REAL MADRID striker Karim Benzema moved into joint-fourth on the all-time Champions League top scorers list on Tuesday night.
The Frenchman lashed home a superb equaliser in the first leg of their semi-final against Chelsea, a game that ended 1-1.
It was the 71st Champions League goal of Benzema’s career, a strike that moves him level with Raul in 13 fewer games.
Next on the list for the 33-year-old to try and catch is Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski who sits two ahead of him on 73.
Then there is a quite remarkable 47-goal jump up to second place where Lionel Messi sits on 120.
The most prolific marksman in Champions League history is five-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo, who has a staggering 134 goals in 176 games.
But it is the strikers below Benzema that show by comparison what a sensational striker he has been in Europe.
Outside the top five, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry are the only other men to have reached 50 Champions League goals with 56 and 50 respectively.
Alfredo di Stefano, who won the European Cup with Real Madrid five times in a row between 1956 and 1960, sits in eighth with a crazy goal to game ratio.
The Argentine-born forward scored 49 times in just 58 European matches during his career.
FREE BETS: GET OVER £2,000 IN SIGN UP OFFERS HERE
And then there are two AC Milan greats who cap off the top ten in Andriy Shevchenko and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, both of whom sit on 48 goals.
Bayern Munich forward Thomas Muller also has 48 Champions League goals but narrowly misses out on the top ten as his goals to game ratio is less than that of Shevchenko and Ibrahimovic.
No English players come even remotely near to the top ten, with Wayne Rooney the closest down in joint-23rd with 30 goals.
⚽ Read our Football live blog for the very latest news from around the grounds
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
