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In video: Bernardo Silva breaks Van Nistelrooy's record and follows in the footsteps of Mbappe and Beckham
In video: Bernardo Silva breaks Van Nistelrooy's record and follows in the footsteps of Mbappe and Beckham

The Portuguese makes his first mark

Portugal's Bernardo Silva wrote his name into the UEFA Champions League record books with two striking numbers. His first goal in a Real Madrid shirt in the competition made him the oldest foreign player to score for the Spanish side, and it also put him on a rare list of five players who had found the net against the club before scoring for it.

Silva opened the scoring against Leipzig to set Real Madrid on their way to a 4-1 win on Wednesday evening, in the third round of the league phase.

Opta had the numbers. At 32 years and 72 days, Silva beat the previous record held by the Netherlands' Ruud van Nistelrooy, who scored his first Real Madrid goal in the competition aged 30 years and 87 days against Dynamo Kyiv in September 2006.

The age record wasn't the end of it. Spanish statistician MisterChip pointed out that Silva had joined a club of just five players to score for Real Madrid in the Champions League after having scored against them during spells with other clubs.

That list reads like a roll call of European heavyweights: Van Nistelrooy, who scored against Real in a Manchester United shirt, David Beckham with the same English club, Álvaro Morata at Juventus, Kylian Mbappé at Paris Saint-Germain, and Antonio Rüdiger during his time with Chelsea. Silva now joins them, having found the net against the Spanish side in a Manchester City shirt.

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