There have been 187 goals in the first 45 games of this season’s Champions League. That’s an average of 4.2 per game, the highest rate in Europe’s top club competition since 1959-60.
If that rate held across all 189 games, the season would finish with around 785 goals. The current record for a single season is 655, set last season.
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How it compares with the league phase era
This is the third season of the 36-team league phase, and goals have gone up every year.
The first league phase, in 2024-25, produced 470 goals in 144 games at 3.26 per game, the highest average for any group stage or league phase in the competition’s history at the time. The season as a whole finished with 618 goals at 3.27 per game, also a record at the time.
Last season raised the bar again. The 2025-26 league phase averaged 3.38 goals per game, and the full campaign ended with 655 goals at 3.47 per game.
This season has gone further still. After the first 45 games of last season, 172 goals had been scored, an average of 3.82. This season’s 187 is 15 more at the same stage.
Two of the three highest-scoring rounds in the competition’s history have come this season. Matchday 1 produced 69 goals, and matchday 2 set a new record with 78 across 18 games.
4.2 – There’s been 187 goals scored in 45 games in the UEFA Champions League this season.
At 4.2 goals per game, it’s the most in a European Cup campaign since 1959-60 (also 4.2 per game).
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The highest-scoring season ever
On goals per game, the record still belongs to the first European Cup in 1955-56, which averaged 4.38 goals per game from just 29 matches.
Second is 1959-60, at 4.19 per game, when Real Madrid won a fifth successive title.
This season’s exact average is 4.16, just behind 1959-60. Both early seasons were straight knockout competitions with far fewer games, so this season’s rate across a 36-team league phase is a different kind of achievement.
Tuesday’s nine games added 40 goals, led by Paris Saint-Germain’s 4-2 win over Barcelona, Liverpool’s 4-3 win against Villarreal and Manchester City’s 5-1 victory over AEK Athens. Nine more games tonight will add to the total.
Photo: Franco Arland/Getty Images
