Is Kylian Mbappe about to break one of Cristiano Ronaldo's Champions League records?

Share full articleMany of Cristiano Ronaldo’s records seem destined to remain unbroken for years into the future, if not forever. Scoring the most official goals in the history of football, the most international goals and the most times for Real Madrid are among three of his achievements that will, at the very least, last well into his retirement. Yet this is not the case when it comes to the Portuguese’s record for the most goals in a European Cup/Champions League season. Ronaldo’s mark of 17, set for Madrid in 2013-14, is under threat this campaign from one his successors at the club: Kylian Mbappe (and, to a lesser extent, Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane). Mbappe has been in sensational form in the competition this season, finding the net 14 times so far to put him within touching distance of Ronaldo’s record. Kane, meanwhile, is on 11 goals. Madrid and Bayern Munich face each other on Wednesday in the second leg of their quarter-final, with the German side winning 2-1 in the Spanish capital last week. So, will the record fall? How does Mbappe’s trajectory in 2025-26 compare to Ronaldo’s 12 years ago? And what are the other best individual scoring campaigns in the competition’s 70-year history? Firstly, it should be pointed out that the expansion of the Champions League at the start of last season from 32 teams to 36 and the tweaked format that came with it have greatly increased the chances of Ronaldo’s record being broken. The new ‘league phase’, which replaced the group stage, means each side is guaranteed to play eight games instead of six, and the introduction of the ‘knockout phase play-offs’ after the league phase means that 16 of the 24 teams that advance will play an additional two matches in a bid to qualify for the round of 16. Therefore, a club that reaches the final could play up to 17 games — as Paris Saint-Germain did last campaign. Under the previous system, which was used from 2003-04 to 2023-24, teams that made the final played 13 matches. Moving on, let’s start with the 10 highest individual goals totals in a season in the competition, which started in 1955-56 as the European Cup and was rebranded as the Champions League in the 1992-93 campaign. (Note: if reading on the mobile app, please scroll to the right to see the number of games each man played). !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-y4DFJ']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r As you can see, all of them have come in the Champions League era apart from Jose Altafini's 14-goal haul for winners Milan in 1962-63. This is not a surprise given the competition's enlargement over the years (there were just 29 matches played in the inaugural edition, and there will be 189 in this one). Robert Lewandowski, meanwhile, can feel hard done by, as the 2019-20 campaign, in which he netted 15 times for champions Bayern Munich, saw both the quarter-finals and semi-finals reduced to one-legged ties as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, denying the Pole an extra two matches in which to score. Now, let's compare Ronaldo's 17-goal record from 2013-14 — when, unsurprisingly, his Madrid team won the competition — and Mbappe's ongoing 2025-26 campaign. Here are the 11 games Ronaldo played in the Champions League in 2013-14 and the number of goals he scored in each. The Portuguese turned 29 just before the start of the knockout phase. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-do5uC']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Ronaldo missed two Madrid matches in the competition that season — Galatasaray at home in the group stage and the quarter-final second leg at Borussia Dortmund, both as a result of injury. Of the 11 games Ronaldo did play, he failed to score in just one of them: with Bayern Munich and their goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer, keeping him out in the first leg of the semi-final. Ronaldo's hat-trick against Galatasaray was the second of eight trebles he scored in the competition overall, with only Lionel Messi (also eight) registering as many as this in the tournament's history. Fast-forward 12 years and here are the 10 games Mbappe has played so far in the competition this season, with the Frenchman turning 27 during the league phase. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-dPJ1d']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Mbappe has missed three European games in 2025-26: the league-phase clash against Manchester City in December, the second leg of the knockout-phase play-off at home to Benfica in February, and the first leg of the round-of-16 tie with Manchester City in March. Surprisingly, Mbappe has failed to score in four of his 10 appearances this season. He has more than made up for this, however, by netting more than once in five games, including two hat-tricks. If he gets another three-goal haul in the competition in 2025-26, he will equal the record for the most in a single campaign, which is held by Altafini in that 1962-63 season and Ronaldo in 2015-16. Now, here are the two players' scoring trajectories from these two seasons. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-nZkko']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r After 10 games, the number that Mbappe has played so far in this campaign, Ronaldo had scored 16 goals — two more than the Frenchman has. However, as we have seen, the Portuguese had just one match left to play by that point. Mbappe may still have four to go if his Madrid team reach the final in Budapest on May 30. If the Spanish club do reach the showpiece event and Mbappe plays in every match while scoring at the same rate he has so far in the competition in 2025-26, then he will end the campaign with 19 goals — breaking Ronaldo's record of 17. If Madrid are eliminated by Bayern on Wednesday, then he has just one game left, and if they beat Bayern but lose in the semi-finals, then he has three remaining — all being well. Kane, meanwhile, has scored 11 goals in 10 games; so if Bayern reach the final and the Englishman plays every match while netting at the same rate he has so far, he will finish with 15, two short of Ronaldo's mark. Now, let's take a quick look at the nuts and bolts behind Ronaldo and Mbappe's personal best-ever Champions League campaigns in front of goal. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-f3vf8']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r The second of Ronaldo's penalties in 2013-14 came in the 120th minute of the final against Atletico Madrid in Lisbon, which is the only time a player has ever scored a spot kick during extra time in the European Cup/Champions League final. That goal is also the last time a player scored in a final taking place in their own country. Here are the players who provided the assists for the duo's goals, starting with Ronaldo. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-gfL2X']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Ronaldo, in turn, set team-mates up to score on five occasions in that Champions League campaign. These are the men who have assisted Mbappe in 2025-26 in Europe's premier competition, with none of them in the Madrid first team when Ronaldo played his last game for the club in May 2018. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-2wa29']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois' name immediately jumps out, with the Belgian shot stopper teeing Mbappe up from within his own six-yard box away against Kairat in September. Mbappe has just one assist to his name in the Champions League this season, returning the favour for the three times Vinicius Junior has set him up by playing the final pass to his Brazilian team-mate against Benfica in the first leg of the knockout phase play-offs. Before this season, Mbappe's best return in a Champions League campaign was eight goals — achieved in both 2020-21 and 2023-24 for his former club Paris Saint-Germain. Overall, he has netted 69 times in the competition and sits in sixth on the list of all-time top scorers. One more goal and he will be exactly halfway to Ronaldo's record of 140. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("[id='datawrapper-chart-csyxo']");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Forty-two of these goals came when he was at Paris Saint-Germain (playing in the competition for the club from 2017-18 to 2023-24), 21 have been scored at Madrid in his two seasons in Spain since leaving the French capital, and six were in his debut campaign in the Champions League for Monaco in 2016-17. Mbappe is yet to win the competition, making him the player to have scored the most goals in it without ever claiming the famous trophy. When it comes to the prospect of Ronaldo's mark being broken, much depends on the result between Bayern Munich and Madrid in Germany on Wednesday. If the Spanish side can, as they so often have over the course of their storied history in the competition, turn things around and advance to the semi-finals, then Mbappe will have an amazing chance to write his name into the record books and, in doing so, remove one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen at the top of this particular list. Not least because if Madrid do go through, the Frenchman will very likely have had a lot to do with it. And if they don't? Well, a certain Bayern forward will be licking his lips at the chance of supplanting Ronaldo. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Will Jeanes is a senior editor at The Athletic. Follow Will on Twitter @will_jeanes