How Messi is ahead of Ronaldo again in the Champions League

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Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t just playing his first Champions League game with new club Juventus tonight: he already has some catching up to do!

As the Old Lady travels to Valencia – a return to Spain for CR7 – the Portuguese man finds himself behind rival Lionel Messi in the all-time Champions League hat-trick leaders rankings.

Messi’s one-man demolition show against PSV Eindhoven last night (4-0), resulted in the Argentine moving ahead on the leaderboard with eight. Ronaldo is behind him with seven.

The former Real Madrid still has a major lead in terms of goals, scoring 121 in his entire career compared to Messi’s 103 in the Champions League.

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The Argentine does have an edge in the group stages, scoring 63 times in that phase of the competition, while Ronaldo is behind on 60…

Here are all the hat-tricks Messi has scored in the UCL:

Vikoria Plzen-Barcelona 0-4 (November 2011)
Barcelona-Leverkusen 7-1 (March 2012)
Barcelona-Ajax 4-0 (September 2013)
Apoel-Barcelona 0-4 (November 2014)
Barcelona-Celtic 7-0 (September 2016)
Barcelona-Manchester City 4-0 (October 2016)
Barcelona-Chelsea 3-0 (April 2018)
Barcelona-PSV 4-0 (September 2018)

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