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The UEFA Champions League has been the best club football tournament since its beginning. Europe's elite and best football teams and players participated in that tournament and only a few have found success in one of the toughest tournaments in the world. Till now, only 8 players have scored 50 or more goals in the Champion League's history, which speaks volumes for the quality of the tournament. As the French football star became the recent player to reach the landmark of 50 UCL goals, here are the 7 fastest players to score 50 Champions League goals.
7. Raúl | 97 games
Raúl González Blanco or Raul has been one of the greatest strikers to play for Real Madrid. A captain with the calmness to set an example for others and a striker with an instinct to find opportunities, Raul won 16 trophies with the Los Blancos. The Spaniard started his career with Atletico Madrid in the youth leagues and then became a Real Madrid player in the 1994/95 season.
Next season he debuted in the UEFA Champions League as an 18-year-old teenager and scored six goals and assisted twice in 8 games his first season. In 1992, he won his first Champions League title with Real Madrid and tasted the same in 2000 and 2002, scoring in both finals. In the 2002/03 season, he had 15 contributions (9 goals and 6 assists) in 12 games.
The former striker took only 97 games to complete 50 Champions League goals and finished with 71 goals in his career along with 32 assists in 142 matches. Other than playing for Real Madrid, he played for Schalke in the Champions League.
6. Cristiano Ronaldo | 91 games
It is astonishing that Cristiano Ronaldo, the greatest-ever goal scorer in Champions League history, took 91 games to score his first 50 Champions League goals. In the next 92 games, Ronaldo scored a stunning 90 goals in the Champions League.
Ronaldo started his Champions League career with Sporting CP in the 2002/03 season and played only one game for them in the competition before heading to Manchester United to play under the great Sir Alex Ferguson. The five-time Ballon d'Or winner was a winger early in his career and then became a beast of a goalscorer later in his career. With United, he won his first Champions League title in 2008 and won his first Ballon d'Or that year as well. With 31 goals, he won the Golden Boot in Europe too that season.
After conquering Old Trafford, he moved the Real Madrid on a record transfer fee and left them as their highest goalscorer in history. Ronaldo won four Champions League titles in five seasons with Real Madrid from 2013/14 to 2017/18 and nearly scored more than 10 goals each season.
In 2013/14, he scored 17 goals in 11 games, 10 goals in 12 games in 2014/15, 16 goals in 12 games in 2015/16, 12 goals in 13 games in 2016/17 and scored 15 goals in 13 games in 2017/18 season before moving to Turin to join Juventus.
After scoring 14 goals for Juventus in the tournament, he again scored 6 goals in 7 appearances for United in his second stint.
Ronaldo finished his Champions League career with a record 140 goals for 3 clubs in just 183 games.
Read Also | Most Goals in Champions League Finals
5. Karim Benzema | 88 games
One of the most famous trios in modern football B-B-C, Karim Benzema formed a great partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo to form the most lethal attacks in the world. Benzema started his Champions League career with Olympique Lyon in the 2004/05 season but had to wait for a season to play his first UCL game.
In the first three seasons for Olympique Lyon in the Champions League, Benzema scored 12 goals and then moved to Real Madrid where he became a legendary player. In the next 14 seasons for Real Madrid, he scored 78 goals in the tournament.
Benzema took 88 games to reach his first 50 UCL goals and then scored 40 goals in his next 64 games. Benzema won five Champions League titles, all with Real Madrid and won the Ballon d'Or once in 2022.
Read Also | MSN vs BBC: Rivalry of football's greatest trio in stats
4. Kylian Mbappe | 79 games
Along with Karim Benzema, and Thierry Henry, Kylian Mbappe is the third French player to score 50 Champions League and the 25-year-old is the second youngest after Lionel Messi to score that amount of goals in the tournament. Mbappe started his UCL career with AS Monaco as a teenager and scored 6 goals in his debut season in 2016/17.
Post that successful debut season, he was bought by PSG as the future of the club and played for them in the next seven seasons. From the 2019/20 season, where he played the final with PSG, he has managed to have more than 10 contributions in each season till the 2023/24 season.
Mbappe completed his 50th landmark goal against Atalanta in the league phase match of the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 season.
3. Robert Lewandowski | 77 games
Robert Lewandowski is the only third player in Champions League history to score more than 100 goals. The Polish striker started his UCL career with German club Borussia Dortmund in the 2011/12 season and attracted bids from a few other clubs since the beginning. In his second season with Dortmund, he scored 10 goals in 13 games, where he lost in the final against Bayern Munich. He stayed with the Yellow Wall for another season before making a move to Bayern Munich.
With Bayern, Lewandowski won the 2020 Champions League and broke many more records with the club. In his 8th Champions League season in 2018/19, Lewandowski reached the landmark of 50 goals in the tournament in just 77 games and till now has scored 101 goals in just 124 games at an outstanding rate of .81 goals/match.
2. Lionel Messi | 66 games
Once in a generation player Lionel Messi is probably the greatest footballer of the modern era. Messi started his career with his boyhood club FC Barcelona as a teenage sensation and finished as their most successful player ever.
Messi made his UCL debut in the 2004/05 season and played only one game that season. Post that, he never had to look behind. The four-time UEFA Champions League winner won his first Champions League title in the 2005-06 season. In the 2007/08 season, Messi recorded 8 goal contributions in 9 games and the next season had 14 contributions in 12 games in a successful season for Barcelona.
Read Also | Lionel Messi Stats: Goals in every calendar year by Messi
The 8-time Ballon d'Or winner won back-to-back four awards from 2009 to 2012 after record-breaking seasons with the Catalan club. Messi's 91 goals in 2011, are the highest in any calendar year and might not be broken any time soon. His rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo flourished during that time when they dominated world football by scoring more than 50 goals in a season for fun.
Messi took only 66 games to score his first 50 goals in UCL and then finished with 129 goals in 163 games while playing for Barcelona and PSG.
1. Ruud van Nistelrooy | 62 games
Manchester United legend Rudd van Nisterlrooy is still the fastest player to reach 50 Champions League goals. Rudd started his Champions League career with PSV Eindhoven in the 1998/99 season and played two seasons for them. Post that, he joined Manchester United and had a blistering 5 seasons with the Red Devils where he scored 35 goals in 43 games for them.
Rudd finished his Champions League career with Real Madrid, where he spent three seasons scoring 7 goals in 12 UCL games for the 15-time Champions.
However, it is quite unfortunate that a player of his stature only played 73 games in the biggest European competition and never won the title as well. With 56 goals in 73 games at 0.76 goals per match, Rudd van Nistelrooy is one of the greatest strikers to play in Champions League history.
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Liverpool found a way for a hard-fought three points in their league phase opener.
Chelsea caught napping again. 
Olise should score from there. 
GAME ON!
WOW! 
Real Madrid are back and how.
Guler scores for Real Madrid. 
Muriqi scores for Mallorca.
Serge Gnabry, with a left-footed shot from outside the box, misses the target.