The players with the most European Golden Shoes in history: Messi or Ronaldo at No.1?
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have unsurprisingly won more European Golden Shoes – the award for the most goals scored in the European leagues – than any other footballers in history. But which of them tops the list?
It’s not easy to win the award, which was originally known as the Soulier d’Or and handed out by French magazine L’Equipe. Harry Kane only won it for the first time last season, while Kylian Mbappe is yet to get his hands on it.
Before Messi and Ronaldo emerged on the scene, no player in football history had won it more than twice. We’ve taken a look at the 11 players who have won it two times or more.
=3. Eusebio – 2
The Portuguese icon known as Black Panther won the inaugural edition of the award in 1967-68, by which point he’d already won a European Cup (1962), the Ballon d’Or (1965) and a World Cup Golden Boot (1966).
Eusebio won the first European Golden Shoe after firing Benfica to the 1968 Primeira Liga title – the fifth of 11 he won with the club – with 42 league goals. He claimed a second one five years later with 40 goals in 1972-73.
=3. Gerd Muller – 2
Der Bomber won his first European Golden Shoe in the intervening period between Eusebio’s two – 1969-70, with 38 goals.
That kicked off a legendary period in Muller’s career that’s arguably remained unmatched by any other player in history. Between 1970 and 1975, the striker won three European Cups with Bayern Munich as well as the World Cup and European Championships with West Germany. Not even Messi or Ronaldo can boast a half-decade of dominance like that.
He notched in the final of all three competitions and scored shedloads, including 40 Bundesliga goals to claim a second European Golden Shoe in 1971-72.
=3. Dudu Georgescu – 2
Gone are the days in which you’d find a player from the Romanian top flight challenging for this award. It’s still technically possible, but unlikely with a complex scoring system that sees goals scored outside of Europe’s major leagues weighted less.
Back in the day, Romania international Georgescu claimed it twice – 1974-75 and 1976-77 – with goals scored in Dinamo Bucaresti’s league titles. The 47 goals he scored in the latter stood as a record for over 30 years until a certain Argentinian went stratospheric at Barcelona.
=3. Fernando Gomes – 2
Ian Rush became the first player at an English club to claim the European Golden Shoe, having scored 32 league goals in Liverpool’s 1983-84 title victory.
The Welshman’s award was bookended by former Porto striker Fernando Gomes, who scored 36 goals in 1982-83 and 39 goals in 1984-85.
READ NEXT: The final European Golden Shoe standings in 2023-24: Harry Kane blows away the competition
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the top 50 goalscorers across Europe’s major leagues since 2000?
=3. Ally McCoist – 2
Winners were initially not awarded between 1992 and 1996 after the award stopped being handed out by L’Equipe.
But Scotland legend Ally McCoist was retroactively given the European Golden Shoe, having scored 34 goals in Rangers’ title victories of 1991-92 and 1992-93. He was the first player to win it in back-to-back seasons and remains its only representative from the Scottish top flight.
=3. Mario Jardel – 2
Jardel was the first non-European footballer to win it, as well as the first player to win it with two different clubs.
He claimed the first in 1998-99 with 36 league goals for Porto and won it a second time in Sporting Lisbon’s memorable title victory in 2001-02, in which he scored a mammoth tally of 42 league goals.
=3. Thierry Henry – 2
The only Premier League player to win it twice. He scored 30 goals in Arsenal’s unforgettable Invincibles campaign of 2003-04 and retained the award with a further 25 goals the following season.
QUIZ: Can you name every winner of the European Golden Shoe since 2000?
=3. Diego Forlan – 2
Forlan actually shared the award with Henry in 2004-05, having bounced back from his notoriously fallow period with Manchester United by becoming an absolute hotshot in his debut season with Villarreal.
Moving to Spain kicked off a particularly prolific period in Forlan’s career, amounting to 128 goals in 240 appearances for Villarreal and Atletico Madrid.
The Uruguayan claimed a second Golden Shoe in 2008-09 with a career-best 32 league goals for Atletico Madrid, a season in which Messi’s Barcelona claimed a historic treble. Some going, that.
=3. Luis Suarez – 2
Another great Uruguayan striker, Suarez won his first European Golden Shoe with his monumentally brilliant individual 2013-14 campaign with Liverpool. He shared the award that year with Cristiano Ronaldo, but he won it out on his own a couple of years later, outscoring Barcelona team-mate Messi with 40 La Liga goals in 2015-16.
Between 2009 and 2019, Suarez was the only player not named Messi or Ronaldo to win the award. It required something special to break up their duopoly during their peak years of dominance.
=3. Robert Lewandowski – 2
Ciro Immobile was a surprise winner in 2019-20, having scored 36 Serie A goals for Lazio, but from there Lewandowski took advantage of Messi and Ronaldo’s waning years to win it in 2020-21 and 2021-22.
The Polish vetern hit new heights well into his thirties, firing Bayern to the treble in 2019-20 before breaking Muller’s longstanding Bundesliga record by scoring 41 goals in 2020-21. He retained the European Golden Shoe the following year with a more than respectable 35.
2. Cristiano Ronaldo – 4
Ronaldo lags behind his eternal rival for both Ballon d’Ors and European Golden Shoes. But when you consider that he’s won twice as many as any other player in history, it’s pretty special.
The 39-year-old notched a mindblowing tally of 311 La Liga goals in just 292 appearances during his prime years at Real Madrid. But incredibly, that was only enough for him to win the European Golden Boot three times in his nine seasons with Los Blancos (40 goals in 2010-11, 31 goals in 2013-14 and 48 goals in 2014-15), adding to the first award (31 Premier League goals in 2007-08) that he won with Manchester United.
READ NEXT: The Ultimate Cristiano Ronaldo Quiz: 30 tricky questions on the Real Madrid & Man Utd icon
1. Lionel Messi – 6
Messi won five of his six European Golden Shoes during Ronaldo’s time at Real Madrid, underlining quite how ridiculous their rivalry was at its peak.
The Barcelona icon claimed it in 2009-10, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19, with 34, 50, 46, 37, 34 and 36 La Liga goals respectively.
The fifty league goals he scored in 2011-12 stands as a European record, while he’s also the only player to have won it in three successive years.
Just insane. There’ll never be another like him.