The Champions League single matchday goal record has been broken again, with the top five European leagues going wild.

Written by Han Bing 71 goals! Following the third round of the 2025/26 Champions League group stage, a new single matchday scoring record was established. Out of 18 matches, 11 had at least 4 goals, and 6 matches saw 5 or more goals. Matches like Barcelona’s 6-1 win over Olympiacos, PSV Eindhoven’s 6-2 victory against Napoli, and Bayer Leverkusen’s 2-7 loss to PSG were goal-fests. On October 23, Liverpool, after suffering four consecutive defeats, regained confidence with a 5-1 away win over Frankfurt.

This record-breaking single matchday goal tally has been tracked since the Champions League format changed in the 1992/93 season, excluding the second group stage from 1999/2000 to 2002/03. The previous record was 67 goals in 18 matches, set in the 2024/25 season’s fifth round and the 2025/26 season’s first round. The fifth round of 2024/25 featured 9 matches with at least 5 goals, while the first round of 2025/26 had only 5 such matches. Juventus’s 4-4 draw with Dortmund in the first round, featuring 8 goals, was surpassed by Leverkusen’s 2-7 loss to PSG in this third round.

The record-breaking third round began on October 22 with Barcelona’s 6-1 demolition of Olympiacos. PSG scored 7 goals, Chelsea and Liverpool each scored 5, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, and Dortmund each netted 4. The sole exception was Eredivisie’s PSV Eindhoven, who scored 6 goals.

Of the 11 matches with at least 4 goals, 9 high-scoring games were created by the top five European leagues’ giants. Besides those 9 teams, Athletic Bilbao’s 3-1 win over Qarabag and Galatasaray’s 3-1 victory over Bodø/Glimt also stood out. Notably, despite the record total goals this round, 3 of the 18 matches ended in 0-0 draws, including the clash between Monaco and Tottenham, both from the top five leagues.

PSG’s 7-2 away thrashing of Leverkusen was undoubtedly the flagship match for the third round’s goal-scoring record. This 7-2 victory equaled PSG’s biggest single-match margin in Champions League history, matching their 7-2 home wins against Norway’s Rosenborg in the 2000/01 group stage and Maccabi Haifa in the 2022/23 group stage. However, the significance of this away demolition of a Bundesliga powerhouse far exceeds those previous wins.

It is worth noting that PSG previously scored 7 goals in two other Champions League matches: a 7-1 home win over Celtic in the 2017/18 season’s fifth round and a 7-0 home thrashing of Brest in the 2024/25 round of 16. In the 2024/25 Champions League, PSG set a club record with 38 goals, while in 2025 they have already scored 45 goals in the competition, becoming the first team in Champions League history to score over 40 goals in a single calendar year. Just in the matches against Brest and Leverkusen, they scored 14 goals. With 3 more group stage matches remaining against Bayern, Arsenal, and Athletic Bilbao, PSG is poised to challenge the 50-goal mark in a single calendar year.

The only exception was Serie A defending champions Napoli, who suffered a humiliating 2-6 away defeat to PSV Eindhoven. This marks the first time since 2015, when Roma lost 1-6 to Barcelona, that a Serie A team has conceded 6 goals in a single Champions League match. Napoli equaled the Serie A record for total goals scored in a Champions League group stage match (Leverkusen 4-4 Roma, 2014/15) but also set the club’s record for most goals conceded and worst goal difference in a single Champions League game.

For Serie A, this result is only better than Manchester United’s 7-1 win over Roma in the 2006/07 quarterfinals and Bayern’s 7-1 group stage victory over Roma in 2014/15. However, Roma’s losses were against top-tier teams from the big five leagues, while Napoli’s 6-goal thrashing away to a Dutch side arguably surpasses those humiliations. AC Milan once lost 0-7 in a 1958/59 European Cup preliminary round, but that is outside the current Champions League group stage statistics.

In this season’s third round of the Champions League group stage, 18 matches produced 67 goals, averaging 3.72 goals per game. Correspondingly, the five teams with perfect 3-0 records — PSG, Bayern, Inter Milan, Arsenal, and Real Madrid — all come from the top five European leagues. Even the top 11 teams in the standings are from these leagues, highlighting their dominance. When UEFA announced this record-breaking round, they also posed the question: Are we witnessing the most thrilling Champions League in recent years?

Judging by the number of goals alone, that might be the case. Before the Champions League format change, the highest single matchday goal record was 58 goals in the 2012/13 season, with an average of 3.625 goals per game, lower than this round. Since the format revision last season, there have been five matchdays with over 60 goals, but this is the first to exceed 70. On the other hand, the frequent high-scoring games also reveal the disparity in team strength during the group stage, raising questions about whether the quality of matches has truly improved. Nonetheless, from the perspective of generating more goals and increasing fan engagement, the revamped Champions League remains a success.