Champions League all-time top scorers: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski, Karim Benzema

First contested in 1992/93, the UEFA Champions League has become synonymous with the very best strikers in world football history, with Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski and Karim Benzema able to rack up stellar goal tallies.

Ronaldo and Messi were the first two players to score over 100 goals in the competition with Lewandowski bringing up his own century and like the remaining players in the all-time European Cup/Champions League top ten, none featured in the competition when it was still the European Champion Clubs' Cup.

That competition, first launched in 1955/56, was knockout ties all the way, the lack of a group stage meaning players had fewer matches per season in which to score. Real Madrid contested just seven games as they won the inaugural edition, compared to 13 en route to their Champions League victory in 2023/24.

The all-time European Cup top scorer, Alfredo Di Stéfano, struck 49 goals in just 58 appearances in the competition, a goals-per-game rate that none of the modern greats can match.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the top scorer of all time in the Champions League and UEFA club competition as well as the most prolific in the history of senior international football.

He was not initially an out-and-out striker, and did not score until his 27th Champions League game during his first spell at Manchester United. However, after switching from the wing to a central striking role, the Portuguese great started to find the net with frightening regularity, continuing to rack up big numbers after leaving Old Trafford for Real Madrid.

On 18 April 2017, he became the first player to reach 100 goals in the Champions League, bringing up his century with a hat-trick against Bayern in his 137th appearance.

Ronaldo has won the competition once with United and four times with Real Madrid, and is the only player to date to have scored in three Champions League finals. Like Messi, he has scored eight Champions League hat-tricks.

Most Champions League goals for one club (excluding qualifying)

Messi left Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2021 having scored 120 goals for the Spanish club in the Champions League – a record that even Cristiano Ronaldo, with his 105 for Madrid, could not challenge, although the Portuguese phenomenon reached the 100-mark for his club first.

Messi's goal at Maccabi Haifa on Matchday 2 in 2022/23 made him the first player to score in 18 successive editions of the competition, and he is the only player to have scored in 16 successive campaigns in Europe's top club competition for the same team.

The Argentinian joined Barcelona in early 2001 when he was just 13, and stuck with the team for the next 20 years, winning the Champions League four times in addition to ten La Liga titles, seven editions of the Copa del Rey and three UEFA Super Cups.

He was the second player to reach 100 Champions League goals (after Ronaldo) and has been top scorer (or joint-top scorer) in six Champions League seasons, one fewer than Ronaldo has managed.

120: Lionel Messi (ARG, Barcelona)
105: Cristiano Ronaldo (POR, Real Madrid)
78: Karim Benzema (FRA, Real Madrid)
69: Robert Lewandowski (POL, Bayern München)
66: Raúl González (ESP, Real Madrid)
54: Thomas Müller (GER, Bayern München)
42: Alessandro Del Piero (ITA, Juventus)
42: Kylian Mbappé (FRA, Paris)
42: Mohamed Salah (EGY, Liverpool)
36: Sergio Agüero (ARG, Manchester City)
36: Didier Drogba (CIV, Chelsea)
35: Thierry Henry (FRA, Arsenal)
35: Ruud van Nistelrooy (NED, Manchester United)

Top European Cup/Champions League scorers (including qualifying rounds)

A losing finalist with Borussia Dortmund against Bayern in 2013, Robert Lewandowski finally won the competition with the Bavarian club in 2020, and though he did not score in the decisive 1-0 win against Paris, he ended the campaign as top scorer for the first time with 15 goals. Messi or Ronaldo had been top scorer (or joint-top scorer) in the previous 12 Champions League campaigns.

The most prolific foreign goalscorer in Bundesliga history, 'Lewy' took just 100 games to score 80 Champions League goals; Messi took 102 games to reach the same mark and Ronaldo 116.

141: Cristiano Ronaldo (POR, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus)
129: Lionel Messi (ARG, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain)
101: Robert Lewandowski (POL, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern München, Barcelona)
90: Karim Benzema (FRA, Lyon, Real Madrid)
71: Raúl González (ESP, Real Madrid, Schalke)
60: Ruud van Nistelrooy (NED, PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United, Real Madrid)
59: Andriy Shevchenko (UKR, Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea)
54: Thomas Müller (GER, Bayern München)
51: Thierry Henry (FRA, Monaco, Arsenal, Barcelona)
50: Filippo Inzaghi (ITA, Juventus, AC Milan)

Top European Cup scorers (including qualifying rounds)

Alfredo Di Stéfano with the trophy in 1956Popperfoto via Getty Images

The European Cup – or European Champion Clubs' Cup to give it its full name – was UEFA's first major men's club competition, and began in 1955.

Real Madrid won the opening five editions, their Argentinian-born forward Alfredo Di Stéfano racking up 49 goals, a tally that no one was able to match in the 37 seasons before the competition was reinvented as the Champions League.

The player who initially came closest to taking Di Stéfano's record was Portuguese phenomenon Eusébio, the talented striker scoring 47 goals as his Benfica side replaced Madrid as the pre-eminent force in world club football for a time.

Even he could not match the goals-per-game record of Bayern's 1970s star Gerd Müller, whose 34 European Cup goals came in just 35 games – a rate of 0.97 per match that no player, before or during the Champions League era, had managed to emulate over a career lasting 20 or more games before Erling Haaland came along.

49: Alfredo Di Stéfano (ARG/ESP, Real Madrid)
47: Eusébio (POR, Benfica)
36: Ferenc Puskás (HUN, Honvéd, Real Madrid)
34: Gerd Müller (GER, Bayern München)
30: Francisco Gento (ESP, Real Madrid)

Champions League top scorers by season (group stage to final)

In 2019/20, Bayern's Lewandowski ended a run of 12 Champions League seasons in which either Ronaldo or Messi finished as the Champions League's top scorer (or joint-top scorer).

The Polish forward was unable to retain his title the following season, Dortmund's Haaland finishing top of the 2020/21 rankings with ten goals, two more than second-ranked Kylian Mbappé, with the two forwards widely predicted to have the same kind of striking competition at the highest level of European football that Ronaldo and Messi enjoyed for more than a decade. That prediction has seemingly played out with Haaland topping the charts again in 2022/23 and Mbappé sharing the honour the following year.

2023/24: Harry Kane (Bayern), Kylian Mbappé (Paris) – 8
2022/23: Erling Haaland (Man City) – 12
2021/22: Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) – 15
2020/21: Erling Haaland (Dortmund) – 10
2019/20: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern) – 15
2018/19: Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – 12
2017/18: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 15
2016/17: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 12
2015/16: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 16
2014/15: Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Neymar (Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 10
2013/14: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 17
2012/13: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 12
2011/12: Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – 14
2010/11: Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – 12
2009/10: Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – 8
2008/09: Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – 9
2007/08: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) – 8
2006/07: Kaká (AC Milan) – 10
2005/06: Andriy Shevchenko (AC Milan) – 9
2004/05: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United) – 8
2003/04: Fernando Morientes (Monaco) – 9
2002/03: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United) – 12
2001/02: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United) – 10
2000/01: Raúl González (Real Madrid) – 7
1999/2000: Mário Jardel (Porto), Rivaldo (Barcelona), Raúl González (Real Madrid) – 10
1998/99: Andriy Shevchenko (Dynamo Kyiv), Dwight Yorke (Manchester United) – 8
1997/98: Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus) – 10
1996/97: Milinko Pantić (Atlético Madrid) – 5
1995/96: Jari Litmanen (Ajax) – 9
1994/95: George Weah (Paris Saint-Germain) – 7
1993/94: Hristo Stoichkov (Barcelona) – 5
1992/93: Franck Sauzée (Marseille) – 5