Shchevchenko's Company. Pavlidis became the fourth footballer to score a hat-trick against Barcelona in the Champions League

The forward of the Portuguese club Benfica, Vangelis Pavlidis, achieved a rather rare feat by scoring three goals against the Spanish team Barcelona (4:5) in the match of the 7th round of the main stage of the Champions League held the day before yesterday.

Vangelis Pavlidis

Before this match, only three footballers had managed to score a hat-trick against the Catalans in the history of the main European club tournament. The first to score three goals in a Champions League match against Barcelona was Colombian Faustino Asprilla. This happened in the 1997/98 season when his Newcastle beat the Spanish giant 3:2.

In the same season, the legendary forward of Kyiv's Dynamo, Andriy Shevchenko, also scored a hat-trick against Barca. Then the "white-blue" devastated the Catalans on their home turf with a score of 4:0.

Finally, the third player to manage to disappoint the "blue-reds" three times in a Champions League match was Frenchman Kylian Mbappé, who scored a hat-trick for PSG in a match against Barcelona (4:1) in the Round of 16 of the 2020/21 Champions League season.