Mittag breaks Pohlers goal record

Paris Saint-Germain striker Anja Mittag has moved ahead of former Germany and Turbine Potsdam team-mate Conny Pohlers as the all-time top scorer in UEFA women's club competition.

Mittag, 30, scored twice on her UEFA Women's Champions League club debut for Paris last month  as they won 6-0 at Olimpia Cluj in the first leg of the round of 32. That put Mittag on to 48 European goals, the same tally with which former Potsdam, FFC Frankfurt and Wolfsburg forward Pohlers retired in 2014. In Wednesday's round of 16 first leg at KIF Örebro, Mittag equalised for Paris to reach 49.

A 2005 and 2010 UEFA competition winner with Potsdam, the first of those victories alongside Pohlers, Mittag's career had taken a dip and she had lost her Germany squad place before her 2012 move to FC Malmö (since renamed Rosengård) proved a shot in the arm. Mittag helped the club to Damallsvenskan titles in 2013 and 2014, finishing as the league's top scorer in 2012 and 2014. 

In the summer Mittag agreed a two-deal with Paris, beaten 2-1 by Frankfurt in the 2015 UEFA Women's Champions League final. UEFA.com looks at the leading scorers since the UEFA Women's Cup began in 2001 and its rebranding eight years later.

Conny Pohlers: joint top scorer©Getty Images

1 Anja Mittag (Turbine Potsdam/Rosengård/Paris Saint-Germain) 49*
Mittag scored for Potsdam in the 2005 final against Djurgården and was also part of Turbine's 2010 win before her move to Sweden. Having switched to Paris, it was back in Sweden at Örebro that Mittag got her 49th goal in Europe. She has never struck fewer than four goals in any of her eight previous European campaigns – do that again with one more this season and she would be the first to 50 goals.

2 Conny Pohlers (Turbine Potsdam/FFC Frankfurt/Wolfsburg) 48
Pohlers hit 14 goals on the way to victory in Potsdam's debut season of 2004/05, a record since only matched by Margrét Lára Vidarsdóttir in 2008/09 and Frankfurt's Célia Šašić last season. After joining Frankfurt, Pohlers scored three goals in the 2008 final and added two more titles at VfL Wolfsburg in her last two playing seasons of 2012/13 and 2013/14, her tally of four wins shared only by Viola Odebrecht. Pohlers's tally of 48 goals took just 45 appearances, ten fewer than Mittag needed to reach that tally.

3 Marta (Umeå/Tyresö/Rosengård) 46*
While Mittag moved on, Marta remains firmly at Rosengård and is spearheading their 2015/16 European push. The Brazil striker was 18 when she made her European bow for Umeå, scoring in both legs of their 2003/04 semi-final win against Brøndby and three more in the two defeats of Frankfurt in the final. Surprisingly Marta has not won the trophy again, losing finals with Umeå in 2007 and 2008 and then in 2014 with Tyresö. Marta got four in Rosengård's run to the quarter-finals last season, including one in both legs of the away-goals exit to Wolfsburg and another five this season so far including a last-16 hat-trick against Verona.

4 Nina Burger (Neulengbach) 40
Austria striker Burger made a bit of history in 2014/15 as she became the first player to score 40 goals for one team in UEFA women's club competition, having returned to Neulengbach from a spell in the United States with Houston Dash. However, Neulengbach ware absent from Europe for the first time since 2002/03 this season after their run of 12 straight Austrian titles was ended by FSK St. Pölten-Spratzern.

Long-time rankings leader Hanna Ljungberg©Sportsfile

5= Hanna Ljungberg (Umeå) 39
The single-club record had long been held by Ljungberg, and indeed the Sweden forward topped the all-time competition rankings for a decade from 2002/03, when she scored ten as Umeå secured their first title, until Pohlers finally overhauled her in 2012/13. Had injury not contantly disrupted and then finally ended Ljungberg's career aged 30 in July 2009, she would surely still lead the table having scored at a rate of exactly one per game in Europe.

5= Lotta Schelin (Lyon) 39*
Sweden striker Schelin, like Mittag, Marta and Burger, may never have topped the scorer's chart for a single season but her consistent goal-getting has been a feature of Lyon's campaigns for the last seven seasons. That included victories in 2011 and 2012, though oddly in three final appearances Schelin has never scored. The 31-year-old aims to put that right this season with Lyon having suffered two surprise round of 16 exits in a row to Potsdam and Paris while remaining supreme in France. She overtook Grings and moved level with compatriot Ljungberg by scoring twice in Lyon's 6-0 defeat of Örebro.

7 Inka Grings (Duisburg/Zürich) 38
Her loyalty to Duisburg means Grings did not play in Europe until their own victorious debut in 2008/09. She did hit the ground running with 12 in that campaign, including a final first-leg hat-trick at WFC Zvezda-2005. Grings continued to score freely and in 2010/11 topped the ranking with 13 goals. Grings switched to Zürich and added four more in 2012/13; now retired and coaching Duisburg, her 38 European goals came in only 29 games, a strike-rate typical for a career as a whole in which she scored more than 500 times for club and country.

Bubbling under
8 Margrét Lára Vidarsdóttir (Valur Reykjavik, Turbine Potsdam) 34 [from 21 games]
9 Kim Little (Hibernian, Arsenal) 32
10 Patrizia Panico (Lazio, Verona, ASD Torres) 31

*Current club playing in 2015/16 UEFA Women's Champions League

Clubs indicated only those who player represented in Europe, even if they did not score.