The 10 players with the most Golden Boot awards in Europe since 2000: Cristiano Ronaldo only fourth…
Cristiano Ronaldo’s scoring prowess has surprisingly been bettered on several occasions by his rivals when comparing Golden Boot awards.
Scoring goal is the most difficult trick of all in the game of football in the eyes of many, from grassroots level right up to the very top of the mountain. It’s jaw-dropping, then, when we see some of the game’s biggest names racking up Golden Boot awards like they’re going out of fashion.
In what is a true showing of elite-level quality, we’ve taken a look at the 10 male players with the most domestic Golden Boot awards to their name in Europe’s top five leagues since 2000.
=9. Mohamed Salah – 3
Sneaking into the list with three Premier League Golden Boots to his name so far, Salah’s firing rate since joining Liverpool in 2017 has been nothing short of outstanding.
He set the record for the most goals scored in a Premier League season (32) in his first season back in England’s top-flight and has also lifted a Premier League title, been named the Premier League Player of the Season and won a Champions League.
That’s all been as a right winger too, by the way. Insane stuff.
=9. Edinson Cavani – 3
A real throwback striker, they don’t make them like Cavani anymore. He’s also won three Golden Boot awards in Europe’s top five leagues, two of which came during a glorious and trophy-laden stint with Paris Saint-Germain, the other one coming in 2012-13 with Napoli.
‘El Matador’ is actually Les Parisiens’ second all-time top scorer, which makes it somewhat surprising to hear that he only finished as top scorer in Ligue 1 on two occasions, especially considering he left Paris having also won six league titles.
8. Thierry Henry – 4
Despite having not kicked a ball professionally since 2014 when he retired, Henry still holds a spot in this list, which is testament to his freakish abilities during his peak years in the 2000s.
All four of the Frenchman’s Golden Boot awards came in the Premier League with Arsenal, which remains the most Golden Boot awards won in the league by one player.
Even more impressively, three of Henry’s four came back-to-back-to-back, from 2003 to 2006. Insane scoring prowess.
=6. Ciro Immobile – 4
Somehow significantly overlooked and criminally underrated for much of his career, Immobile spent years plugging away and terrorising goalkeepers in Serie A with Lazio, without much fuss ever being made about him.
Eighth in the all-time scorer rankings for Serie A, Immobile is also Lazio’s all-time scorer and won the European Golden Shoe in 2019-20 when he fired home 36 league goals, equalling the record for the most scored in a season in Italy’s top-flight.
He’s at Besiktas these days and is thus unable to add to his tally due to being out of Europe’s top five, but what a player.
=6. Harry Kane – 4
Enough of the ‘fraud until he wins a trophy nonsense’. We’re not having it and neither should you.
Kane won three Premier League Golden Boot awards at Tottenham, the final of which in 2020-21 came in a season where they finished seventh. He then moved to Bayern Munich in 2023-24 and finished his first season in Bavaria as the Europen Golden Shoe winner with 36 goals. That is outstanding.
At 31, the English forward has been painfully unlucky to have not won a major honour, but his scoring prowess can never be denied.
=4. Zlatan Ibrahimovic – 5
The reason why Cavani couldn’t add more to his name, Ibrahimovic finished as Ligue 1 top scorer three times himself while at PSG, after having already finished as Serie A’s ‘Capocannoniere’ on two occasions – with two rival clubs.
Zlatan hit the ground running with Inter and finished as Serie A top scorer in 2008-09 as they won the league, but after a brief spell at Barcelona where he fell out with Pep Guardiola, he returned to Italy with Milan and finished as top scorer again in 2011-12 to fire them to the Scudetto. That made him the only foreign player to have won the Serie A Golden Boot with two separate teams.
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=4. Cristiano Ronaldo – 5
That’s right – the five-time Ballon d’Or winner doesn’t even make the podium in this list.
And unless he makes a dramatic return to European football and recovers his best form, this is as high as Ronaldo will get. The Portuguese forward has won five Golden Boot awards across three of Europe’s top five leagues, with his most memorable work coming with Real Madrid.
Ronaldo finished La Liga top scorer on three separate occasions, all three times of which saw him win the European Golden Shoe. However, it all started at Manchester United, where he scored 31 Premier League goals (and 42 in all competitions) in 2007-08, winning his first European Golden Shoe and later his first Ballon d’Or.
3. Kylian Mbappe – 6
Rather astoundingly, Mbappe has won the Ligue 1 Golden Boot award six times, but is yet to actually win a European Golden Boot at all.
Mbappe, now 25, has won the Ligue 1 Golden Boot every season since winning his first in 2018-19 and thus arrives to Real Madrid with a freakish scoring pedigree. On the hunt for his first Champions League with Los Blancos, we’re backing him to chase down his first European Golden Shoe also.
READ: Comparing Kylian Mbappe’s career stats & trophy list now to Cristiano Ronaldo’s at the same age
=1. Robert Lewandowski – 8
We’re into the nigh-on superhuman scoring feats now and kicking off with Lewandowski, who has made career out of scoring goals for fun wherever he’s been.
Seven of his eight Golden Boot awards came in the Bundesliga, winning two of them with Borussia Dortmund before an inevitable transfer to Bayern Munich, where the freakish firing rate only improved further.
Upon leaving Bayern for Barcelona in 2022, Lewandowski signed off as the only player other than Johan Cruyff to have won a European treble while being the top goalscorer in all three competitions. Baller.
=1. Lionel Messi – 8
Who else?
Perhaps surprisingly, Messi isn’t clear in this list and has to share top spot with Lewandowski. But while many would say it’s proof that Messi is human after all, we’re more convinced it’s actually just that Lewandowski might also be an alien.
Unsurprisingly, all eight of Messi’s Golden Boots came at Barcelona where he scored 672 goals from 778 games. His time at PSG was much more forgettable, but his legacy was already cemented by the time he had to move to the French capital in 2021.
Nobody is yet to eclipse or even equal his record of six European Golden Shoes, and we’re unsure if anyone ever will. GOAT.