4 outstanding records Cristiano Ronaldo shares with Lionel Messi

Modified Mar 10, 2020 17:45 GMT

Ronaldo and Messi share 4 stellar records

#2 Most hat-tricks in UEFA Champions League

Ronaldo has 8 hat-tricks in the UEFA Champions League, same as Messi

Because goalscoring is their forte, it is not a wonder that Messi and Ronaldo share another hat-trick record, this time in the UEFA Champions League. The Argentinean and the Portuguese have 8 hat-tricks in the UEFA Champions League at the moment and their journey to excellence has been worth drooling over. The only active players who come close to the dynamic duo are Robert Lewandowski, Mario Gomez and Luiz Adriano and all of them have 3 hat-tricks to their name!

Messi scored his first UEFA Champions League hat-trick in April 2010 against Arsenal and since then, he has scored hat-tricks against Viktoria Plzen, Bayer Leverkusen, Ajax, APOEL, Celtic, Manchester City, and PSV Eindhoven.

Ronaldo scored his first UEFA Champions League hat-trick as a Real Madrid player against Ajax in 2012. He went on to score hat-tricks against Galatasaray, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmo FF, Wolfsburg, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid, against whom he has 2 hat-tricks.

The Argentinean’s most recent hat-trick was against PSV Eindhoven in the 2018/19 season, while the Portuguese scored his last hat-trick against Atletico Madrid last season, which was also his first UEFA Champions League hat-trick as a Juventus player.

Incidentally, Ronaldo is the only player to have 3 hat-tricks in a single season, which he managed in the 2015/16 season for Real Madrid. On the other hand, Messi has managed 2 hat-tricks in a single season twice, in the 2011/12 season and the 16/17 season.

About the author

Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written over 8500 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.

Despite believing in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to create an iconic rivalry, Deepungsu reckons no one can match the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo. He spends his leisure time writing about life on his blog, reading books, and playing the guitar.

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Edited by A. Ayush Chatterjee