Real Madrid’s Karima Benzema goes fourth in all-time UEFA Champions League scorers ranking

Karim Benzema has taken his UEFA Champions League goal tally to 71, matching Real Madrid great Raúl González’s tally to become the joint fourth highest scorer in Europe’s top club competition.

Now 33, Benzema scored for Lyon on his UEFA Champions League debut – in a 2-1 group stage win against Rosenborg on 6 December 2005, 13 days before his 18th birthday. He left France for Madrid in 2009 (the same summer that Cristiano Ronaldo joined the club), and has maintained his record of scoring at least one UEFA Champions League goal a season for 16 campaigns: a record he shares with Lionel Messi.

His next challenge may be to see whether he can overtake Robert Lewandowski (73) to move up to third on the list. Lewandowski is around nine months younger than Benzema. With six goals this season, the Real Madrid man is also closing in on his best ever season-tally for the UEFA Champions League: he scored a personal-best seven in the 2011/12 campaign.

To date, Benzema has scored in 53 UEFA Champions League games, his goals contributing to 39 wins and ten draws, as well as three defeats (one still to finish).

Champions League icon: Raúl González

Benzema vs Raúl

Benzema and Raúl were team-mates for just one season at Real Madrid, the Frenchman scoring nine goals in all competition’s to the captain’s seven in 2009/10. Raúl moved on to Schalke in the summer of 2010, having scored 66 goals in his 132 UEFA Champions League games for the club (a club record Ronaldo would go on to break in 2015).

With 59, Benzema still has a way to go to match Raúl as Real Madrid’s second-top UEFA Champions League scorer, but has won the UEFA Champions League more times with the club (four to Raúl’s three) and has scored at a slightly faster rate: Raúl scored exactly 0.5 goals per game while Benzema’s current strike rate in 110 games is 0.54.

Top UEFA Champions League scorers (excluding qualifying)

134 Cristiano Ronaldo (POR, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus)120 Lionel Messi (ARG, Barcelona)73 Robert Lewandowski (POL, Dortmund, Bayern)71 Raúl González (ESP, Real Madrid, Schalke)71 Karim Benzema (FRA, Lyon, Real Madrid)56 Ruud van Nistelrooy (NED, PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United, Real Madrid)50 Thierry Henry (FRA, Monaco, Arsenal, Barcelona)

Most UEFA Champions League goals for one club (excluding qualifying)

120 Lionel Messi (ARG, Barcelona)105 Cristiano Ronaldo (POR, Real Madrid)66 Raúl González (ESP, Real Madrid)59 Karim Benzema (FRA, Real Madrid)55 Robert Lewandowski (POL, Bayern)

Season by season

Benzema and Lionel Messi are the only players who have scored in 16 successive UEFA Champions League campaigns. Ryan Giggs also scored in 16 seasons, though the Manchester United man did so non-consecutively.

2005/06 1 (Lyon)2006/07 2 (Lyon)2007/08 4 (Lyon)2008/09 5 (Lyon)2009/10 1 (Real Madrid)2010/11 6 (Real Madrid)2011/12 6 (Real Madrid)2012/13 5 (Real Madrid)2013/14 5 (Real Madrid)2014/15 6 (Real Madrid)2015/16 4 (Real Madrid)2016/17 5 (Real Madrid)2017/18 5 (Real Madrid)2018/19 4 (Real Madrid)2019/20 5 (Real Madrid)2020/21 6 (Real Madrid)

Goals by round

51 Group stage11 Round of 163 Quarter-finals5 Semi-finals1 Final

Hat-tricks

Real Madrid 4-0 Auxerre (08/12/2010)Real Madrid 8-0 Malmö (09/12/2015)