Most Goals in a Champions League Game

The record for most goals by a player in a single Champions League game is 5, and only two players have done it. Lionel Messi was first, scoring five for Barcelona in a 7-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in March 2012, and Luiz Adriano matched it for Shakhtar Donetsk against BATE Borisov in November 2014.

Scoring a hat-trick in Europe’s top club competition is rare enough; scoring five in a single night is almost unheard of. Here is the full leaderboard of the highest individual goal tallies in a Champions League match, and the context behind the record. All figures are as of the 2025 season.

The record holders: Messi and Luiz Adriano with 5

Messi’s five came in a round-of-16 second leg, a night when Barcelona’s attack overwhelmed Leverkusen and their captain was unstoppable in and around the box. Luiz Adriano’s five, in a group-stage rout of BATE Borisov, was less celebrated but just as complete. No one else has reached five in the competition’s group-stage-onward history.

The two performances share a pattern: a dominant team, an overmatched opponent and a striker in perfect rhythm. Even so, only twice in decades of Champions League football has a player found the net five times in one match, which is why the record has stood untouched at the top.

The full leaderboard of most goals in a match

The table below ranks the highest individual goal tallies in a single Champions League game.

Goals	Player	Match	Season
5	Lionel Messi	Barcelona 7-1 Bayer Leverkusen	2011-12
5	Luiz Adriano	Shakhtar 7-0 BATE Borisov	2014-15
4	Marco van Basten	AC Milan vs IFK Gothenburg	1992-93
4	Simone Inzaghi	Lazio 5-1 Marseille	2000-01
4	Dado Prso	Monaco 8-3 Deportivo	2003-04
4	Lionel Messi	Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal	2009-10
4	Robert Lewandowski	Borussia Dortmund 4-1 Real Madrid	2012-13

Messi appears twice, with both a five- and a four-goal game, underlining his standing as the competition’s defining scorer. The four-goal club stretches back to Marco van Basten in the very first Champions League season.

The four-goal games and a common myth

Below the two five-goal nights sits a group of four-goal performances, several of them iconic. Lewandowski’s four against Real Madrid came in a 2013 semi-final, the biggest stage of all, while Dado Prso’s four helped Monaco win a wild 8-3 tie with Deportivo. Andriy Shevchenko is sometimes listed among five-goal scorers, but the record is clear: he registered multiple hat-tricks in Europe, yet never five in a single match. Only Messi and Luiz Adriano have done that.

Where these games sit in the bigger picture

Single-game explosions are one measure of greatness; career totals are another. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo dominate the all-time scoring charts, a story told in our most Champions League goals leaderboard, while the players who lifted the trophy most often appear in our most Champions League titles by a player list. For the international equivalent, see the most goals in a World Cup match.

Why the record matters

Five goals in a Champions League game is a near-perfect storm of individual finishing and team dominance against strong opposition. That it has happened only twice, and not since 2014, shows how difficult it is to reach even for the best strikers in the world. It remains one of the competition’s most exclusive records.

The short version: the record for most goals in a Champions League game is 5, held by Lionel Messi (2012) and Luiz Adriano (2014), the only players to reach it. A group of stars including Marco van Basten and Robert Lewandowski sits one behind on four. As of the 2025 season, the five-goal mark still stands.