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The Champions League challenges the toughness and consistency of a player to its very core. With top teams all around Europe coming together, scoring regularly does become a task.
Every opposition brings a different challenge to the table and it becomes tricky to find different ways to score. Despite that, many top players have gone on to score hat-tricks in the history of the competition.
The Champions League has seen multiple hat-tricks from top players
The Champions League has witnessed world-class goal-scorers run riot in front of goal. In the process, many have managed to score hat-tricks on more than one occasion.
Some of them have even gone on to score hat-tricks with different clubs in this competition. Here, we take a look at the top players who have managed to achieve this feat.
Honorable Mentions: Marco Simone, Roy Makaay, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Andriy Shevchenko, Didier Drogba, Michael Owen, Olivier Giroud
#5 Filippo Inzaghi (Juventus & AC Milan)
Filippo Inzaghi has made immense contributions to Italian football, having played for some of the top Italian clubs. He had the pleasure of playing for both Juventus and AC Milan, winning the Champions League twice with the latter.
The Italian striker scored three hat-tricks in the competition with his first coming for Juventus against Dynamo Kyiv in a 4-1 win in the second leg of the quarter-finals in 1998. Two of Inzaghi's goals were assisted by the great Zinadine Zidane.
His second hat-trick for the Old Lady came against Hamburger SV in a 4-4 away draw in the group stages of 2000. Inzaghi scored a penalty in the dying minutes to secure a late draw for Juventus.
The Italian's third hat-trick came while playing for AC Milan in the group stage away match against Deportivo La Coruna. Milan came away with a 0-4 win with Inzaghi's all three goals coming within half an hour of the first goal.
#4 Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona & Inter Milan)
Samuel Eto'o remains the only player in the history of the game to win the European continental treble in consecutive seasons with two different teams. The feat was achieved while playing for Barcelona and Inter Milan.
Having won the Champions League with both these giants, Eto'o has also managed to score a hat-trick with each of them. His first hat-trick came with Barcelona while playing against Panathinaikos in a 5-0 win at the Camp Nou in the group stages. The unique thing about it was that the three goals saw Eto'o using his right-foot, left-foot and head to score them.
His second hat-trick came whilst playing for Inter Milan in a 4-0 home win against Werder Bremen in the group stages of the 2010-11 season. Eto'o also contributed to the fourth goal by assisting Wesley Sneijder.
#3 Neymar (Barcelona & Paris Saint-Germain)
The great Brazilian has three Champions League hat-tricks to his name so far. His first came in his very first season with Barcelona.
It came in the group stages of the 2013-14 season when the Catalan club registered a thumping 6-1 win against Celtic at Camp Nou. Neymar completed his hat-trick within 15 minutes of his first goal. More notably, Lionel Messi wasn't part of the team in this massive win.
The other two hat-tricks for Neymar came with Paris Saint-Germain. The first one came in the 2018-19 season when the French club beat Red Star Belgrade 6-1 in the group stages. The Brazilian scored two free-kicks in this very match.
His third hat-trick came in a 5-1 win against Istanbul Basaksehir in the group stage of the 2020-21 season. Neymar is still very much capable of increasing his tally of hat-tricks.
#2 Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund & Bayern Munich)
Robert Lewandowski has five hat-tricks in the Champions League to date. Out of the five, only one of them came while playing for Borussia Dortmund but it will always be a memorable one.
The hat-trick came against Real Madrid in the first leg of the semi-finals of the 2013-14 season. Lewandowski went on to score all four goals in the 4-1 win against Los Blancos. Dortmund eventually won the tie and reached the finals which they lost to Bayern Munich.
The Polish striker joined rivals Bayern Munich in the summer of the 2014-15 season and has been with them since. He has scored four hat-tricks with them with the first coming against Dinamo Zagreb in a 5-0 group stage win in the 2015-16 campaign.
His third came against Red Star Belgrade in a 6-0 win in the group stages of the 2019-20 season. Lewandowski's last two hat-tricks have come in the ongoing season. The fourth came in a 5-2 victory against Benfica in the group stages. The most-recent and fifth came in a thumping 7-1 win against Red Bull Salzburg in the second leg of the round of 16.
#1 Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid & Juventus)
The Portuguese superstar has scored eight hat-tricks in the Champions League, the joint-highest with Lionel Messi. Despite winning the competition with Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored hat-tricks with Real Madrid and Juventus.
At Madrid, he scored seven hat-tricks with the first coming against Ajax in a 4-1 group stage win in the 2012-13 season. Ronaldo scored his second hat-trick the following season when Los Blancos registered a 6-1 victory against Galatasaray in the group stages.
His next three hat-tricks came in the 2015-16 season, with two of them coming in the group stages against Shakhtar Donetsk and Malmo. The other came against Wolfsburg in a 3-0 win at the Santiago Bernabeu to register a comeback after having lost the first leg 2-0 in the quarter-finals.
Cristiano Ronaldo's sixth and seventh hat-trick came in the 2017-18 season. The first came against Bayern Munich in a 4-2 victory in the second leg of the quarter-finals. The second came against Atletico Madrid in a convincing 3-0 win in the first leg of the semi-finals.
The Portuguese captain scored his career's eighth and only hat-trick with Juventus in the 2019-20 season. It came in a 3-0 victory against Atletico Madrid in the second leg of the round of 16. It was a stunning effort from Cristiano Ronaldo as it helped the Old Lady overcome a 2-0 deficit from the first leg.
