Hat-trick hero Karim Benzema dedicates Champions League win to Real Madrid fans

Hat-trick hero Karim Benzema dedicated a record-breaking night to the Real Madrid fans after they stunned Paris St Germain with a second-half comeback to secure a 3-2 win over the Ligue 1 side on aggregate.

The France international hit a 17-minute treble, which included two goals in two minutes, to overtake Alfredo Di Stefano and move into third in the list of all-time goalscorers for the LaLiga outfit.

Benzema’s treble took his season tally to 27 and made it 309 goals overall for Madrid while at 34 he also became the oldest player to net a hat-trick in the Champions League to ensure Kylian Mbappe’s opener at the Bernabeu proved immaterial in the end.

“We needed the fans and this is for them,” Benzema said, as quoted by BBC Sport.

“It was a very difficult game but we pushed until the end and we deserve the win. We lost the first leg, they went 1-0 up, but our fans pushed us to give everything right to the final whistle.”

Mbappe opened the scoring in the 39th minute when he latched onto Neymar’s first-time pass and slotted into the bottom corner.

The 2018 World Cup winner had an effort ruled out for offside minutes earlier and saw another offside flag deny him in the 53rd minute.

It would be crucial with Benzema equalising just past the hour mark when he closed down Gianluigi Donnarumma and Vinicius Junior latched onto the Italian’s wayward pass and teed up Madrid’s number nine to make it 1-1.

With Luka Modric pulling the strings to nullify the influence of Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi, it was a fine dribble by the Croatian that enabled Benzema to drill in via a deflection in the 76th minute and two minutes later – after a miscued clearance by Marquinhos – Benzema poked home from 16-yards to complete a thrilling