“It was a perfect evening against a great opponent,” Lionel Messi said after he scored his first goal for PSG in the Champions League match against Manchester City (2-0). “I am delighted to have scored my first goal.” The 34-year-old Argentine scored in the 74th minute in what was not only his first goal in a new shirt but also extended a record.
Since making his Champions League debut in 2005/06 for Barcelona, Messi has scored every year in the Champions League—altogether 121 goals. Only one other player has managed to score 17 years in a row since the Champions League replaced the old European Cup in 1992: Karim Benzema. The 33-year-old Real Madrid striker has scored every year since first making his debut in the Champions League in 2005. The striker scored in Real Madrid‘s 2-1 defeat to Sheriff Tiraspol. Benzema scored the first of his 72 UCL goals in December 2005 as a 17-year-old in Olympique Lyon‘s 2-1 win over Rosenborg BK.
Players who scored in most consecutive UCL seasons
By scoring 17 seasons in a row, both Messi and Benzema leave several giants of world football behind them: Champions League record scorerCristiano Ronaldo, for example, has scored 16 seasons in a row, including this season for Manchester United. The Portuguese superstar also scored his first-ever UCL goal for the Red Devils, one year later than Benzema and Messi in the 2006/07 season.
The competition’s third-best record scorer Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich) has scored 11 seasons in a row, including in 2021/22, making the top 10 in the ranking. The same is true for his teammate Thomas Müller, who scored every season between 2008/09 and 2017/18 but was without a Champions League goal in his six games in the 2018/19 season.
