UEFA Champions League: Most UEFA Champions League goals

While the best players in the world are typically scattered across Europe's best leagues, the UEFA Champions League sees the best players from all over Europe face off each other in the world's elite club competition.

Here we look at the top 10 goalscorers in UEFA Champions League and European Cup history.

10 - Alfredo Di Stefano (49)

Leaving Argentina for Spain in 1953, Alfredo Di Stefano would go on to be part of the legendary Real Madrid side of the 1950s, taking Spanish and European football by storm.

Di Stefano, one of the game's all-time great strikers, would appear and score in five straight finals, scoring a total of seven goals in finals (nobody has more to this day), racking up a whopping 49 goals in all, doing so in just 58 games.

8= - Kylian Mbappe (50)

Still only 25 at the start of the 2024/25 season, Kylian Mbappe has plenty of time on his side to propel himself up this list, yet already nears the remarkable 50-goal mark.

Bursting onto the scene as a teenager in the 2016/17 season, Mbappe has already scored six or more goals in five campaigns, and has never scored fewer than four.

If he carries on at his current rate, he can expect to clear 100 goals before hanging up his boots.

8= - Thierry Henry (50)

Watching Thierry Henry gracefully breeze past defenders like they weren't there could convince you he could walk on water, and his ability to find the back of the net after beating whoever stood in his way made him look superhuman.

The goal against Inter in the San Siro was one thing, but the winner against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu was very much another. As man after man tried to scythe Henry down, he shrugged them all off before dispatching into the far corner with his weaker left foot.

A handful of the game's greats don't get their hands on the UEFA Champions League, but after leaving Arsenal for Barcelona, Henry ensured his name wouldn't be added to the list, winning the competition in 2009 at the end of a campaign in which the Frenchman scored six goals.

7 - Thomas Muller (55)

Thomas Muller was part of the all-conquering Bayern Munich team that won 11 straight Bundesliga titles that at some point transitioned from an era to an eon, but the German was restricted to 'just' two UEFA Champions Leagues.

Nevertheless, thanks to his phenomenal work rate, movement and reading of the game - not to mention his ability to perform on the big stage - Muller has racked up the goals in Europe.

6 - Ruud van Nistelrooy (56)

Manchester United endured a relatively lean spell during Ruud van Nistelrooy's five years at the club, winning just one Premier League and failing to reach a UEFA Champions League final.

But while Van Nistelrooy was one of the most prolific forwards the club has ever has, he often saved his best for the European nights. In his first four seasons, Van Nistelrooy finished as the competition's top goalscorer three times.

Of the top 10 goalscorers in UEFA Champions League history, only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski have better goals-per-games ratios than the Dutchman.

5 - Raul (71)

Only six players in UEFA Champions League history have more appearances than Raul, and only four have more goals. For a long time, Raul was the record-holder for goals scored in the UEFA Champions League before the modern era of greats knocked him down to a still-impressive fifth.

Over 16 years, Ivan Zamorano, Davor Suker, Fernando Morientes, Ronaldo and Ruud van Nistelrooy could count themselves amongst Raul's strike partners, but while they'd each fall by the wayside, Raul remained in the Spanish capital, going on to score 66 UEFA Champions League goals, adding five more following his move to Schalke.

4 - Karim Benzema (90)

With the likes of Ruud van Nistelrooy and Raul reaching the end of their careers, Real Madrid were after the next big striker. Enter: Karim Benzema.

Proving he was the real deal with 37 goals in two Ligue 1 seasons, Benzema made the switch to Real Madrid. While much of his time at the Bernabeu was spent in service of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese's departure allowed Benzema to show the world his goalscoring abilities were very much still there.

Scoring in the UEFA Champions League for 18 consecutive seasons. Benzema's exploits in 2022 saw him win the Ballon d'Or.

3 - Robert Lewandowski (101)

It's easy to look at the changes within football over the last decade or so and deduce that the only reason the top four scorers on this list are where they are is because of those changes. Yes, the UEFA Champions League has certainly changed, but in terms of goals per game, the top three also happen to be the top three goalscorers.

If you think the reason Robert Lewandowski has so many goals in because he's playing an era where it's easier to score goals, you'd be wrong. Not one season where Lewandowski plied his trade in Germany saw the Bundesliga season as a whole rank in the top 20 for goals per game. Similarly, only three of Lewandowski's Torjägerkanone-winning seasons with Bayern ranked in the competition's top 10 (it's worth noting that the first season after Lewandowski's departure saw the Torjägerkanone won with a measly 16 goals).

While he won't go down with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the fact is Lewandowski is one of the best strikers in the history of the game who made the hardest part of football look so effortless for so long, and but for the aforementioned two, the Pole might have been even more fondly admired than he is.

2 - Lionel Messi (129)

Imagine winning four UEFA Champions Leagues and feeling it should have been more. But that's where Lionel Messi finds himself. His first came in 2006 when he was still finding his feet at Camp Nou, but three more came in 2009, 2011 and 2015. The infamous eliminations are about as famous as the victories, with Inter, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich in various manners dumping Barcelona out.

Nevertheless, Messi is one of only two players to have cleared the 100 mark for goals scored, and perhaps more impressively, has the best goals-per-game ratio in UEFA Champions League history.

The free-kick against Liverpool, the solo effort against Real Madrid, the humbling of Jerome Boateng, the final goals against Manchester United, the five goals against Leverkusen, the uncountable goals against Arsenal.

He may not have the records of Cristiano Ronaldo, but he made memories that will last a lifetime.

1 - Cristiano Ronaldo (140)

Over nearly 20 years, Cristiano Ronaldo would come to set a number of records in the UEFA Champions League that may never be broken. Amongst them:

Most goals (141)
Most wins (115)
Most appearances in UEFA Champions League proper (183)
Most goals in a season (17)
Only player to finish as top scorer in six consecutive seasons
Most goals in quarter-finals (25)
Most goals in semi-finals (13)
Most goals in knockout stages (67)
Only player to score in three UEFA Champions League finals

Not that Ronaldo was an inferior player normally, but there was something about the latter stages in the UEFA Champions League that flipped the switch in him. It's easy to recount the Real Madrid days, but prior to that, Ronaldo was Manchester United's talisman in Europe. The thunderbolt against Porto, the header against Roma, the free-kick against Arsenal, the goal in the final against Chelsea - they all came before Real Madrid and before Ronaldo would make this competition his own.

Of course, the years at Real Madrid saw him blow away all the opposition, being a part of the Real Madrid team that won the UEFA Champions League four times in five seasons.

All stats correct as of 11th December 2024. Goals scored in qualifying have been excluded.

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