Belgian Golden Shoe
In association football, the Belgian Golden Shoe (Dutch: Gouden Schoen, French: Soulier d'Or) is an award given in Belgium at the beginning of each civil year to the best footballer of the Belgian First Division for the past year. The trophy is sponsored by the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
The voters are a selection of Belgian press specialists and football personalities. They are invited to vote for the best player of the competition for both half seasons (previous season second half and current season first half). As a result, a player can receive all of its votes in one half season (e.g. if he joined the championship from abroad during summer), or he can receive votes for matches with two (or more) different teams, as with Philippe Albert in 1992 and Mbark Boussoufa in 2006.
Paul Van Himst has collected 4 Belgian Golden Shoe which is the current record. Jan Ceulemans and Wilfried Van Moer have both won the trophy three times. The first foreigner to win the trophy was Dutchman, Johan Boskamp, especially for his excellence during the second half of the 1974-75 season, when his club, RWDM (currently defunct), won its first and only championship title. The only foreigners who have won the award more than once are the Swede Pär Zetterberg and the Moroccan Mbark Boussoufa. In 2011, Argentinian Matías Suárez became the first South American to be awarded the Golden Shoe.
Recipients
References
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