Can Mbappé or Haaland Catch Ronaldo's Champions League Goal Record?

What you need to know

• The record: Ronaldo 140 goals in 183 games. To pass it, a player needs 141.
• Haaland: 61 goals in 60 games, a rate of 1.02 per game, the best of any notable scorer in the competition's history. He needs 80 more.
• Mbappé: 72 goals in 100 games, fifth all time and ahead of Raúl. He needs 69 more but has a lower rate, 0.72 per game.
• Our call: Haaland is the favourite. At 10 goals a season he passes Ronaldo in 2033/34, aged 33. Mbappé needs about 11 a season, his Real Madrid level, to get there at 34.

Where the race stands

Here is where the three players are after Matchday 2 of 2026/27. Ronaldo's goals-per-game rate is the one both chasers have to beat over time, not just match.

Ronaldo needed 183 games to reach 140. Haaland has scored 61 in 60, and Mbappé has 72 in 100. The challenge is not speed, it is how long they can keep it up. Both are also helped by the new league phase, which guarantees eight games before the knockouts instead of the six group games Ronaldo played.

Haaland: a goal a game

Haaland is the only player with a large sample of Champions League games who averages more than a goal per game. UEFA's records show he was the fastest to every landmark from 10 to 60 goals. He reached 60 in 60 games. Ronaldo needed 98 for the same number and Mbappé 89.

The pattern began on his debut, a first-half hat-trick for Salzburg against Genk in September 2019 aged 19. He was the youngest top scorer in competition history in 2020/21, scored 12 in 2022/23 on the way to winning the trophy with Manchester City, and has opened 2026/27 with four goals in two games. Over six full seasons he has averaged about nine a year.

Mbappé: the Real Madrid effect

Mbappé drew level with Raúl on 71 in Real Madrid's opening win over Inter and passed him with his 72nd in the 4-3 win at Roma on 14 October. For most of his career he scored about seven a season, which would take him past 2036. Since joining Real Madrid that has changed: 22 goals in 25 games across two seasons.

His 15 goals in 11 games last season are the third-best single-season haul in the competition's history, behind only Ronaldo's 17 in 2013/14 and 16 in 2015/16. He is 27, has played 100 games, and Madrid reach the late rounds every year, which gives him more matches than almost any rival. At his career rate of 0.72 per game he needs about 96 more games. Haaland, at his rate, needs about 78.

What it takes

This is a projection, not a forecast. It assumes each player scores the stated number of goals every season starting now, and shows the season in which he passes 140 and his age at the end of it.

Haaland only needs to hold roughly his own career average of nine to ten a season. Mbappé needs to keep producing at his Real Madrid level of 11 or more a season, and needs to keep playing deep into the tournament, to get there at a similar age. Injuries and a club change could move either of these dates by years.

Our verdict

Haaland is the favourite. He is 19 months younger, he scores faster, and he needs fewer games to cover the gap. For him it is a question of fitness and staying at a club that qualifies every year. For Mbappé it is a question of whether the 15-goal seasons keep coming.

Ronaldo's total is safe for now. Even in the best case it will take until the early 2030s, and by then the player who passes it will have scored in the competition for more than a decade. The most likely outcome is that Haaland breaks it, Mbappé gets closer than anyone expects, and neither does it before 2033.