Mbappe reaches 73 Champions League goals, cracks all-time top five

Him again. Once more showing up exactly when he was needed. In Real Madrid's 4-1 win over RB Leipzig, in matchday 3 of the 2026/27 league phase, Kylian Mbappe scored the third goal and, in doing so, posted a number that is starting to carry real weight in Champions League history.

With that goal, the French forward reached 73 goals in 101 matches in Europe's top club competition, split between his time at Monaco, PSG and Real Madrid. Do the math: that works out to an average of 0.72 goals per game, a staggering rate for what is widely considered the continent's toughest tournament.

So what do those 73 goals mean? Nothing less than a spot among the five highest scorers in the history of the European Cup. Still well ahead, though not out of reach, sit the usual names: Cristiano Ronaldo with 141, Lionel Messi with 129 and Robert Lewandowski with 109. The next rung, the closest one, belongs to a name every Real Madrid fan knows well: Karim Benzema, with 90 goals.

That is, in fact, the next stated target for Mbappe: passing the Frenchman who for years was the top scoring reference at Valdebebas and across Europe. It does not look like an impossible task. Quite the opposite: at just 27 years old, the striker still has several seasons ahead of him to keep adding to his tally and, who knows, dream of one day challenging the top three.

What stands out most about Mbappe's case is the speed of it all. This is not a player who has spent a decade piling up goals in the competition, the way Cristiano or Messi did. He is building this number at a pace that, if it holds, could put him within striking distance of the top spots in just a few years' time. The goal against Leipzig was one more addition to that collection, but it was also a confirmation: in the Champions League, when Mbappe plays, he almost always finds his way onto the scoresheet.