Ronaldo or Haaland, That Is the Question

The Champions League is opening a new chapter, and one question hangs over the competition: will the next scoring headline belong to Ronaldo or Haaland?

The tournament’s spectacular nights will continue until the final on June 5, 2027, in the Spanish capital. The opening days are expected to bring plenty of goals, while some of the competition’s former great scorers point toward another continuation of the scoring tradition.

Two giants who dominated European football for the past two decades are no longer in the competition. Cristiano Ronaldo remains the Champions League’s record scorer with 140 goals. He collected 105 for Real Madrid, 21 for Manchester United and 14 for Juventus. Since 2023, he has played for Al Nassr in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Lionel Messi, another leading figure of the era, now plays for Inter Miami, where he has captivated American fans and football-loving immigrants. In the Champions League, the Argentine scored 120 goals for Barcelona and added nine for Paris Saint-Germain.

The list of the tournament’s most prolific players also invites comparisons with earlier legends such as Gerd Müller, Andriy Shevchenko and Zlatan Ibrahimović. Their place in that ranking provides another way to view the changing hierarchy of European club football.