Italy international Mateo Retegui is currently second behind Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah in the race for the 2024-25 European Golden Shoe after his goal in Atalanta’s emphatic 4-0 win away against Juventus on Sunday evening.
The Argentine-born Italy international is now up to 22 league goals for 2024-25, which makes him the outright highest goalscorer in Serie A, comfortably in front of second-placed Moise Kean on 15 and joint-third place holders Ademola Lookman and Marcus Thuram on 13.
Only one player in Europe’s top five leagues currently has more domestic goals than Retegui this season: Liverpool’s Salah with 27.
Since 1997, the European Golden Shoe has used a weighted system to determine its annual winner. Those playing in Europe’s top five divisions have their league goals multiplied by two in the rankings, those competing in divisions ranked from 6th to 22nd in Europe have their goal tallies multiplied by 1.5, and those in divisions ranked lower than 22 have their tallies multiplied by one.
UEFA’s Coefficient system is used to determine the appropriate league rankings.
As Serie A and the Premier League are both included in Europe’s top five divisions, both Retegui and Salah have their seasonal goal tallies multiplied by two, which means that Salah leads the race on 54 overall points, in front of Retegui on 44.
Harry Kane of Bayern Munich and Robert Lewandowski of Barcelona are currently just behind Retegui in joint-third place as things stand, with 21 Bundesliga and LaLiga goals for a score of 42 in the European Golden Shoe rankings.
Behind Kane and Lewandowski is Viktor Gyokeres, who has scored as many goals as Salah (27), but is currently fifth in the Golden Shoe standings with a score of 40.5.
In order for Retegui to claim the lead in the Golden Shoe rankings, he needs to make up a five goal difference to catch up with Salah. There are 10 Serie A matches remaining in 2024-25 for that to happen, while Liverpool have nine Premier League fixtures remaining.
Ciro Immobile was the last Italy international and the last player playing in Serie A to claim the Golden Shoe with 36 league goals for Lazio in the 2019-20 season.
Francesco Totti and Luca Toni are the only other previous Italian or Serie A recipients of the award.
