Jude Bellingham joined a very exclusive club when he notched his latest goal in the Uefa Champions League this week.
The Birmingham native not only became the first Real Madrid player to score in his first four games in the competition, but he also became only the fourth player ever to reach double digits before his 21st birthday.
That statistic is all the more remarkable when you consider the 20-year-old is a midfielder – and the only non-striker to complete this feat.
Every player to score 10 Champions League goals before turning 21:
Karim Benzema
The Frenchman is now a veteran of the game playing out the winter of his career in Saudi Arabia, but broke into the Lyon senior squad as a cocky 18-year-old striker. It took a couple of years before Karim Benzema was fully trusted as the club’s main striker, but he did score on his Champions League debut and went on to become the first teenager to score in his first three appearances.
The centre-forward netted 11 more goals in the competition before joining Real Madrid in 2009, and went on to have a glorious career in the Champions League, lifting the trophy five times while scoring 90 goals in 152 appearances.
Erling Haaland
It seems so long ago now, but it’s only been four years since Erling Haaland burst onto the global scene while at Salzburg. He scored a hat-trick on his Champions League debut against Genk, before scoring against both Liverpool and Napoli.
The Norwegian became the first teenager to score in five consecutive Champions League matches, before heading to Borussia Dortmund where he would score twice more in that year’s tournament to reach double digits while he was still only 19 years of age.
Kylian Mbappé
Kylian Mbappé scored his first ever Champions League goal in the incredible 5-3 round of 16 match between Manchester City and Monaco in 2017, which made his the second youngest French goalscorer in the competition, after a certain Karim Benzema.
The teenager announced himself to the world that day, and went on to score in the return leg, both legs of the quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund, and the semi-final second leg defeat to Juventus, totalling six goals.
Mbappé went on to join PSG that summer, but could only score four goals in the Champions League that season for his new club. He has already found the net 43 times in just 66 appearances, though, as his hunt for the trophy goes on.
Jude Bellingham
Great things have been destined for Jude Bellingham for a long time. He became the youngest Englishman to appear in the Champions League when he made his group stage debut in 2020 and he has exceeded every expectation since then.
His goal scoring record in the competition was not impressive at first, scoring once in each of his first two seasons, but he went onto net four times in his third season. An £88m transfer to Real Madrid followed, and he looks set to improve his scoring record by many multiples.
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