Before the match against Man City in the second leg of the Champions League play-off, Kylian Mbappe had 25 goals in all competitions in his first season at Real Madrid. In the domestic tournament, he also managed to score a hat-trick against Valladolid nearly a month ago.
This was Mbappe's first season at the Bernabeu and he has had many difficulties adapting. However, the French striker's current number of goals is the dream of many other strikers. People wonder, when Mbappe enters the club in his new shirt, he does not know how much he will be in the future and whether he will be worthy of Ronaldo in the past or not?
To compare with Ronaldo, Mbappe needs to go a long way. In addition to countless collective and individual titles for Real Madrid, CR7 has scored 422 goals and had 116 assists. If Mbappe finishes this season with 50 goals, he needs to maintain this efficiency for 9 consecutive years to surpass Ronaldo's scoring record. Mbappe was 35 years old at the time.
It's a long story ahead, but if it doesn't have an impressive start, not many people will put Mbappe by Ronaldo's side to compare. Mbappe's superb hat-trick against Man City helped him recreate many of the top shots of veteran Ronaldo in the past.
"He has the qualities to reach those numbers (Ronald's achievement). However, Mbappe has to try very hard because Ronaldo's standards are extremely high.
Mbappe always feels excited every time he plays for Real Madrid because he believes he can reach the level of Ronaldo" - Carlo Ancelotti shared after the victory over Man City.
At Real Madrid, Ronaldo played nearly 38,000 minutes, scoring continuously in 9 seasons in 6 arenas. In particular, CR7 has rarely suffered injuries, as evidenced by the fact that he has only sat out 50 games for those 9 years. This is one of the key factors to maintain and improve scoring achievements.
Mbappe is currently one of the players who maintain the most impressive scoring rate in Europe. Since playing for AS Monaco, PSG and now Real Madrid, the French international has had an efficiency of 0.91 goals/match.
When he was playing for AS Monaco since the age of 17, Mbappe had 24 goals and 7 assists after about 26 matches. Mbappe has scored at least 20 goals in each season playing for the Louis II team. As for Ronaldo, it was not until 2008 and 2009 that he took the lead in scoring. After that, CR7 reached unimaginable milestones in numbers for Real Madrid.
Mbappe had a better start and just became the youngest player to reach the milestone of participating in 500 goals. At the age of 26 years and 61 days, Mbappe has had 359 goals and 142 assists. In the last 7 domestic seasons, Mbappe has scored very regularly and effectively. He has scored 192 goals when he only needs an expected goals ratio (xG) of 166.5.
At Real Madrid, right from the moment he arrived, Mbappe had many excellent teammates like Ronaldo the previous day. With Vinicius, Bellingham and Rodrygo, Mbappe has created the most superb attacking quartet in Europe at the moment. Adapting to the new position and being fully supported by his teammates is a very important factor for Mbappe to increase his scoring achievements.
However, Ronaldo's position at Real is rated higher than Mbappe, at least in the French striker's first season. There was a time when, although there were still top strikers by his side, Ronaldo alone still accounted for 40% of Los Blancos' goals in 2 seasons. Mbappe is still very good but he cannot "take" the opportunities of the remaining players.
"I don't care about being a top scorer. I have scored many goals in my career. If scoring many goals can be exchanged for titles, I will do it at all costs. If I had scored 50 goals this season, it would have been great, but above all, it would still be a title" - Mbappe shared.
