“Champions League Top Scorers: Who is Ahead on the All-Time Goalscorers List?”

The Champions League is the most prestigious club competition in Europe. Heroic stories are written here and it is traditionally the stage for the top scorers.

In the 1990s and 2000s, for example, it was attackers like Raúl, Andriy Shevchenko and Ruud van Nistelrooy who put their stamp on the premier class with hits on an assembly line. It was followed by superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who played numbers that had previously not even dared to dream of.

GOAL takes a look at the top goalscorers in the history of the competition, which has been running since 1955 and was once known as the European Champion Clubs’ Cup.

It’s easy to see from the chart below that no player in Champions League history has scored more goals than current Al Nassr captain Cristiano Ronaldo. His closest pursuer is Lionel Messi (PSG).

Former Bayern and BVB striker Robert Lewandowski from FC Barcelona follows at a considerable distance. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) and Raúl complete the top five. There are other well-known goal-getters such as Ruud van Nistelrooy, Thomas Müller from FC Bayern and Thierry Henry.

Champions League top scorers

*As of March 15, 2023

**The list includes dates from 1955 to the present

***Players in bold are still active

The composition of the all-time goalscorers list is mostly made up of players who are playing or played in the modern Champions League era (i.e. 1992 onwards) which has added more continental games to the modern day calendar. Specifically, of the 20 players in the list above, 17 of them played from the mid 1990s on.

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Players who played out in the modern Champions League era (i.e. since 1992) dominate the ranking. Of the 20 players in the list above, 17 played from the mid-1990s onwards. This is also due to the fact that more games have been played in the premier class since then.

Two big names from the European Cup still make it into the top ten: former Real Madrid star Alfredo Dí Stefano and Benfica icon Eusebio.

Ferenc Puskas, who played for Real in the 1950s and 1960s, is in the top 20. Gerd Müller was also there before being ousted by Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah. With 0.95 goals per game, Bayern’s “bombers of the nation” still have by far the best goal rate in the premier class.