Messi, Ronaldo & the top 10 all-time Champions League goalscorers

Alessandro Del Piero is one of the four players profiled in our top 10 who scored all his Champions League goals for only one club.

The former Juventus icon netted 42 times for the current Italian champions in Europe’s elite club competition during his lengthy career at the top, winning the Golden Boot award twice.

He helped them to win the trophy in 1996, playing the full game in the eventual triumph over Ajax on penalties and also participated in three other finals for Juve, although they all ended in defeat.

Despite being a prolific goalscorer in the competition, he only scored once in his four appearances in the Champions League final, against Borussia Dortmund in 1997.

A two-time winner of the Champions League, Filippo Inzaghi certainly made his mark in the competition over 13 years with Juventus and, most significantly, AC Milan.

Strangely, Inzaghi is one of just two players in our list who never won the Champions League Golden Boot during his career, so making his way into the overall top 10 serves to highlight his consistency in front of goal on an annual basis.

The striker’s most significant contributions saw him net a double and win the man-of-the-match award as Milan defeated Liverpool in the 2007 final in Athens, avenging their infamous Istanbul defeat in the final of two years before, a game which he had missed out on.

One of the two great players in our list who performed their heroics in the competition before the modern Champions League era is Eusebio.

The Portugal legend led Benfica to a string of European Cup finals over the course of the 1960s in an historically-important spell which saw the Portuguese giants challenge Real Madrid’s early dominance of the tournament.

A three-time Golden Boot winner in 1965, 1966 and 1968, Eusebio’s 47 goals came over the course of just 64 European matches.

While his spell at Chelsea may not have been prolific, Andriy Shevchenko’s goalscoring exploits for Dynamo Kiev and AC Milan ensure he is still up there with Europe’s greats in our top 10.

The Ukraine icon won the Golden Boot twice, but with a large seven-year gap (in 1999 and 2006), while he was also on the winning and losing end of penalty shoot-outs in the final.

In 2003 he scored the decisive spot-kick as Milan beat Juventus at Old Trafford to win the trophy, but two years later it was his miss that sealed Liverpool’s remarkable comeback against the San Siro giants in Istanbul.

Legendary Real Madrid star Alfredo Di Stefano is the player with the best goalscoring strike-rate in our top 10, with his 49 European Cup goals sensationally arriving in just 58 games.

Famously part of the side who won the first five competitions between 1956 and 1960 to go along with his own personal goalscoring exploits, he arguably goes down as the most decorated player in the tournament’s history.

Di Stefano scored a hat-trick in the memorable 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 final to help seal the fifth-successive trophy at Hampden Park, which was amongst numerous other great moments in his continental career.

Despite never winning the Golden Boot in his Champions League career, Thierry Henry still impressively made it to 50 goals in the tournament during his time with Monaco, Arsenal and Barcelona.

It was for the Gunners that he scored the majority of his European goals, but having failed at the last hurdle with Arsenal in 2006, he finally won the competition in 2009 with Barca – starting in the Rome final against Manchester United.

The semi-finals of this year’s competition may have been miserable for Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid as they suffered a demoralising defeat to Borussia Dortmund, but the first leg of the tie did see the Portuguese star reach his half-century of goals in the Champions League.

Ronaldo won the Golden Boot as he helped Manchester United to win the 2008 competition and led them to another final in 2009, where Sir Alex Ferguson’s men lost to Barcelona.

While he has not been able to enjoy the same level of team success in the tournament so far since moving to the Santiago Bernabeu, he has become an even more prolific player, having now netted over double the amount of goals for Madrid in Europe than he ever did at United.

Ronaldo beats Henry in our list due to playing in fewer games to reach the 50 mark – he has played 92 in the competition to date, compared to the Frenchman’s final total of 114.

One of the most prolific poachers in the modern era, Ruud van Nistelrooy certainly made his mark in the Champions League during his illustrious career.

A winner of the Golden Boot three times in the space of four seasons in 2002, 2003 and 2005, backing Van Nistelrooy to score became a common theme of a European night, with him eventually racking up a stunning total of 56 goals.

The big frustration for the Dutchman when he looks back on his career will be his failure to win the tournament, despite having spent his peak years at Manchester United and Real Madrid, two of the continent’s biggest and most successful club sides.

It will take something truly exceptional to prevent Lionel Messi sitting at No.1 on this list by the time his career has reached a conclusion.

Despite still being only 25, the Argentine superstar is already second, above all but one of the continent’s great goalscorers of past and present on 59 goals from 79 Champions League games.

The remarkably consistent Messi has won the Golden Boot in each of the last four seasons, although one of Cristiano Ronaldo or Robert Lewandowski is set to break that streak this time around.

Having already won the tournament three times with Barcelona, the potential list of team and individual honours Messi could rack up by the end of his playing days could be truly spectacular.

The man Messi is chasing for top spot in the Champions League goalscoring stakes is Real Madrid legend Raul, who also netted a handful of strikes for Schalke in the competition after leaving the Bernabeu.

The striker scored a total of 71 times in a stunning European career in front of goal and will always be synonymous with a tournament he won on three occasions for the Spanish capital giants.

While Raul’s place at the top of the charts may not be ever-lasting with the likes of Messi and Ronaldo making up fast ground, it looks like he is going to hold on to the top spot for a while longer yet.