Raphinha on track to break a historical Barcelona record currently held by Lionel Messi | OneFootball

FC Barcelona continue their charge for the UEFA Champions League title after winning 3-1 in their latest outing in the competition, which came in the second leg of the Round of 16 tie against SL Benfica.

Having won the first leg 1-0, the Catalans ended this tie with a 4-1 win on aggregate, and the Brazilian winger Raphinha alone scored 3 of these 4 goals in this tie.

With these goals, he has taken his UCL tally this season to 11, and is now the top-scorer in the competition, ahead of Borussia Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy.

Furthermore, as Mundo Deportivo has noted, these goals also allow the Brazilian forward to get within touching distance of reaching a historical record for Barcelona, i.e., scoring the highest number of goals for his team in a UCL campaign.

Currently, this record is held by none other than Lionel Messi, who scored 14 goals in the UCL during the 2011-12 season, under Pep Guardiola. No other Blaugrana player has been able to reach this tally.

In general, only three players have been able to score more goals than the Argentine superstar in a single UCL campaign. Cristiano Ronaldo did it thrice, scoring 17 goals in 2013-14, 16 goals in 2015-16, and 15 goals in 2017-18, while wearing the Real Madrid shirt.

Similarly, Robert Lewandowski scored 15 goals in the 2019-20 season with Bayern Munich, and Karim Benzema reached this same tally in the 2021-22 season with Real Madrid.

Thus, Raphinha now needs four more goals to beat Messi’s record and reach the numbers of Lewandowski, Benzema, and Ronaldo in the 2017-18 season.

He will have the opportunity to add more goals to his tally when facing either Borussia Dortmund or Lille in the quarter-finals, and hopefully, even more opportunities in the semi-final and the final after that.