Real Madrid surpass 1,000-goal mark in European Cup/Champions League
Karim Benzema’s brace in the meeting with Shakhtar Donetsk at the Santiago Bernabéu means that Real Madrid have now scored over 1,000 goals in the European Cup and are the first team to surpass the landmark figure in the competition’s history.
The French frontman further enhanced his legendary status at the club by claiming the 1,000th goal with the evening’s opening goal.
Real Madrid’s first-ever goal in the maiden edition of the European Cup was scored by Miguel Muñoz , which Madrid went on to lift as the madridistas overcame Servette in a 2-0 away success in the round of 16.
Four editions later, Alfredo Di Stéfano fired home the team’s 100th goal in the semi-final first-leg meeting with Barcelona, which ended in a 3-1 triumph. The club’s 200th goal in the competition was scored by another club legend in the shape of Ferenc Puskas after the Hungarian ace rounded off the scoring in Real Madrid’s 5-0 romp over Feyenoord in the round of 32 in the 1965/66 campaign.
The club’s 300th goal came 13 campaigns later, when Jensen plundered the team’s second goal in the 7-0 away rout of Luxembourg outfit Progress Niedercorn. Goal number 400 came in the 1990/91 campaign courtesy of Sebastián Losada’s strike in the 2-2 stalemate against Austria’s Swarovski Tirol.
Madrid made it halfway to the 1,000th goal in the 21st century thanks to a Guti effort as the academy graduate grabbed a brace in the team’s 4-0 victory over Sporting CP in the sides’ 2000/01 group-stage meeting.
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David Beckham bagged the club’s 600th in the 2-1 win in Marseille three season’s later, whilst Gonzalo Higuaín struck the 700th in the 2-2 draw against AC Milan in 2010.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored the 800th goal in a group-stage match in Copenhagen at the end of 2013 in a 2-0 away win and in 2017, the Portuguese once again took centre stage by scoring the 900th against Bayern in the second leg of the quarter-finals (4-2).
Four years on and it was Karim Benzema who struck the club’s 1,000th and 1,001thgoal in the competition. Madrid are already the most successful club in Europe’s top competition in both of its iterations – the European Cup and the UEFA Champions League – with 13 trophies, including six in the 21st century so far.
The club marked the moment on social media with a series of tweets while President, Fiorentino Perez joined in the celebrations with the players after the game as well.
