The Blond Arrow’s record had stood for 45 years, but with his latest hat-trick the Frenchman now has 309 goals in his 13 seasons at the Santiago Bernabeu. Ahead of him are just Raúl with 323 goals and Cristiano Ronaldo with 450.
For 45 years, from 1964 to 2009, there existed a Real Madrid record that seemed unbeatable: the 308 goals scored by Alfredo Di Stéfano in the famous white shirt, which made him Los Blancos’ all-time top scorer for almost half a century. Since then, just three Real Madrid players have surpassed that figure. Raúl González was the first in 2009, ending his career at the club with 323 goals. Then came Cristiano Ronaldo, who blew Raul’s record out of the water, leaving the Bernabeu in 2018 with 450 goals as Real Madrid’s current all-time top scorer. And the latest to beat the Blond Arrow’s tally is now Karim Benzema, who is now the third top scorer in club history, with 309 goals and counting. A truly extraordinary milestone.
At 34, Benzema has proven to be one of the most consistently brilliant strikers of the modern era. And he is also one of the most in-form players in the world. He has scored 30 goals in 33 games, with a third of the season still to go. 20 of these goals have come in LaLiga Santander, making him the frontrunner in this season’s top scorer Pichichi award. And if that wasn’t enough, he also leads the division in assists (10). Remarkable.
His latest display has made headlines around the world; a spectacular hat-trick against PSG that earned Real Madrid a much-deserved spot in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. In the process, he signed off one of those magical nights at the Santiago Bernabéu, with a comeback included. “It was apotheosis,” said club legend Emilio Butragueño, who was once the protagonist of those unforgettable comebacks in the 1980s that created the legendary ‘stage fright’ that European opponents feel when playing at the Santiago Bernabeu. At half-time on Wednesday night, Real Madrid trailed by two goals on aggregate, but an 18-minute hat-trick from Benzema turned the tie on its head to the delight of the enraptured crowd.
These three goals saw Benzema definitively surpass Di Stéfano’s record. Across the thirteen seasons he has been at Real Madrid, the Frenchman has scored 212 goals in LaLiga Santander, 66 in the Champions League, 21 in the Copa del Rey, 5 in the Spanish Super Cup, 3 in the Club World Cup and 1 in the European Super Cup.
With almost three months of competition still to play and 30 goals already in his backpack, it looks like Benzema will also set a new personal scoring record. His previous best was 32 goals in 2011-12. Last season he came within a whisker of it (31), but it looks like he’ll comfortably break that mark this time around. And next up in his sights: second all-time top scorer Raúl González, with 323 goals.
