Kylian Mbappé opened Kylian Mbappé the scoring for Real Madrid against Inter Milan in the Champions League, finishing off a pass from Brahim Díaz. He began a new campaign in the tournament the way he knows best, by finding the net, and now he's about to play his 100th match in the biggest continental competition at club level.
According to the Spanish newspaper "AS", Mbappé, who is 27 years old and who finished as the Champions League's top scorer last season, has 71 goals to his name so far, scored in the shirts of the three clubs with which he has taken part in the tournament. The title still eludes him. He played in the 2020 final against Bayern Munich and lost to the German side by a single goal to nil.
Now the French star arrives at this milestone needing to rediscover the pleasure of hearing the ball hit the net, in the match that will mark his 100th appearance in the most important European club competition.
His Champions League story began in a Monaco shirt during the 2016-2017 season, when he started to leave his mark on the competition.
That first appearance against Bayer Leverkusen lasted only 13 minutes, coming on as a substitute for his team-mate Tiémoué Bakayoko and playing alongside his current team-mate Bernardo Silva for just five minutes. Two more matches passed before his first goal in the tournament arrived, against Manchester City, in a game his side lost 5-3.
Ironically, that match gave him his first Champions League start, and his goal, Monaco's second, put the French principality side 2-1 ahead.
Mbappé took a through ball in behind the defence and struck it straight away with his right foot, a powerful effort that goalkeeper Caballero could not keep out.
From that moment until today, Mbappé has played 99 matches in the Champions League, scoring 71 goals in them, at a rate of 0.71 goals per game.
His figures reveal that he has found the net in 49 of those 99 matches, almost half the games he has featured in, and he has managed to get on the scoresheet in a variety of ways.
That tally places Mbappé fifth on the Champions League's all-time scorers list, level with Raúl.
Ahead of him are Cristiano Ronaldo on 140 goals, Lionel Messi with 129 goals, Robert Lewandowski with 109 goals, and Karim Benzema, who scored 90 goals.
Four goals in a single match sits in his records too, against Greek side Olympiacos, in a game that ended in a 4-3 win for his team. Three of those came with a single touch, a performance that showed off his qualities as a striker who knows how to move inside the penalty area and finish off attacks.
He has also netted four hat-tricks, two of them in a Real Madrid shirt against Manchester City and Almaty, as well as 11 braces, in addition to scoring 33 goals in 33 different matches.
Last season he finished as the Champions League's top scorer with 15 goals, having directed 56 efforts at his opponents' goal.
Of those attempts, 30 were on target, meaning half of his shots on target were turned into goals, a success rate of 50%, while 13 shots went wide of the goal and defenders blocked another 13 attempts.
Turning his greatest strength into an urgent necessity is now the task, because the French star is living through a situation unfamiliar to him. Real Madrid fans no longer tolerate any mistake he makes, despite José Mourinho's public defence of him at every press conference.
Real Madrid have made an extremely poor start to the current year, and despite Mbappé scoring eight goals so far in La Liga and the Champions League, with seven goals in La Liga and one against Inter Milan, attention is being drawn to him because of his life off the pitch more than his performances on it.
Recently, after leaving the France national team camp because of a possible injury, the player was spotted in Paris and Switzerland, away from his team-mates who are continuing to work on restoring his fitness, amid rumours in France about a possible departure in the summer of 2027.
Against Roma, Mbappé needs to start finding the net again as he closes in on his 100th match in the Champions League. He hopes to give himself a special gift for the occasion.