The 4 players with more Champions League hat-tricks than Kylian Mbappe
Former Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich stars are among the players with more Champions League hat-tricks than Kylian Mbappe.
The Frenchman recently scored his third career UCL hat-trick which ties him level with Neymar, Filippo Inzaghi, Mario Gomez and Luiz Adriano in the record books.
We’ve taken a closer look at the competition and have found the four players who currently have more Champions League hat-tricks than Mbappe.
Karim Benzema
As things stand, Benzema has scored more Champions League hat-tricks than any other French player in the competition’s history, although Mbappe is rapidly closing him down.
In total, the former Real Madrid marksman bagged four hat-tricks in the UCL which is one more than Mbappe currently has.
His first hat-trick came back in 2010-11 against AJ Auxerre and his second in 2015-16 against Malmo FF.
However, when most people think of Benzema, they think of his iconic 2021-22 season which ultimately won him the Ballon d’Or.
During that campaign, he scored back-to-back hat-tricks against PSG and Chelsea which quite rightly earned him plenty of accolades at the time.
In total, Benzema scored 15 goals in Europe throughout 2021-22, averaging a strike every 73.7 minutes. That’s some record.
Robert Lewandowski
As of writing, Lewandowski has scored six hat-tricks in Europe’s top competition, although he could still add to his tally yet.
His first-ever UCL hat-trick came against Real Madrid when he smashed four goals past them in the 2012-13 semi-final first leg.
That was his only European hat-trick for Borussia Dortmund as the bulk of his Champions League goals were scored during his time at the Allianz Arena.
While playing for Bayern, Lewandowski scored hat-tricks against Dinamo Zagreb, Red Star Belgrade, Benfica and RB Salzburg.
He’s also managed one European hat-trick for Barcelona which came against Viktoria Plzen during his debut season in Spain.
With Barcelona now gearing up for the round of 16, we wouldn’t be surprised if the 36-year-old adds another hat-trick to his already impressive record.
Lionel Messi
In total, Messi has scored 59 career hat-tricks and eight of those have been in the Champions League.
The Argentine wizard scored his first European hat-trick back in 2009-10 when he dismantled Arsenal in the quarter-finals by scoring four goals in the second leg.
Although his most memorable UCL hat-trick came against Bayer Leverkusen in March 2012. Messi scored his third goal of the game after just 50 minutes and ended the tie with five goals to his name as Barcelona ran riot and won 7-1.
In Europe, he’s also scored hat-tricks against Ajax, APOEL, Celtic, Manchester City, PSV and Viktoria Plzen.
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Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo holds the record for the most career hat-tricks scored in the 21st Century with 66. Like Messi, he also scored a total of eight of them in the Champions League.
Of his eight UCL hat-tricks, seven of them came while he was playing for Real Madrid as he scored three or more goals against Ajax, Galatasaray, Shakhtar Donetsk, Wolfsburg, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid and Malmo.
His last ever hat-trick in the competition came during his spell at Juventus when he scored three goals against Atletico Madrid to win the tie 3-2 on aggregate.
Given that Mbappe is only five hat-tricks behind Ronaldo and Messi’s record, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Frenchman is able to catch them up in the coming years. Watch this space.