One, two, three. And a total of 38. That’s the number of goals Kylian Mbappé has already racked up this season, his first as a Real Madrid player. This is a historic achievement because with his goals against Barcelona (both a penalty and an open-play strike), the French striker has surpassed a goal tally in his debut campaign with Los Blancos that had only one precedent: Iván Zamorano, who in the 1992-93 season, bagged 37 goals in 45 matches (an average of 0.82 goals per game).
Where will that boundary ultimately be set? Mbappé has ample opportunity to raise the bar even higher. He has three remaining league games and a Club World Cup in which he could potentially play up to seven matches. It’s still a long road ahead, with enough leeway for the Real Madrid striker to threaten his own goal-scoring ceiling. He reached that ceiling last season, when he left PSG with 44 goals in 51 games.
Joining elite company
With his three goals against Celta, Mbappé is not only surpassing Zamorano, but also joining other notable figures. Of those 38 goals, 26 are already in the league. This puts him on par with Robert Lewandowski in the race for the Pichichi Trophy (awarded to La Liga’s top scorer).
Arriving at Madrid and ending the season with the Pichichi is more complicated than it seems. Of Madrid’s three historical top scorers — Cristiano Ronaldo (450 goals, 311 in La Liga), Benzema (354/238), and Raúl (323/228) — none managed to do it. And of the top ten, only Di Stéfano and Hugo Sánchez finished as top scorers in their first season with Los Blancos.
Rare Feat: Pichichi in debut season
Landing at Madrid and ending the season as top scorer is something that only three players, three goal-scoring monsters, have achieved. In the summer of 1953, Alfredo di Stéfano arrived at Real Madrid to change the history of the club, of Spanish soccer, and of the world. The Saeta Rubia (“Blond Arrow”) was the first player to win the Pichichi in his debut with Madrid. That season he scored 27 goals in 28 games to be crowned top scorer of La Liga, something he would achieve on a total of five occasions.
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Hugo Sánchez and Van Nistelrooy repeat history
It was not repeated until 1986. Then, Ramón Mendoza presented his mandate with a bang: Hugo Sánchez, who arrived at the Bernabéu from Atlético de Madrid with the calling card of being the great scorer of the previous season. He was four more times with Madrid, including his first season.
The last to achieve it was Ruud van Nistelrooy. In 2006-07, under Fabio Capello, the Dutchman scored 25 goals in La Liga to lead Madrid to the title. In those three cases, the Liga title came hand in hand with the Pichichi Trophy. Mbappé is on track to not only cement his place in Real Madrid history but also replicate a feat achieved by some of the game’s most legendary goalscorers. His debut season at the Bernabéu is proving to be nothing short of spectacular, and fans eagerly await to see how high he will set the goal-scoring standard in the seasons to come.
