Kylian Mbappe joins Cristiano Ronaldo in an exclusive Real Madrid Champions League club with goal vs AEK Athens

Whenever a Real Madrid forward starts to pile up goals in the Champions League, the comparison with Cristiano Ronaldo is never far behind. The Portuguese star left a standard in the competition that few players have come close to touching, and Kylian Mbappe has now put himself in a conversation that, until this week, had only one name in it.

Mbappe scored in his sixth consecutive Champions League match, which ties the best streak of his career, set with PSG in 2022. The run includes goals against Bayern Munich (twice), Inter, Roma, Leipzig and now AEK Athens.

Until now, only one Real Madrid player had scored in six or more consecutive matches in the history of the competition: Ronaldo, who did it in 11 straight matches, from the final in Cardiff in 2017 until April 2018.

With six matches in a row, Mbappe is now five away from tying Ronaldo’s mark of 11, a streak that will be hard to match. The Frenchman is also having a standout season in general, with 16 goals and three assists in 15 matches across LaLiga and the Champions League.

In Spain, he has scored 12 goals in 11 matches, while in Europe he has scored in all four of Real Madrid’s matches, for four goals and one assist. Each match gives him a new chance to extend a run that has already earned him a place beside one of the club’s greatest legends.

Mbappe’s path to catching Cristiano Ronaldo

To equal Ronaldo’s mark of 11, Mbappe needs to score in five more consecutive Champions League matches, and the schedule gives him four chances in the league phase.

According to Real Madrid’s official schedule, Real Madrid host PSV in Matchday 5, visit Arsenal, last season’s runner-up, in Matchday 6, host LASK in Matchday 7, and close the phase against Shakhtar Donetsk on Jan. 27 in London, the city where the Ukrainian side plays its Champions League home matches.

After that, Real Madrid, who have won all four of their league-phase matches so far, will move on to the knockout phase, and that is where the streak would be decided.

In this way, the league phase alone would not be enough for Mbappe to catch Cristiano. Even if he scores in each of Real Madrid’s four remaining matches, he would reach 10 consecutive games with a goal, one short of the Portuguese star’s 11. The knockout phase will have the final word, and only a goal in the first match of that stage would put the Frenchman level with one of the club’s greatest legends.