By Opta Analyst | Created at 2024-12-26 07:54:52 | Updated at 2024-12-29 18:29:24
3 days ago
Kylian Mbappé reached 50 UEFA Champions League goals on Tuesday night, in doing so becoming the second youngest player to reach the landmark.
With his opening goal in Real Madrid’s meeting with Atalanta on 10 December 2024, French forward Kylian Mbappé reached 50 UEFA Champions League goals. His strike means that he became just the ninth man to reach the half century of goals in the competition (excluding qualifiers).
Aged just 25 years and 356 days old when doing it, he became the second youngest player to reach the landmark after Lionel Messi, who was 24 years and 284 days old when he hit the 50-goal landmark for Barcelona back in April 2012 versus Milan.
Mbappé edges out former Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo – now the third oldest to score 50 Champions League goals – by nearly three years (28 years, 78 days).
By reaching the half-century inside 79 games, Mbappé also became the fourth quickest to the UCL landmark, surpassed by only Ruud van Nistelrooy (62 appearances) and Lionel Messi (66) and Robert Lewandowski (77) in the rankings.
Just the ninth player to reach 50 Champions League goals, Mbappé still has time on his hands to be in a select group of stars to reach 100 goals in the competition. So far, only Messi (129) and Ronaldo (140) and Lewandowski (101) have managed to do this.
Since making his Champions League debut on 27 September 2016 for Monaco, Mbappé (50) is only behind Lewandowski (68) for goals scored in the competition, with his two strikes for Real Madrid this season adding to six for Monaco and 42 for Paris Saint-Germain, where he remains the all-time top scorer for the club in the UCL.
Mbappé still has some way to go to reach Ronaldo’s record tally of 105 Champions League goals for Real Madrid, but with goals in both of his appearances for the Spanish club in the competition already, he’s started the challenge well enough.
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