Will Mohammed Salah win the first Golden Boot in African football?
With the major European leagues about to end, once again a player with African roots is in the running for the Golden Boot, which is more keenly contested than ever with three players within 2.5 points of each other: Victor Gyokeres, Mohammed Salah, and Kylian Mbappé.
🏆La PELEA por la BOTA de ORO.
— El Chiringuito TV (@elchiringuitotv) May 19, 2025
🇸🇪 Gyokeres: 39 goles (x1,5) - 0 partidos restantes.
🇫🇷 Mbappé: 29 goles (x2) - 1 partido restante.
🇪🇬 Salah: 28 goles (x2) - 2 partidos restantes.
➡️El sueco suma solo 1,5 puntos por gol porque no juega en ninguna de las '5 grandes ligas'. pic.twitter.com/7oyV35FVJP
Over the last twenty years, while the spotlight has been on Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lewandowski, big stars of African football have emerged on the European scene. And although none of them have managed to win the prize that every striker craves, their presence has been constant. Now comes the best opportunity in the 37 years since the award was first presented.
In 2025, Mohamed Salah, who plays for Liverpool and has two games left to play, and Kylian Mbappé, who plays for Real Madrid and has only one game left, could achieve a historic milestone for African football: the continent's top two goalscorers will be of African origin. Both strikers are two and one goals away, respectively, from winning their first award.
The Egyptian striker will have another chance to win the trophy after 2018. The stage is set for Mohammed Salah to achieve one of the few trophies left to win in his career, with two matches against two mid-table Premier League teams.
On the other hand, the French striker with Cameroonian roots at Real Madrid still has numerous opportunities ahead of him to win an award that has already eluded him twice: in 2023 and 2024. However, it does not seem likely to escape him if he maintains his scoring pace from this debut season with the Whites, where he has scored 29 goals in the league championship.
However, this has been a common trend over the last 20 years, especially between 2005 and 2010, a five-year period considered by many experts to be the best generation of African talent.
The most obvious case is that of Samuel Eto'o. No football fan from the mid-2000s can forget the Cameroonian player who played for FC Barcelona. With three appearances among the top scorers in European leagues in 2005, 2006 and 2009, Samuel Eto'o is undoubtedly one of the most important African players of the 21st century, but he was not the only one.
Other big stars such as Frédéric Kanouté, born in France but playing for Mali, made it into the top five European goal scorers in 2007.
In addition to the Malian striker from Sevilla, other talented players emerged, such as Didier Drogba from Côte d'Ivoire, probably the most dominant striker of his generation in the Premier League, who was among the three contenders for the Golden Boot in the most closely fought competition in history in 2010, and Emmanuel Adebayor from Togo, who won the award in 2008.
After experiencing the best period in their history, African strikers did not return to the summit of football until Liverpool's Egyptian player Mohammed Salah entered the ranking for the first time in 2018, finishing second behind Lionel Messi.
With the retirement of the African stars, a new generation emerged, led by the Egyptian, which once again placed African football at the top, thanks to the performances of Gabonese player Aubameyang and Nigerian player Victor Osimhen.
A list that, if we consider the origins of the players as well as their nationality, would include recent football stars such as Karim Benzema, who has Algerian roots, and the Kylian Mbappé, who is of Cameroonian origin.
In total, there has been an African player or player of African origin among the top five scorers in Europe on 13 occasions in the last 20 years; ten of those times were by players who chose to represent African national teams. The other three were by players who grew up in France but have Africa in their blood.
