Golden Boot Showdown: Europe’s Elite Strikers Clash

The Golden Boot Glory: Top Scorers Battle for European Supremacy

Mohamed Salah, Kylian Mbappé, and Viktor Gyökeres are the leaders in the European Golden Boot awards for 2024–25. Although some of the domestic league competitions have finished, the European Golden Boot contest is still open going into the last week of action on the continent.

The European Golden Boot is awarded to the top scorer in each European domestic league. Though other prolific forwards like Thierry Henry, Luis Suárez, and Robert Lewandowski have won the accolade, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo received the award as a joke during their prime playing years. The 2024–25 award will come down to the wire, with players from all over Europe still in the running.

So how do they choose the winners of the European Golden Boot Award? Goals by players are multiplied by some factor depending on where they play in the weighted-points system used to award the European Golden Boot. Goals by players in
the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1—the five top European leagues—are awarded two points.

Goals in leagues that are ranked sixth to twenty-second in UEFA’s coefficient, like the Portuguese Primeira Liga, are worth one and a half points. One point is awarded for each goal scored by the remaining players in the lower European leagues. The prize will go to the individual with the highest points at the conclusion of the season.

The 2024–25 European Golden Boot all but certainly has a first-time winner. Viktor Gyökeres brought his league goal record to an astonishing 39 in Sporting Lisbon’s game-sealing win in the last Primeira Liga season. Gyökeres leads the running by a wide margin with 58.5 points, set to become the first winner of the award while not playing in the top five leagues since 2002.

The Sweden international, however, can no longer increase his points total as his club campaign has concluded. A further goal would bring Kylian Mbappé into the lead. Seven goals in his last four La Liga appearances leave the Frenchman to overtake Gyökeres and win the award for the first time in his life if he scores again against Real Sociedad in Real Madrid’s last league match of the season.

Mohamed Salah has been incredible for Liverpool this season, and he would surpass Gyökeres record if he netted two goals in the Reds last match of the season. If this happens and Mbappé fails to score in his last match of the season, the Egyptian will claim the first European Golden Boot prize of his career. Salah and Mbappé will share the European Golden Boot if they finish on the same points.

The record figures of the European Golden Boot award are that the winner with the most European Golden Boot titles is Lionel Messi (6), and the club with the most European Golden Boot titles won is Barcelona (8). The nation with the most European Golden Boots won is Portugal (8), and La Liga (15) is the league with the most European Golden Boot titles won.

While the candidates sprint towards the golden glory, their current goal tallies are bound to change, and history is going to be rewritten.

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