European Golden Shoe: Which Africans are in the hunt?

The European Golden Shoe is the award given to the best goalscorer in European football across a season.

The Golden Boot is given to the top scorer across Europe’s leagues during a season, with the winner being calculated using a weighing method which favours goals scored in more highly ranked leagues.

This week, GOAL have calculated how many Golden Shoe points accrued by some of the continent’s top stars, and reveal which African players currently make the top 30 ranked goalscorers in the European game at this stage of the season.

It’s been a sluggish start to the season for Salah, as he’s suffered both from Liverpool’s struggles and—potentially—the departure of his long-time cohort Sadio Mane.

Salah has scored twice in the league so far, in the draw against Fulham and the defeat by Manchester United, although having netted in back-to-back Champions League games, there’s hope that he’s returning to top form.

Despite Crystal Palace’s tricky fixtures at the start of the season, Zaha has impressed as he enters the final year of his contract at Selhurst Park.

He has four goals in the Premier League to date, and the wideman should have no shortage of admirers when he becomes a free agent at the end of the campaign.

Mane may have endured a brief goal drought across the last month, but he still makes the cut here due to his strong goalscoring start to life at Bayern Munich.

His four goals to date have given him eight points in the Golden Shoe race, and his effort against Bayer Leverkusen on Friday—following magnificent work from Jamal Musiala---indicated he’s rediscovered his scoring boots.

The Guinea-Bissau forward has been one of the revelations of the French Ligue 1 season so far this term.

Considering his best return in his previous three top flight seasons was seven goals—achieved with Dijon in 2020-21—it wasn’t foreseen that he’d already have had a hand in seven goals (scoring five himself) across his first nine games this season.

The versatile attacker bagged in victories over AS Monaco and Angers, while last month he put Clermont Foot to the sword with a double.

Now appearing to be back in form in the French top flight, Moffi has already scored six goals in the opening nine games of the season.

He’s only two goals off his tally of eight during the entirety of last season, and should beat his career-best of 14 goals in Ligue 1.

The striker’s six goals so far have given him 12 points in the Golden Shoe race.

He may be miles behind Golden Shoe frontrunner Erling Haaland—who has 28 points after 14 Premier League goals so far—Nigerian wonderkid Balogun is the Norwegian’s nearest contender as far as African talent is concerned.

Currently on loan at Stade de Reims from Arsenal, the 21-year-old has netted six goals in Ligue 1 so far, and is already enjoying the best ever goalscoring season of his career.

Will the Gunners regret allowing Balogun to leave on loan?