Haaland vs Mbappé in Champions League Semi-Finals: The Silent Round
Haaland vs Mbappé Champions League semi-final goals: every last-four tie, one goal between them in eight legs, the injuries, the woodwork and the finals.
Follow the series this far, through the round of 16 that Haaland owns and the quarter-finals that belong to Mbappé, and you arrive at the strangest fact in either man's European record. In Champions League semi-finals the two most prolific forwards of their generation have scored, between them, one goal, in eight legs of football. Mbappé has 1 from 4 ties; Haaland has 0 from 1. This is the story of the silent round, as of 2026-10-03.
The numbers, such as they are
| Champions League semi-finals | Haaland | Mbappé |
|---|---|---|
| Ties played | 1 | 4 |
| Legs played | 2 | 6 |
| Goals | 0 | 1 |
| Ties survived | 1 of 1 | 1 of 4 |
| Finals reached as a result | 1 | 1 |
| Goals in those finals | 0 | 0 |
Mbappé: four semi-finals, one teenage goal
| Season | Tie | Goals | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016/17 | Monaco v Juventus | 1 | Eliminated |
| 2019/20 | PSG v RB Leipzig | 0 | Through |
| 2020/21 | PSG v Man City | 0 | Eliminated |
| 2023/24 | PSG v Borussia Dortmund | 0 | Eliminated |
His only semi-final goal came in his first one, at 18: a close-range finish in Turin from João Moutinho's cross, a consolation in a tie prime Juventus had long decided. Everything since has been circumstance stacked on circumstance. In Lisbon in 2020 PSG won the one-legged semi 3-0 and he did not need to score. In 2021 a calf injury restricted him to a single leg against Manchester City, the tie where PSG's run died. And 2024 against Dortmund was the cruellest of the set: 0-1 and 0-1, with Mbappé striking the frame of the goal repeatedly across the two nights. Four semi-finals have produced three eliminations, and the round remains the wall between him and the final the 2020 team reached without his goals.
Haaland: one semi-final, zero goals, one trophy
| Season | Tie | Goals | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | Man City v Real Madrid | 0 | Through |
Haaland's semi-final record is a single tie, and it is a perfect miniature of the argument about him. Against Real Madrid in May 2023 he did not score in either leg, 1-1 at the Bernabéu and the 4-0 demolition at the Etihad, and it did not matter in the slightest: City played the best football of their history around him, won the tie at a canter, and he lifted the trophy a month later having been top scorer of the whole campaign. His critics point at the blank; his defenders point at the gravity he exerted on Madrid's back line all four hours. Both are looking at the same two games.
And the finals, while we are here
The series ends at the top of the bracket, so for completeness: each man has played one Champions League final, and neither has scored in it. Haaland's was the 1-0 win over Inter in 2023, decided by Rodri. Mbappé's was the 0-1 defeat to Bayern in Lisbon in 2020, decided by Kingsley Coman. The first player of the two to score in a final will have done something neither managed in his twenties so far, which, given everything else on this site, is a sentence that should not exist.
Why the silence?
- Samples shrink to nothing. Five semi-final ties between two whole careers. At this altitude one injury (Mbappé 2021), one inspired defensive fortnight (Dortmund 2024) or one teammate's purple patch (City 2023) decides the entire dataset.
- The opposition is the final boss. Semi-final defences they have faced include peak Juventus, title-winning City, and a Dortmund side that conceded one goal across its last five knockout games that spring. Nobody feasts here; the all-time list of semi-final goalscorers is short for everyone.
- Their teams stopped needing them there. In the two semi-finals either man survived, his team scored seven goals and he scored none of them. Deep European runs are collective by design; the striker's work was often done in February and March, as the earlier rounds show.
Verdict
Nobody owns the semi-final. Mbappé has the only goal, scored before either man had a Ballon d'Or vote; Haaland has the only survival that ended in a trophy, achieved without scoring. Across eight legs, one goal, the silent round is the open column in both résumés, and it is the precise place where this rivalry's next great chapter is waiting to be written. The first of the two to break it will settle more arguments than any statistic on this site.
The complete series: knockout goals overview · round of 16 · quarter-finals · and the full records on the Champions League stats page.
