Olympiacos 3-4 Real Madrid: Marvellous Mbappe nets four in Champions League thriller
It was a night to remember for Kylian Mbappe, who was the star of Real Madrid's enthralling Champions League win over Olympiacos.
Kylian Mbappe scored three times in the space of seven minutes as part of a sublime four-goal haul in Real Madrid's pulsating 4-3 Champions League win over Olympiacos.
The France superstar ran riot against the Greek giants with a stunning first-half display after Chiquinho had put the hosts into a surprise lead after eight minutes on Wednesday.
Mehdi Taremi brought Olympiacos back into it shortly after the restart, and Mbappe's fourth proved crucial for a Madrid side who now sit fifth after Ayoub El Kaabi's 81st-minute goal set up a tense finale in an Athens thriller.
Chiquinho bent into the bottom-left corner to open the scoring after a slick move from Olympiacos, but Mbappe restored parity when he drilled past Konstantinos Tzolakis from Vinicius Junior's throughball.
Mbappe had a second when he met Arda Guler's floated right-wing cross with a thumping header at the back post, and completed his hat-trick in the 29th minute with a cool finish from Eduardo Camavinga's defence-splitting pass.
Vinicius was denied by VAR before the break, with Mbappe ruled to be offside in the build-up, and Aurelien Tchouameni also crashed an effort against the crossbar.
Olympiacos struck back six minutes into the second half when Taremi met Santiago Hezze's cross with an emphatic header into the bottom-right corner but Mbappe poked in a fourth just before the hour.
Madrid had to see it out the hard way when El Kaabi headed in Gabriel Strefezza's centre, with the former drifting one marginally wide and the latter seeing penalty claims for a tussle with Tchouameni going unheard in a dramatic finale.
Data Debrief: Majestic Mbappe proves the difference maker
Mbappe's three goals came from a first-half expected goals (xG) figure of just 0.64, while he attempted five shots in total in the opening period, with each of those on target finding the back of the net.
The Madrid ace also created two chances for his team-mates in a devastating first-half showing and would have claimed an assist had it not been for a tight offside call. Mbappe's hat-trick is the third-earliest in Champions League history, after Marco Simone for AC Milan v Rosenborg in September 1996 (24 minutes) and Robert Lewandowski for Bayern Munich v FC Red Bull Salzburg in March 2022 (23 minutes).
By the full-time whistle, Mbappe had six shots in total, four of which were on target and resulted in goals, and he had set up four opportunities.
Olympiacos may consider themselves unfortunate. They had more shots (18 to 15) and attempts on target (eight to seven) than Madrid, though the visitors did have a superior xG of 1.65 to 1.57.
