Last week saw Kylian Mbappé finally become the proud recipient of the European Golden Shoe award that he actually won months ago by finishing as the top goal scorer of the continent’s top divisions in the 2024-25 season.

Having officially claimed the award back in May, the France striker was belatedly presented with his trophy before Real Madrid‘s LaLiga fixture against Valencia last weekend.

Mbappé scored 31 league goals last campaign to ensure that he added his name to a star-studded list of previous European Golden Shoe winners. He also became only the third Blancos player to earn the prestigious award behind club idols Hugo Sánchez and Cristiano Ronaldo, who claimed the award three times as a Madrid player and once with Manchester United.

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A whole host of other elite goal scorers have also won the Golden Shoe since its inception in 1967-68, with Eusébio taking the inaugural prize before the likes of Gerd Müller, Marco van Basten, Hristo Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Robert Lewandowski and Harry Kane, who won the award in 2023-24.

However, for all the heavyweights to have hoisted the Golden Shoe in the past, the chase for the 2025-26 award is not being led by Erling Haaland or Mbappé, but by a comparatively obscure striker by the name of Darko Lemajic, who plays in Latvia with Rigas Futbola Skola (RFS) and is narrowly ahead of his rivals in the race.

The 32-year-old is currently leading the pursuit for the 2025-26 European Golden Boot this season, having scored 28 goals already. However, the Latvian Virsliga is essentially a summer league that usually runs between March and November. Therefore, Lemajic has had 35 league games to amass his impressive tally while the likes of Haaland, Mbappé et al are roughly only 10 games into their domestic campaigns.

How the European Golden Shoe award works

It’s also necessary to take the manner in which the European Golden Shoe leaderboard is calculated into account. Rather than the outright number of goals scored by an individual player, since 1997 the award has been decided using a weighted points system that assigns various difficulty multipliers based on the perceived competitiveness of the league in question.

Using UEFA’s coefficient rankings, the system dictates that goals scored by a player in one of Europe’s “top five” leagues were scored in more challenging circumstances and are therefore multiplied by a factor of two and converted into points. Goals scored in European league competitions further down the coefficient rankings (between 6-22) are multiplied by a factor of 1.5, whereas goals scored in leagues thereunder (22 and below) are multiplied by a factor of 1.

That means that Lemajic’s 28 goals in the Virsliga are worth 28 points in the standings (having been multiplied by one) and Haaland and Mbappé’s 13 goals apiece are worth 26 points, having been multiplied by two. So the latter pair are already just two points behind the RFS target man despite having scored fewer than half as many goals.

It is also why an inordinate number of players from the Scandinavian leagues are nestled in the top 10, as they also largely play to summer schedules with many of their seasons having already come to a close ahead of the cold winter months.

Lemajic still has one league game of his season to play, meaning he could well add to his tally before things wrap up over in the Latvian top flight.

Below is a rundown of the top 10 as it stands.

10. Harry Kane, Bayern Munich (12 goals, 24 points)

Carrying on his incredible form from last season, Kane has 12 league goals in just nine Bundesliga games this season, meaning that he is likely to ascend the 2025-26 European Golden Shoe leaderboard in the weeks and months to come. Should the England captain successfully maintain his formidable domestic goal-scoring rate, there is every chance he can reclaim the award from Mbappé come the final count.

9. Nahir Besara, Hammarby IF (17 goals, 25.5 points)

Hammarby are second in the Swedish Allsvenskan with one matchday still to play and Besara is one of three players who are level at the top of the league’s goal-scoring charts. The 34-year-old’s goals, however, have not been enough to prevent the Stockholm club, which is co-owned by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, from finishing a distance behind upstart minnows Mjällby AIF, who claimed the 2025 title in sensational fashion.

8. Ibrahim Diabate, GAIS (17 goals, 25.5 points)

The second of the three players atop the Allsvenskan goal-scoring charts, Diabate has 17 goals for GAIS, who will finish third narrowly behind Hammarby and therefore qualify for the UEFA Conference League qualifying round as a result.

7. August Priske, Djurgården (17 goals, 25.5 points)

The third and final striker from the 2025 Allsvenskan Golden Boot race, Denmark under-20 international Priske hit 17 goals for Djurgården.

6. Kasper Høgh, Bodo/Glimt (17 goals, 25.5 points)

With the Norwegian Eliteserien running between May and November like many Scandinavian leagues, Høgh is joint-level top scorer in the 2025 with a handful of games remaining. His Bodo/Glimt side are currently one point behind leaders Viking FK at the top of the table with time running out, despite having led the way for the majority of the campaign.

5. Daniel Karlsbakk, Sarpsborg FK (17 goals, 25.5 points)

Karlsbakk is the man level-pegging with Høgh in the race for Eliteserien Golden Boot, though Sarpsborg’s campaign has been far less dramatic with the club — which was only formed 17 years ago — bobbing around in ninth place with just four fixtures remaining.

4. Klaemint Olsen, NSI Runavik (26 goals, 26 points)

There’s every chance you’re not au fait with the manner in which the 2025 Faroe Islands Premier League season played out, but we’re here to inform you that Runavik finished third, some 13 points behind eventual title winners KI Klaksvik. They can at least take some solace in the fact that their star striker Olsen managed to comfortably outscore KI’s Pall Klettskard to power his way to the top of the scoring charts.

3. Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid (13 goals, 26 points)

With just 11 games played this season, Mbappé looks to be taking his defense of the European Golden Shoe seriously. The 26-year-old France international is already six goals clear of his closest rival at the peak of the LaLiga scoring chart for 2025-26 after finding the net at least once in each of his last eight consecutive league outings for Los Blancos.

2. Erling Haaland, Manchester City (13 goals, 26 points)

Another huge talent who is scoring for fun this season, Haaland has made it his business to mercilessly bully Premier League defenders over the course of the 2025-26 season so far, scoring 11 goals in 13 league games for City. As if to further cement his credentials, the Norway international is also on the brink of becoming the fastest player ever to reach 100 Premier League goals, with another brace enough to smash Alan Shearer’s 30-year-old record.

1. Darko Lemajic, Rigas Futbola Skola (28 goals, 28 points)

Standing at 6-foot-6, Lemajic is an imposing striker who has definitely made his presence felt in the Latvian top flight. The Serbian is in his second stint with Rigas Futbola Skola having spent a couple of years in Belgium with KAA Gent, but spent the 2025 season scoring for fun as his side finished runners-up, within five points of eventual title-winners Riga FC. So potent was Lemajic that he actually scored twice as many goals as the next best marksman in the league, with Ingars Pulis of FK Tukums 2000 scoring 16 goals to finish second in the running.