Which match holds the
record for the most goals in a Champions
League game? We list the highest-scoring matches in the
competition’s history.
Following
Barcelona’s dramatic win over Benfica on Matchday 7 of the
new-look league phase of the Champions League, two of the
highest-scoring games in Champions League history have now occurred
this season.
There have been 11 games in which nine or more goals have been
scored since the competition’s rebrand in 1992, and 18.2% of them
have come in the new league format that was introduced for the
2024-25 season.
Whether or not the new 36-team league has anything to do with
this happening is a discussion for another day. We’re just here to
report on the numbers.
So, with that in mind, here is a list of the highest-scoring
games to have been played in the Champions League. (Further down
we’ll stop pretending football started in 1992 and reveal the
highest-scoring game in the European Cup, too.)
12
Goals
Borussia
Dortmund 8-4 Legia Warsaw
22 November
2016
Leading Group F heading into Matchday 5 of the 2016-17 season,
Borussia
Dortmund hosted Legia Warsaw, a team they had already beaten
6-0 in Poland earlier on in the campaign.
They went a goal down early on, opening the door for Real Madrid to
sneak into first position in the group with one game to play.
But Dortmund struck three times in four minutes through two
goals from Shinji Kagawa and one from Nuri Sahin to take the lead,
before conceding another and adding another two before
half-time. At 5-2 at the break, this was the joint-highest-scoring
first half in Champions League history.
The action didn’t stop in the second half, though, with five
more goals arriving to complete a remarkable game that remains the
highest-scoring match in Champions League history.
Dortmund held off Real Madrid to finish top of the group, but
they only made the quarter-finals in the end. Madrid, meanwhile,
predictably recovered to win the competition yet again.
11
Goals
Monaco
8-3 Deportivo La Coruña
5 November
2003
On their way to the final – where they would lose to José
Mourinho’s Porto – Monaco won Group A,
with their group stage including this frankly bizarre 8-3 victory
over eventual semi-finalists Deportivo La Coruña.
Just two weeks after a 1-0 win for Deportivo in the return game
in Spain, back on home soil, Monaco raced into a 4-0 lead inside
half an hour, with a further three goals scored before half-time as
the hosts took a 5-2 lead into the break.
Incredibly, three more goals were added before the 52nd minute
to leave Monaco leading 7-3, yet only one more goal was scored in
the final 38 minutes of the game, with Édouard Cissé scoring
the eighth for the hosts.
Monaco scored more goals in this one match than in their five
other group-stage games combined (seven), while Deportivo let in
twice as many goals as they did in their other five matches in
total (four).
Dado Prso scored half of Monaco’s goals in this match, becoming
just the third player to score as many as four goals in a Champions
League game after Marco van Basten (November 1992 for Milan vs IFK
Göteborg) and Simone Inzaghi (March 2000 for Lazio vs
Marseille).
This game had held the record as the highest-scoring Champions
League game for 13 years before Dortmund’s win over Legia Warsaw in
2016.
Bayern
Munich 9-2 Dinamo Zagreb
17 September
2024
On MD 1 of the 2024-25 campaign, Bayern Munich
put nine past Dinamo Zagreb in a one-sided affair that raised
concerns that the expanded Champions League had increased the gulf
between the best and the worst teams.
Harry
Kane became the first Englishman to score four goals in a
Champions League match while also hitting the competition’s first
ever hat-trick of penalties, with Michael
Olise also grabbing a brace.
The scoreline eventually reflected Bayern’s dominance but, after
having gone three goals up before half-time, Zagreb pulled two back
just after the break and the game looked like it might become a
genuine contest.
Bayern put any ideas of a comeback to bed, though, scoring six
goals in the final 33 minutes to wrap up one of the biggest
wins the Champions League has ever seen.
10
Goals
Barcelona 2-8 Bayern Munich
14 August
2020
The only consolation for Barcelona after
this loss was that there were no fans in the stadium to see it.
Played at the end of the COVID-affected 2019-20 season and over
just one leg, this remains the highest-scoring game in the knockout
phase of the Champions League, although it was only through a
flurry of late Bayern goals that it makes the list at all.
The German side made a fast start, going 4-1 up by the 27th
minute, but no more goals were added until Luis Suárez pulled one
back for Barcelona 12 minutes into the second half. Joshua Kimmich
reinstated Bayern’s three-goal lead shortly after, but it wasn’t
until the 82nd minute when Bayern pulled away properly. One from
Robert Lewandowski and two more from Philippe Coutinho, on loan
from Barcelona, put the icing on the cake.
It was the first time in 74 years that Barcelona had conceded
eight goals in a game, and the first time they had lost by a
six-goal margin in 69 years. Manager Quique Setién lost his job
just three days later. Bayern, meanwhile, went on to win the
European Cup for a sixth time.
9
Goals
- Paris Saint-Germain 7-2 Rosenborg, 24 October
2000 - Lyon 7-2 Werder Bremen, 8 March 2005
- Villarreal 6-3 AaB, 21 October 2008
- Tottenham 2-7 Bayern Munich, 1 October
2019 - Manchester City 6-3 RB Leipzig, 15 September
2021 - Paris Saint-Germain 7-2 Maccabi Haifa, 25
October 2022 - Benfica 4-5 Barcelona, 21 January 2025
Football
Didn’t Begin in 1992
Before the rebrand in the early 1990s, the Champions League was
known as the European Cup. And one game under the competition’s old
name saw more goals than any in the Champions League era.
That was Feyenoord’s 12-2 away win over KR (who you probably
know as Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur) of Iceland in the first leg
of the first round, played on 17 September 1969. Feyenoord went
10-0 up before KR scored their two goals, but then the Dutch side
added two more late on, before winning the return leg 4-0 back on
home soil.
Wins by such a margin were more common back in those days, with
the first-round first-leg games also including Real Madrid 8-0
Olympiakos Nicosia, Leeds 10-0 Lyn, and Red Star Belgrade 8-0
Linfield.
However, Feyenoord vs KR was the only game in the entire history
of the European Cup to see as many goals as the 12 in Dortmund’s
win over Legia Warsaw.
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