Lewandowski’s record is shaky
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Harry Kane leads the race for the Golden Boot – closely followed by Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé. A trophy that honors the best striker in Europe’s top leagues every year. While Kane “only” has a market value of 65 million due to his age, Mbappé and Haaland have the top value of 200 million euros.
The winner of the award is determined using a points system. Every goal scored by a player in one of the top five leagues is multiplied by a factor of two. The goals in the competitions between sixth and 22nd place receive a factor of 1.5 – in the remaining championships a goal is valued at one point.
While Real Madrid’s Mbappé was able to secure the trophy last year with 31 league goals and 62 points, Bayern striker Kane is currently in first place. He leads the rankings with 52 points (26 hits). He is followed by Mbappé with 46 points (23 goals) and ManCity’s Haaland with 44 points (22 goals). In fourth place is Igor Thiago (FC Brentford) with 17 goals (34 points). Also in the top 10 are Vedat Muriqi (Mallorca), Vangelis Pavlidis (Benfica), Luis Suárez (Sporting), Darko Lemajic (Riga), Mason Greenwood (Marseille) and Lautaro Martínez (Inter).
Lemajic is the only one in the top 10 whose hits are simply counted. His 28 goals for FK RFS in the Latvian Virsliga are still impressive. As in the 2023/24 season, there are signs of an exciting showdown. At that time, Kane was able to secure the Golden Boot with 48 points (24 goals). Mbappé only scored one goal less and ended up with 46 points. Haaland rounded out the final score with 44 points.
FC Bayern: Kane on course to break Lewandowski record
With Kane, a player from the Bundesliga was only able to win the Golden Shoe for the third time since 1971/72 (Gerd Müller with 40 goals). And this time Robert Lewandowski’s 41-goal record from the 2020/21 season could be shaken. The Pole was the first Bundesliga player since Gerd Müller to secure the award in 2021 and followed that up in 2022. At that time his market value was 60 million. The fact that no player from a German club has won the award for so long is due, on the one hand, to the fact that only 34 games are played in the Bundesliga, instead of 38 like in LaLiga and the Premier League, and, on the other hand, to the fact that superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi have not found their way to Germany.
The all-time record for the Golden Boot is held by Messi, who scored an incredible 50 goals in 37 league games for FC Barcelona in the 2011/12 season – the equivalent of 100 points. He missed one game injured. In order to approach this mark, the top trio of Kane, Mbappé and Haaland would have to significantly improve their already impressive ratings.