Neither Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo feature among the highest-scoring teenagers in Champions League history.

That’s a surprising truth given their superhuman career achievements and the fact that so many football stars have used Europe’s premier club competition as a springboard for their blossoming career.

If you’re good enough, you’re old enough. Here are the male players to have scored the most goals as teenagers in the Champions League.

8. Yakubu Ayegbeni

Now recognised more for his Barclaysman status, ‘the Yak’ actually has a unique place in Champions League history as one of the competition’s most prolific teenagers.

He found form in the Champions League upon signing for Maccabi Haifa, including a penalty against Manchester United and a hat-trick against Olympiakos. It was that form which prompted a move to England with Portsmouth.

Yakubu managed five goals in just five games before leaving his teenage years.

7. Jude Bellingham

He played 23 times as a teenager in the competition, scoring six goals from midfield with Borussia Dortmund after moving from Birmingham. He’s now in a tussle to win the Ballon d’Or with teammate Vinicius Junior. Time flies when you’re bloody good at football.

6. Raul

Real Madrid’s hometown hero, it somehow goes unappreciated as to exactly how good Raul was, for so long.

He scored six times in eight Champions League games as a teenager for Real Madrid, a swift start on his way to becoming the first player to score 50 goals in the competition and make over 100 appearances.

5. Karim Benzema

The legendary Frenchman burst onto the scene as a teenager at Lyon and that was represented in his start in the Champions League, bagging six goals from nine games before his teen years were over, including a goal on his competition debut.

It’s taken him a while to properly receive his flowers, but all these years later, Benzema is correctly remembered as one of the greatest modern forwards, playing facilitator to Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale at Real Madrid before becoming the main man and firing them to European glory himself in 2022.

Of the five Champions Leagues he won, his individual performances to clinch the final one make it the most memorable.

4. Patrick Kluivert

Seven goals from his 18 games as a teenager in the Champions League was merely the beginning of a joyous career for Kluivert.

The most important of those seven goals as a teenager was the one that won Ajax the Champions League in 1995, firing in the winner after 85 minutes against a star-studded Milan and becoming the youngest player to score in a Champions League final in the process.

Baller.

3. Erling Haaland

Scoring a first-half hat-trick on his Champions League debut for Red Bull Salzburg against Genk, Haaland looked like a special talent from that very first game and is yet to slow down.

He scored 10 goals as a teenager in the competition and bagged 12 goals in a single Champions League campaign as Manchester City won the trophy for the first time to complete the treble in 2022-23.

Freak.

2. Kylian Mbappe

Mbappe became the second-youngest Frenchman to score in the Champions League behind Benzema when he fired in a goal in Monaco’s 5-3 defeat away to Manchester City in 2017.

The forward scored five and assisted six from 10 games as PSG made the final in 2020, before losing to Bayern Munich.

He’s not slowed down in Madrid either, although Mbappe is yet to win the Champions League.

1. Lamine Yamal

Yamal has surpassed Mbappe to become the highest-scoring teenager in Champions League history, breaking the record in November 2026.

The 19-year-old set the new record after scoring in Barcelona’s 3-0 victory over Aston Villa, his 14th career goal in the Champions League.

Considering he doesn’t turn 20 until next summer, there is plenty of time for Yamal to stretch his lead even further.

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