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.
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.
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
Robert Lewandowski leads the race for the European Golden Shoe title and still sits three goals clear of his main competition.
Seeking a second consecutive title, Lewandowski has 20 goals from 18 Bundesliga matches in 2021/22, having netted four times in his last three outings.
Lewandowski will be aware he has two rivals tied on 17 goals and 34 Golden Shoe points lurking behind him.
It was the France forward’s second double in three games, having also scored twice against Athletic just before Christmas.
Premier League Golden Boot leader Mohamed Salah is at the AFCON with Egypt while Dusan Vlahovic, who sits top of the Serie A scoring charts, lost ground after being scoreless as Fiorentina were thumped 4-0 by Torino on Monday.
Former Golden Shoe winner Ciro Immobile remains in contention for a second crown.
There are some star players at Paris Saint-Germain this season but it is Lille’s Jonathan David who tops the Ligue 1 scoring charts on 12 goals, putting him in a tie for eighth in these standings.
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
|Robert Lewandowski||Bayern Munich||20||40|
|Karim Benzema||Real Madrid||17||34|
|Patrik Schick||Bayer Leverkusen||17||34|
|Anthony Modeste||FC Koln||12||24|
|Vinicius Junior||Real Madrid||12||24|
|Wissam Ben Yedder||Monaco||10||20|
Who are the previous European Golden Shoe winners?
Lionel Messi has won the most European Golden Shoe titles.
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.
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.