Kylian Mbappe reached the mark of 40 goals in his debut season with Real Madrid, helping delay Barcelona’s La Liga title celebrations with the equaliser in a last-gasp 2-1 comeback victory over Mallorca.
But how fast did he do it compared to his idol Cristiano Ronaldo?
Mbappe is arguably Los Blancos’ most high-profile signing since Ronaldo arrived for a world-record fee from Manchester United back in 2009.
At that stage in his career, Ronaldo had already won a Ballon d’Or and the Champions League with Sir Alex Ferguson’s side and swiftly lived up to the hype by scoring goals at a rate of knots.
The Portuguese icon averaged a better than a goal a game average over the course of his nine seasons in the Spanish capital, won four Champions Leagues and became the club’s all-time top goalscorer.
Mbappe is yet to win the Ballon d’Or or Champions League, but he does have a World Cup under his belt and was agonisingly close to a second after notching a hat-trick in the 2022 final defeat to Lionel Messi’s Argentina.
Real Madrid’s latest Galactico has hit the ground running at the Bernabeu when it comes to goals, with 40 from his first 54 appearances in all competitions. His hat-trick in the weekend’s thrilling 4-3 defeat to Barcelona saw him break the record for the most goals scored in a debut season with the club.
But like Ronaldo before him, Mbappe’s first season in Spain has been disappointingly lacking when it comes to silverware.
There can be no questioning Mbappe’s end product, but Carlo Ancelotti has struggled to build a functional team around the Frenchman. They appear to have gone backwards since last season’s La Liga and Champions League double.
Barcelona are on the verge of sealing the title, having beaten their historic rivals four times on all fronts – a league double sandwiching victories in the Supercopa de Espana and Copa del Rey finals.
It was a similar story for Ronaldo back in 2009-10. Los Blancos were eliminated in the Champions League’s Round of 16 by Lyon, thrashed in the Copa del Rey by minnows Alcorcon and were pipped to the La Liga title by Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Barcelona despite amassing a then club-record 96 points.
Ronaldo’s first season was full of frustration. An early ankle injury kept him out of action for over a month and he went on to sit out further matches after receiving two red cards.
So while Ronaldo’s tally of 33 goals in his debut season has been surpassed by Mbappe, he did reach the milestone of 40 goals in fewer matches – doing so in style in his 46th appearance in October 2010, bagging four goals in a 6-1 mauling of Racing Santander to swiftly add a 41st, 42nd and 43rd goal to his tally.
We’ve included those extra goals for the purposes of this comparison.
Here’s how long it’s taken Kylian Mbappe to reach the 40-goal milestone compared to Cristiano Ronaldo.
Kylian Mbappe
Games: 54
Time: 9 months, 1 day
Goals: 40
Penalties: 7
Free-Kicks: 1Assists: 5
Minutes per goal: 111
Minutes per non-penalty goal: 134
Minutes per goal or assist: 98
Cristiano Ronaldo
Games: 46
Time: 1 year, 1 month, 24 days
Goals: 43
Penalties: 7Free-Kicks: 7
Assists: 14
Minutes per goal: 90
Minutes per non-penalty goal: 108
Minutes per goal or assist: 68
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