european talisman
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Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland are widely regarded as two of the best players on the planet after taking over from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. With Messi and Ronaldo reaching the peak of their careers, Haaland joins Vinicius Jr. as the world’s most valuable player. Both the star strikers will be playing for their star-studded teams in the Champions League this season, with high expectations of not only scoring a lot of goals but also winning the tournament.
Messi and Ronaldo captured 13 Ballon d’Ors during their illustrious careers, as they battled for individual and collective honors for nearly two decades. Messi and Ronaldo have not yet retired as they are respectfully pursuing lucrative opportunities at Inter Miami and Al-Nassr but they are no longer competing in club football’s pinnacle tournament – the Champions League. Messi and Ronaldo are the two top goalscorers in the competition’s history but can Mbappe or Haaland break their record?
Top five Champions League top goalscorers of all time (except qualifiers)
Ronaldo is the top goalscorer in Champions League history with 141 goals. The Portugal international scored 106 goals in the competition with Real Madrid, 21 with Manchester United and 14 with Juventus. Ronaldo has impressively been the top scorer in the Champions League in seven campaigns and has recorded 0.79 goals per 90 in the competition throughout his career. Messi is second with 129 goals but his average goals per 90 (0.86) is higher than Ronaldo. Messi scored his 120th goal in the Champions League with Barcelona and he has scored in 18 consecutive campaigns since the 2005/06 season.
While Ronaldo and Messi are highly unlikely to add to their goal tally, Robert Lewandowski could still add to his 101 goals. Barcelona have been performing well in this season’s competition and the Polish striker will have ambitions to move on recently became a centurionLewandowski is also Bayern Munich’s record European goalscorer with 69 goals. Karim Benzema, who is fourth on the all-time list, will have to settle for 90 career goals in the competition after leaving European football for Saudi Arabia in 2023. The French striker famously scored 15 goals in the competition in a single campaign against Real Madrid, who became champions in 2022 after beating Liverpool in the final. Raul is the third former Real Madrid player in the top five, with the Spanish giants scoring 71 goals in the competition and the first player to reach 50 goals.
Will Mbappe or Haaland become the Champions League’s all-time top scorer?
Mbappe (50) has scored more goals in the Champions League than Haaland (46), but the Manchester City striker has a far better scoring rate – the Norwegian averages more than a goal in the competition. The PSG striker was the fastest player to reach 40 goals in the competition (59 games), before Haaland broke his record by reaching the milestone in just 35 games.
Haaland has the best record for goals per 90 in the history of the tournament and the 24-year-old will surpass Ronaldo’s record if he continues to play in the Champions League for the next decade. The Man City striker is sitting on a remarkable average of 1.18 goals per 90 minutes of football in the competition, after falling short to Feyenoord in their previous appearance in the competition. Following his goal against Atalanta, Mbappe can boast an impressive record of 0.72 goals per 90 in the competition, but that falls short of Haaland’s exploits in Europe. Based on his current rate of scoring, Haaland will equal Ronaldo’s record in the Champions League after another 81 games, while Mbappé will equal the Portuguese star’s goals tally after another 128 games. Thus, while Mbappé may only be 25 and may play in the competition for another ten years with high hopes of getting close to Messi and Ronaldo’s totals, Haaland’s scoring rate means he may be the Champions League goalscorer of all-time. Is the favorite to become the top goalscorer. During his career.