on Saturday.
The 3-1 Klassiker win for Bayern clinched a 10th consecutive Bundesliga crown.
Lewandowski moved his magnificent goal total this season to 33 goals from 31 Bundesliga appearances.
While likely to fall short of his historical 41-goal total last season, it still 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.
Lewandowski has netted just twice in his last four games, slower than his usual incredible rate in front of goal.
However, none of his main rivals are doing major damage and his chances of winning increase with each matchday that is ticked off the calendar.
His two closest rivals coming into this week were Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema and Lazio striker Ciro Immobile.
Benzema went without a goal in Real Madrid’s Wednesday win at Osasuna, while Immobile netted once as Lazio went down to a late 2-1 Sunday defeat at the hands of Milan.
That means Immobile now has an outright hold of second place with 26 goals, which is seven behind Lewandowski in the Golden Shoe race, with Benzema sitting eight adrift.
Benzema’s league-leading Primera Division total of 25 has come from just 29 top-flight appearances.
The France forward has recorded the 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 has scored five goals in his last three matches and his total is the best in Serie A.
Juventus forward Dusan Vlahovic (23) sits fourth in the golden shoe charts and is second only to Immobile in Italy.
In-form PSG star Kylian Mbappe is top of the charts in Ligue 1 and remains in the Golden Shoe top five, with his strike against Angers this week moving him on to 22 goals.
Mbappe also scored a hat-trick as his team romped to a 6-1 win at Clermont Foot this month and he is on a remarkable run of form for club and country despite not scoring against Lens last time out.
But he now has company in the form of Mohamed Salah, who leads the Premier League golden boot race.
Two goals for Liverpool in the 4-0 thumping of Man Utd means Salah is now level with Mbappe on 44 Golden Shoe points.
Patrik Schick and Martin Terrier come next with 21 goals apiece, while Wissam Ben Yedder (20) and Erling Haaland (18) round out the top 10 as things stand.
Lewandowski only has three league games left to play given the Bundesliga season is shorter than the other major divisions in Europe.
But given his seven-goal lead, the Poland star will be increasingly confident that he has built a sufficient advantage 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.