The 10 best players never to win the UEFA Champions League
It’s an accolade all elite players are desperate to earn, but it’s eluded some of football’s very best. Who are the 10 standout footballers to never lift the Champions League trophy since Europe’s top club tournament was rebranded in 1992? There are 3 Ballon d’Or winners included on our list.
Cesc Fàbregas
Arsenal’s precocious midfield maestro started the 2006 Champions League final in Paris against Barcelona as a teenager, and he looked distraught at the final whistle after the 10-man Gunners finally succumbed to late goals by Samuel Eto’o and Juliano Belletti.
Still, the decisive pass for Andrés Iniesta in the 2010 World Cup final and 111 Premier League assists, the second most in history, confirm his status as one of the game’s finest modern creators.
Fàbregas recently hung up his boots after a short stint on the lake with Como, where he’s now putting his considerable football intelligence to use as their U19 and B side coach.
Fabio Cannavaro
Not many defenders win the Ballon d’Or. In fact, Cannavaro was the last to do so, all the way back in 2006. His performances in the World Cup for Italy that year will go down in folklore and provide proof that centre-backs don’t need to be giants to excel in their craft.
His stint at Real Madrid from 2006 to 2009 proved ill-timed with Los Blancos failing to make it past the Champions League round of 16 between 2004/05 and 2009/10, despite all the Galácticos at their disposal. 136 caps for Italy, a nation renowned for its defensive expertise on a football pitch, still mark Cannavaro out as one of the best defenders ever.
Michael Ballack
Surely amongst the unluckiest men in football, Ballack was on the wrong end of Zinedine Zidane’s astounding left-footed volley in the 2002 Champions League final at Hampden Park as a Bayer Leverkusen player. He was also there 6 years later when Chelsea were vanquished by Man Utd in the driving Moscow rain. He played all 120 minutes of that epic contest, stepping up first for the Blues and slotting his penalty home in the shootout.
The manner of Chelsea’s controversial semi-final exit to Barcelona in 2009 would have also been a bitter pill to swallow for the German and his teammates, notably Didier Drogba who made his feelings quite clear on the referee’s performance that night.
Ballack won 98 caps for Germany, scoring 42 goals, and was one of the most complete midfielders of his generation. His role helping Die Mannschaft reach the World Cup 2002 final saw him named in the tournament’s All-Star Team, only to miss out through suspension, and he ended up on the losing side of the Euro 2008 final, but that doesn’t detract from a wonderful career.
Also, in terms of accumulated transfer fees, Ballack must be one of the best value-for-money players we’ve seen, costing Kaiserslautern €75,000, Bayer Leverkusen €2.5m, Bayern Munich €6m and Chelsea no fee, according to Transfermarkt.
Ronaldo
R9 is a true throwback of a player from another generation. At his peak, he gave iconic defenders Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta sleepless nights in an Inter jersey during the late 90s. How many current strikers can boast his unique combination of flair, pace, power and precision finishing?
“O Fenômeno” scored 59 times in 99 matches for the Nerazzurri and on 62 occasions for the Brazilian national team. He also steered the Seleção to glory in 2002 against Germany with a brace in the World Cup final. In fact, his goalscoring record was astonishing wherever he went, especially at Barcelona where he hit the back of the net 47 times in 49 matches.
Ronaldo did light up a UEFA Cup final in 1998, wearing the number 10 jersey that season only before taking the 9 shirt from Iván Zamorano, who memorably switched to 1+8. He won 2 Ballon d’Or crowns, but never the Champions League. His hat-trick in the competition for Real Madrid at Old Trafford in the 2002/03 quarter-finals won’t be forgotten in a hurry though.
Amazingly, Ronaldo played his final Champions League match aged 30. Without all of the chronic injuries, his statistics would surely have been even more gobsmacking.
Zlatan Ibrahimović
Did Zlatan add his own name to this list? Jokes aside, the BIG Swede has been a joy to watch throughout a long career which ended in emotional fashion less than 2 months ago.
The former Malmö, Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, Milan, PSG, Man Utd and LA Galaxy striker truly did things his way. It’s only fitting that he represented some of the sport’s BIGGEST names, but even he might look back at leaving Inter for Barcelona just before their unprecedented treble of 2010, in a swap deal with Eto’o, as a sliding doors moment.
No regrets, at least that’s what you’d imagine he’d say. For the record, 48 of his 496 goals at club level came in Europe’s premier competition.
Patrick Vieira
“He comes from Senegal, he plays for Arsenal!”
That’s just one of the numerous songs Gooners would use to serenade their beloved skipper. A great Premier League midfielder with a vast array of special attributes, Vieira won virtually everything there is to win in the beautiful game, and he also led Arsenal’s Invincibles of 2004.
The Champions League trophy escaped the Frenchman though, despite playing in the competition for Juventus and Inter as well as the Londoners.
Pavel Nedvěd
Some say Thierry Henry should have scooped the Ballon d’Or ahead of Nedvêd in 2003, but that’s not to say the Czech midfielder wasn’t a superb player. Nedved’s best days as a Juventus midfielder were 2 decades ago now, and his floppy hair and distinctive running style were both pretty old school, come to think of it.
He scored the decisive goal in the 2002/03 Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid but then picked up a booking to rule him out of the final. Juve would go on to lose that showpiece match at Old Trafford on penalties against Milan after a goalless 120 minutes.
This was a peak period for Italian clubs.
Gianluigi Buffon
Speaking of Italian football, no discussion of the 4-time world champions is complete without mentioning the iconic Gigi Buffon. He earned 176 caps for the Azzurri, a number 40 greater than the tally amassed by Cannavaro, Italy’s second-most capped footballer.
14 years separate Gigi’s 3 Champions League final losses. He might have felt some personal responsibility in 2003 in a shootout defeat to Milan, but Juve were simply outclassed in 2017 against a Real Madrid side which goes down as one of the truly great teams, spearheaded by Cristiano Ronaldo. His 2015 heartache came at the hands of Neymar, Luis Suárez and Lionel Messi, perhaps the greatest striking trio a goalkeeper has ever had to negotiate.
Dennis Bergkamp
The third Arsenal player on this list doesn’t need much introduction. Even rival fans appreciated and admired the “Iceman” and his almost superhuman vision and deft touch.
His infamous fear of flying didn’t stop him from travelling to Paris in 2006, but an early red card for Jens Lehmann meant he wouldn’t even get onto the pitch against Barcelona as Arsène Wenger’s hands were tactically tied.
Arguably in the top 2 Arsenal players of all time, a statue of DB10 now understandably stands outside the Emirates Stadium.
Gabriel Batistuta
Argentina have produced some of the most fearsome strikers down the years and Gabriel “Batigol” Batistuta was an early prototype that modern finishers still study today. He didn’t have a great chance of winning the Champions League during his best years at Fiorentina and Roma, but he bagged goals at a mind-boggling rate.
You simply don’t score over 200 times for Fiorentina if you’re not very special, and this included Champions League strikes against Barcelona, Arsenal and Man Utd in 1999/00.
Honourable mentions:
Lilian Thuram, Sergio Agüero, Francesco Totti