Ranking the 10 greatest Champions League knockout stage hat-tricks: Where does Fede Valverde place? | OneFootball

Real Madrid’s Federico Valverde has scored one of the great Champions League hat-tricks, but where does it rank among other icons from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and Tottenham?

Nothing in club football compares to Champions League nights, and netting three goals in the win-or-bust latter knockout stages is the stuff of legend, achieved only by elite players.

We’ve ranked the 10 greatest Champions League knockout stage hat-tricks.

10. Kylian Mbappe – REAL MADRID vs Man City (2024-25)

Edging out his hat-trick away to Barcelona (a behind-closed-doors Camp Nou takes away some points), Mbappe is in at No.10.

Man City went to the Bernabeu all out of sorts and were run ragged by an Mbappe-inspired Madrid.

A well-timed run and a brilliant looping first-time finish opened the scoring in the fourth minute, he doubled the lead by sending Josko Gvardiol for a hotdog and made it three by finishing with aplomb after cutting inside.

All in a night’s work.

9. Karim Benzema – Chelsea vs REAL MADRID (2021-22)

This was King Karim’s second successive Champions League hat-trick.

The first inspired a brilliant comeback against PSG, but we reckon the second just about edges it.

Two brilliant headers put Madrid in control of the tie at Stamford Bridge. The third wasn’t quite as impressive, a Benjamin Mendy horrorshow, but he got his rewards for pressing diligently.

A man at the absolute top of his game. That year’s Ballon d’Or was lifted off the back of nights like this.

8. Adriano – INTER vs Porto (2004-05)

With thousands of hours of Pro Evo in the memory bank, our nostalgia-addled brains are a little disappointed that none of these goals are the archetypal ‘Shot Power 99’ Adriano classics we’d have expected.

The first is a bit of a freak, but overall his hat-trick – knocking holders Porto out, no less – offered a reminder of why he was billed as the heir to R9 at the time.

Unstoppable.

7. Federico Valverde – REAL MADRID vs Man City (2025-26)

Like all truly great hat-tricks, Valverde saved his best ’til last.

Honestly, it’s only to stave off accusations of recency bias that we’re not putting this one a place or two higher.

Watch all three goals and tell us with a straight face you’ve seen many better.

6. Robert Lewandowski – BORUSSIA DORTMUND vs Real Madrid (2012-13)

Another four-goal special.

None of Lewandowski’s goals were take-your-breath-away spectacular, though the turn and close control for the third were lovely, but it was a clinic in exceptional centre-forward player. Including his lashed-home penalty.

We’d have knocked this down a few spots were it a Round of 16 match against some outsiders. But this was Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid. With Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane and Pepe in the backline. In a Champions League semi-final. Outrageous.

5. Cristiano Ronaldo – REAL MADRID vs Atletico Madrid (2016-17)

Ronaldo might have been a more dynamic player in his younger days at Manchester United, but this performance is Exhibit A in him refining his skills into an unbelievably efficient goalscoring machine.

Three of the 12 goals he scored in the competition that season, as Madrid became the first side in the modern Champions League era to retain the trophy.

4. Cristiano Ronaldo – JUVENTUS vs Atletico Madrid (2018-19)

Him again. Diego Simeone must have been sick to the back teeth of Ronaldo.

This was exactly what Juventus had in mind when they signed the five-time Ballon d’Or winner. The missing piece of the jigsaw to get over the line after losing two finals.

The Champions League’s all-time top goalscorer joined fresh from winning three in a row, and four of the last five, and once again here he was standing tall on the biggest stage. All three goals in a second-leg comeback from two behind. Two unstoppable headers capped off by a nerves-of-steel penalty.

Things didn’t quite work out that way in the end, dumped out of the competition by Ajax, Lyon and Porto in his three seasons in Turin.

This would be the only knockout tie Ronaldo won with Juventus. But that one night they looked destined to conquer the world.

3. Lionel Messi – BARCELONA vs Arsenal (2009-10)

Messi was the Ballon d’Or holder at the time, and the standout player for Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in their treble-winning campaign the season before.

But it was on nights like this that he ascended to another plane. Forget Kaka, Wayne Rooney or Ashley Young. Even in his early twenties, Messi surpassed his contemporaries and belonged in the conversation with all-timers like Pele and Diego Maradona.

Don’t take our word for it.

“We lost against a team better than us with the best player in world,” admitted Arsene Wenger at full-time.

“He made the impossible possible. He has something exceptional. He is unstoppable. He is the best player in the world by some distance. He’s (like) a PlayStation.”

The best thing about Messi scoring four is that you can choose your favourite three for the hat-trick. Manuel Almunia was made to look a prize plum for all of them, but particularly the fourth.

2. Lucas Moura – Ajax vs TOTTENHAM (2018-19)

Talking purely about the quality of the goals, Moura’s probably isn’t right up there with the aforementioned greats of the game.

All three, though, displayed a bloody-minded determination to see Tottenham through. Even pouncing on a howler from Andre Onana (surely not?) for the second.

In terms of the wider context, we doubt we’ll ever see a more dramatic and astonishing hat-trick. Sending Spurs (Spurs!) to a Champions League final by completing a hat-trick, and a three-goal comeback, in the sixth minute of injury time.

Moura’s clincher was also a prime example of the away goals rule at its best. Swinging from heartbreak to pure elation in an instant.

1. Ronaldo Nazario – Man Utd vs REAL MADRID (2002-03)

The best hat-trick scored in a defeat in history?

Real Madrid may have lost 4-3 at Old Trafford, but Ronaldo’s breathtaking hat-trick was vital in them winning the tie.

Long since passed into footballing folklore, there’s very little to be said about R9’s hat-trick against Manchester United that’s not been said already.