Who Has The Most Golden Boots?

Who has the most Golden boots? The European Golden Shoes is an award that is given to soccer players. It is presented every season to the leading goalscorer in league matches from the top division of any European national league like La Liga, Premier League, Serie A and Bundesliga. 

This trophy is not just a solid but a prestigious award that accompanies a lot of pride and honour and when it goes to someone, the pride and praise go to the player along with it. It can be considered a way to enhance a player’s reputation in football. The European Golden shoe plays an important role in building the image of a footballer. So, who is the Lucky soccer player to have the most Golden boots? 

The Argentine giant and former Paris Saint-Germain forward holds the record for most European Golden boots followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, Eusebio, Gerd Muller and Fernando Gomes. Before we dig out the details, let’s take a look at The European Golden boots. What is it and how did it come into existence?

What is European Golden Shoe

The European Golden shoe, also Known as European Golden boot is a prestigious award which is presented each year to the top leading goalscorer from top flight matches of a European national league. Basically, this trophy looks like a boot with golden plating on it and on that note, it’s called the European Golden shoe or boot. 

The award was introduced in the 1967-68 season and originally known as “Soulier d’or”, a French term which means ‘Golden shoe’. It was originally presented by L’Equipe magazine but since the 1996-97 season, it has been given by the European Sports Media following which, another change was noticed. Since the transfer of awarding rights from L’Equipe magazine to European Sports Media, it was seen that calculating was weighted in favour of top-flight and highest ranked European leagues. 

Since its presentation by European Sports Media, Lionel Messi has won the European Golden boot for most times (six), all during his time with Barcelona. 

History of European Golden Boot

As we already mentioned, the European Golden boot was invented in 1968. Between 1968 and 1991, the winner (leading goalscorer of the season) would be decided on unbiased opinion regardless of the strength of the league or its rank and status or the number of appearances the player made. During that period, players including Gerd Muller, Eusebio, Dudu Georgescu and Fernando Gomes won the award twice each. 

Eusebio became the first player to receive European Golden boot and currently the holder is Robert Lewandowski. Interestingly, this award was not presented between 1991 and 1999, do you know why? There was a protest from the Cyprus FA against it as they claimed that a Cypriot player with 40 goals was supposed to get the award while the top official scorers were both listed with 19 goals. Due to this conflict, L’Equipe issued no Golden boot from 1991 to 1996. 

In 1996-97, it returned but since then it has been presented by European Sports Media. European Sports Media gives this award on the basis of a point system that somehow favours the players of stronger leagues even if they don’t have more goals than weaker leagues’ players. 

The criteria for determining the weightings is quite simple as they are based on the ranking of the league in UEFA coefficients. League’s rankings in turn depend on the results of each league’s club in European competition. The score of top five seasons according to UEFA coefficients are multiplied by a factor of 2, goals scored by leagues ranked from 6 to 22 are multiplied by a factor of 1.5 and so on. This is why the highest ranked leagues ultimately get more points than weaker or lower ranked leagues. 

Since this change of rewarding system, only two players who don’t belong to one of the top five leagues have won the European Golden Boot; Henrik Larsson (2000-01 Premier League) and Mario Jardel (1998-99 Primeira and 2001-02 Premier Liga). Now is the time to move towards the winners of this award. 

Winners of European Golden Boot

Since 1968, 24 awards have been presented by L’Equipe till 1991 after which for six seasons no Boot was issued. Then it made its way back in 1997 but under European Sports Media. Since the 1996-97 season, European Sports Media has awarded twenty six European shoes. Let’s now take a look at the winners of these awards.

1. Eusébio – 1967-68 – Primeira Liga
2. Petar Zhekov – 1968-69 – Parva Liga
3. Gerd Muller – 1969-70 – Bundesliga
4. Josip Skoblar – 1970-71 – Ligue 1
5. Gerd Muller – 1971-72 – Bundesliga
6. Eusebio – 1972-73 – Primeira Liga
7. Hector Yazalde – 1973-74 – Primeira Liga
8. Dudu Georgescu – 1974-75 – Liga I
9. Sotiris Kalafas – 1975-76 – Cypriot First Division
10. Dudu Georgescu – 1976-77 – Liga I
11. Hans Krankl – 1977-78 – Austrian Bundesliga
12. Kees Kist – 1978-79 – Eredivisie
13. Erwin Vandenberg – 1979-80 – Belgian First Division
14. Georgi Slavkov – 1980-81 – Parva Liga
15. Wim Kieft – 1981-82 – Eredivisie
16. Fernando Gomes – 1982-83 – Primeira Liga
17. Ian Rush – 1983-84 – First Division
18. Fernando Gomes – 1984-85 – Primeira Liga
19. Marco Van Basten – 1985-86 – Eredivisie
20. Toni Polster – 1986-87 – Austrian Bundesliga
21. Tanju Colak – 1987-88 – Super Lig
22. Dorin Mateut – 1988-89 – Liga I
23. Hugo Sánchez – 1989-90 – La Liga
24. Hristo Stoichkov – 1989-90 – A PFG
25. Darko Panchev – 1990-91 – Yugoslav First League

Winners awarded by European Sports Media

1. Ronaldo – 1996-97 – La Liga
2. Nikos Machias – 1997-98 – Eredivisie
3. Mário Jardel – 1998-99 – Primeira Liga
4. Kevin Phillips – 1999-2000 – Premier League
5. Henrik Larsson – 2000-01 – Scottish Premier League
6. Mário Jardel – 2001-02 – Primeira Liga
7. Roy Makaay – 2002-03 – La Liga
8. Thierry Henry – 2003-04 – Premier League
9. Thierry Henry – 2004-05 – Premier League
10. Diego Forlan – 2004-05  – La Liga
11. Luca Toni – 2005-06 – Serie A
12. Francesco Totti – 2006-07 – Serie A
13. Cristiano Ronaldo – 2007-08 – Premier League
14. Diego Forlan – 2008-09 – La Liga
15. Lionel Messi – 2009-10 – La Liga
16. Cristiano Ronaldo – 2010-11 – La Liga
17. Lionel Messi – 2011-12 – La Liga
18. Lionel Messi – 2012-13 – La Liga
19. Luis Suarez – 2013-14 – Premier League
20. Cristiano Ronaldo – 2013-14 – La Liga
21. Cristiano Ronaldo – 2014-15 – La Liga
22. Luis Suárez – 2015-16 – La Liga
23. Lionel Messi – 2016-17 – La Liga
24. Lionel Messi – 2017-18 – La Liga
25. Lionel Messi – 2018-19 – La Liga
26. Ciro Immobile – 2019-20 – Serie A
27. Robert Lewandowski – 2020-21 – Bundesliga
28. Robert Lewandowski – 2021-22 – Bundesliga

Who has won the most European Golden Boots?

The Argentine Legend Lionel Messi has won most (six) European Golden Boot in his career of two decades. Bayern Munich’s Gerd Muller was the first player to win the award twice while Messi became the first player to win it thrice and then four times, five and six times. Also, Messi is the only player to have won European Golden shoe in three consecutive seasons (2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19). 

Players who have won European Golden Boot multiple times :

Club Winners of European Golden Boot

Winner countries of European Golden Boot