Mbappé nets quick hat trick in his 4-goal game as Real Madrid beats Olympiakos in Champions League

PIRAEUS, Greece (AP) — Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé scored four goals in a Champions League match for the first time in his career Wednesday, including the second-fastest hat trick in the competition's history.

Mbappé netted three times in just under seven minutes in Real Madrid's 4-3 win at Olympiakos.

“I’m very happy to have scored the goals, it’s always a pleasure for me,” Mbappé said. “My teammates always set me up with good balls. I’m lucky to play for this team that has so much quality.”

Mbappé scored the hat trick in the 22nd, 24th and 29th minutes — after Chiquinho had put Olympiakos ahead in the eighth. The France international added his fourth goal in the 60th after Mehdi Taremi had scored for the hosts in the 52nd. Ayoub El Kaabi scored Olympiakos' third goal in the 81st.

Mohamed Salah’s hat trick for Liverpool at Rangers in 2022 had broken the record for the quickest ever scored in the Champions League, according to UEFA. The Egypt forward needed six minutes, 12 seconds to score his goals after entering the match seven minutes before his opening strike.

It was Mbappé's fifth hat trick in the Champions League — and second this season. He had scored three times against Kairat in the second round of the league phase. Two of his hat tricks came with Paris Saint-Germain.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have eight hat tricks each in the Champions League, while Robert Lewandowski has six.

Mbappé now leads the Champions League in scoring this season with nine goals, three more than Galatasaray’s Victor Osimhen. It's already Mbappé's best Champions League tally in a season. He has 22 goals in 18 matches with Madrid this campaign.

“His goals are crucial, it’s a natural talent that he has, but that’s not all. His personality, teamwork, unity... it’s all among the intangibles that he brings," Madrid coach Xabi Alonso said of Mbappé.

Mbappé's goals helped Madrid end a three-game winless streak across all competition, and moved the Spanish powerhouse to fifth place in the league-phase standings of the Champions League.

“It was important to win again,” Mbappé said. “Three matches without a victory is a lot for us. We had to win to make sure we stay in the top eight, which is the goal for us now.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe attempts a shot on goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, right, celebrates with his teammate Vinicius Junior after scoring his side's fourth goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid, in in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe poses with the trophy after scoring four goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid, in in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, right, celebrates with his teammate Vinicius Junior after scoring his side's fourth goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid, in in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe attempts a shot on goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, top, goes for the ball past Olympiacos' goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis after scoring his side's opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, right, celebrates scoring his side's second goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior, centre, celebrates with his teammate Kylian Mbappe, right, after scoring his side's fourth goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid, in in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe attempts a shot on goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and Real Madrid in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.

Notably missing from Trump’s primetime address was his oft-repeated assertion that negotiations with Iran were underway. He softened his insults against NATO allies and did not indicate he was preparing to send in ground troops, particularly to retrieve Iran’s enriched uranium. But he gave no definitive end date for the conflict.

The war is fast becoming a signature of his second-term agenda, and the speech was a capstone to a remarkable day flexing presidential power.

Trump started the morning as the first sitting president to show up for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, a stunning reach of the executive into the affairs of the judicial branch. He ended with his first address from the White House about a war he launched on his own, bulldozing past Congress.

On a night when many Americans may have been looking upward as Artemis II astronauts lifted off for NASA's return to the moon, Trump gave a nod to that historic milestone. Then he quickly refocused attention back to him — and to the conflict with Iran that has killed more than a dozen U.S. service members and appears to have no easy exit in sight.

"America, as it has been for five years under my presidency, is winning — and now winning bigger than ever before," Trump said.

“We’re going to finish the job and were going to finish it very fast," he added.

The president said he wanted to “discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world.”

He aimed to show that one goal of Wednesday’s speech was to take on the confusion that has persisted as the administration shifted its reasons for launching the war.

But over the course of nearly 20 minutes, Trump did not offer any new explanations.

He maintained that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, calling such a prospect “an intolerable threat,” and said the country was building a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles that were a threat to America’s homeland.

While he said Iran’s ballistic missile capacity was greatly reduced, he didn’t explain how the operation had headed off Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He and his administration had previously insisted that the U.S. and Israel “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last summer.

And as he painted the threats from Iran generally as having been wiped away, Trump didn’t back up that assertion, especially as multiple competing factions of power remain within Iran’s theocracy.

Iran long has insisted its nuclear program was peaceful. It had, however, been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

Before the war, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran had yet to begin a weapons program, but had “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Thousands of additional U.S. troops are heading to the Middle East. Gulf allies are urging Trump to finish the fight, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough.

And yet Trump days ago predicted the U.S. will be done “within maybe two weeks." On Wednesday, he said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.” Then oil prices rose.

He said the “core strategic objectives are nearing completion" and did not signal any preparations for a ground invasion by American troops — to retrieve Iran's enriched uranium or help secure the Strait of Hormuz, where a chokehold by Iran has sent energy prices soaring.

In fact, he said the nuclear sites bombed last year would be difficult for Iran to access and that the U.S. has them under satellite surveillance.

“If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we'll hit them with missiles very hard,” he said.

Trump is fast approaching the 60-day mark when he must seek approval from Congress under the War Powers Act to continue any military operations.

He did not discuss any diplomatic efforts to work toward a ceasefire and seemed to suggest the war would end after the U.S. finished hitting its targets. After days of Trump insisting that positive talks with Iran were happening, the omission was noticeable. Iran has denied the negotiations were taking place.

Despite having started the week with a torrent of abuse directed at NATO allies and other U.S. partners for not participating in the conflict, which included several direct threats to withdraw from NATO, Trump was unusually restrained in his comments.

He did not mention NATO at all and said merely that countries depending the most on global oil shipments usually transported through the Strait of Hormuz need to take the lead in protecting the key waterway once the war is over.

“The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage,” he said in his address. “They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it."

Trump said those countries should “build up some delayed courage,” but he did not call specific allies out by name as he has previously.

“Go to the strait and just take it," he said. "The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”

Trump, who ran as the “America First” president vowing not to drag the country into endless wars, has yet to fully address the political pushback he faces from his own base of supporters over the Iran conflict.

In the most explicit terms yet, he acknowledged that many Americans are concerned about gas prices and called them a “short-term increase.”

But the president insisted the U.S. has become “the hottest country anywhere in the world” with Americans benefitting from what he calls the “big beautiful bill” he signed into law last year.

In fact, the U.S. economy is roiling, the financial markets are swinging with Trump’s various pronouncements about the war — including after his address — and Americans are facing pain at the pump as the cost of living rises.

He didn’t offer any new measures to try to address economic concerns and sought to persuade people that it was a cost to bear for a greater future cause.

He recounted the long wars in Korea and Vietnam and vowed the U.S. would be better off because of this one.

“This is a true investment for your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said.

President Donald Trump gestures after speaking about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump departs after speaking about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump gestures after speaking about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House before signing an executive order Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)