Real Madrid’s all-time greatest Champions League & European Cup XI: Carlos, Di Stefano, Ronaldo…
Real Madrid’s reputation as the biggest and most successful club in the history of football is largely built upon their long love affair with the European Cup, right from the competition’s early years to the modern-day Champions League era.
The Spanish giants have won the competition a record 14 times – twice as many as closest challengers AC Milan – with eight of those triumphs coming after the competition was rebranded to the Champions League in 1992.
Needless to say, some legendary players have represented the club on the European stage. We’ve put together Real Madrid’s all-time greatest Champions League/European Cup XI and arranged them in an ultra-attacking 4-3-3 formation.
GK: Iker Casillas
“Iker Casillas is one of the great symbols of Real Madrid. The Madridistas are especially proud of one of our eternal captains today, captain also of the Spanish national team,” club president Florentino Perez said in a moving speech that marked the ‘keeper’s retirement back in 2020.
“Today, Iker Casillas bids farewell as a professional player, having contributed to further enlarging the myth and Real Madrid legend.
“He came to our club as a boy, at just nine years old, and here he has grown up, he has formed and has become a benchmark for all football fans.”
Couldn’t have put it better ourselves. Casillas was just 19 when he kept a clean sheet against Valencia in the 2000 final and was club captain by the time he won it for a third and final time – La Decima – 14 years later.
RB: Dani Carvajal
Another local boy that came through the fabled La Fabrica academy, Carvajal is unlikely to bother many polls of all-time great right-backs, but he’s been a loyal and dependable servant for his boyhood club and one of only a small group of players that was with Real Madrid for all five of the Champions League wins from 2014 to 2022.
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Not only that, but he was entrusted to start all five finals. Lisbon, Milan, Cardiff, Kyiv and Paris. Each and every night ended with Carvajal getting his hands on the trophy.
CB: Sergio Ramos
The man that scored arguably the biggest and most important goal in Real Madrid’s history – that injury-time equaliser against Atletico in 2014 – and their captain when they won three in a row from 2016 to 2018.
One of the first names on the teamsheet.
CB: Manolo Sanchis
Son of Manuel Sanchis, who was a part of Madrid’s 1966 European Cup-winning side, Manolo went on to eclipse his father’s achievements.
Arguably the only player in this team whose European achievements are dwarfed by what he achieved domestically, the sweeper was one of the best players in the world in the 1980s and a key part of the unforgettable La Quinta del Buitre side that dominated Spain but famously fell short on the continent.
But unlike his old homegrown team-mates like Emilio Butragueno and Michel, Sanchis was still going strong – a grizzled, wily veteran – when Madrid put together a new great team in the late 90s. He featured alongside Fernando Hierro as Madrid kept a clean sheet in the 1998 final, beating Juventus 1-0, and came off the bench to see out the 3-0 final victory over Valencia two years later.
LB: Roberto Carlos
The only player in this XI that started in the triumphant finals of 1998, 2000 and 2002. We had to get at least one representative from that curious turn-of-the-century era, in which Madrid finished 4th, 5th and 3rd alongside their European successes.
Club icon Raul would have been a more than worthy representative, but unfortunately for him the competition for places up top is just too stacked. So we’re going with Roberto Carlos, a player that redefined what it was to be a world-class left-back.
Marcelo actually won more Champions Leagues with Madrid and was obviously an exceptional player on his day, but we can’t look past his Brazilian compatriot – Roberto Carlos was just that bit better at his peak.
CM: Luka Modric
With apologies to those who like a semblance of balance in their teams, and actual defensive midfielders like Casemiro and Claude Makelele, we had to get Modric in this team somehow. But we also had to feature the five men ahead of him, so we’re sticking Modric in here as a lone pivot.
Like Carvajal, the Croatian started in all five of Madrid’s Champions League final victories from 2014 to 2022. Unlike Carvajal (and with all due respect to the right-back), Modric has undoubtedly been one of Madrid’s outstanding individuals during this unprecedented era of European success.
Not only one of the greatest midfielders of his generation, but simply one of the greatest midfielders of all time.
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READ: Remembering when Luka Modric was voted La Liga’s worst signing
AMC: Ferenc Puskas
One of football’s first international greats, Puskas was among the standout players of not one but two of the greatest teams in history – Hungary’s Mighty Magyars side of the 1950s and Real Madrid’s Europe-conquering side of that same era.
A Galactico before the word even existed, Puskas joined Los Blancos in 1958 and immediately lived up to his reputation as one of the greatest players in the world. The forward won three European Cups, but his crowning glory was undoubtedly in the 1960 final, in which he scored four goals (Di Stefano got the other three) in a 7-3 mauling of Eintracht Frankfurt. He also scored a hat-trick in the 1962 final, which Madrid lost 5-3 to Benfica.
AMC: Alfredo Di Stefano
“Alfredo Di Stefano is maybe the greatest player I have ever seen,” the great Bobby Charlton recalled.
“I watched him in a match when Manchester United played against Real in the semi-final of the European Cup in Madrid the year before the accident. In those days, there was no substitutes’ bench; if you weren’t playing, you were in the stand. I felt like I was looking down on what looked like a Subbuteo table—I was that high up—but I couldn’t take my eyes off this midfield player and I thought; Who on earth is that?
“He ran the whole show and had the ball almost all the time.”
Di Stefano scored 49 goals in 58 European Cup matches, including a record seven in finals. The superstar of the team as Madrid won each of the first five European Cups from 1956 to 1960.
FWR: Cristiano Ronaldo
It’s probably unfair to shunt the European Cup and Real Madrid’s all-time top goalscorer into a position he barely ever featured for the club, not least in the Champions League, but he started out on the right at Manchester United and can do a job there.
Ronaldo, of course, won Ol’ Big Ears four times with Los Blancos, scoring 105 Champions League goals (including 50 in the knockout stages and three in finals). Shoo-in.
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QUIZ: Can you name every Champions League final goalscorer since 2000?
ST: Karim Benzema
Had we put this team together a few years back, we might’ve missed out Benzema, stuck Ronaldo up top, and gone with an extra midfielder for a bit more of a balanced structure.
But we couldn’t look past Benzema after his ridiculous, talismanic role in Madrid’s most recent Champions League win. Having played a wonderfully selfless role in support of Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, which saw him win it four times, Benzema then flourished and peaked as the main man in his latter years.
The Frenchman scored 15 goals in 2021-22, including hat-tricks against PSG and Chelsea and a further three goals over two legs against Manchester City en route to the victorious final against Liverpool. His efforts that year rewarded with a richly-deserved Ballon d’Or and – more importantly – a place in this XI.
FWL: Paco Gento
The reason Ronaldo has to lump it on the right. Gento was the classic ‘outside left’ of the 1950s and 1960s and undoubtedly features near the very top of any list of Madrid’s all-time greats. He made 600 appearances for the club, scoring 183 goals, and is the most decorated player in the great club’s storied history with 12 La Liga titles and six – ! – European Cups.
The legendary Spanish winger was the only player who represented the club for all six of their European triumphs from 1956 to 1966. He’s won the competition more times than any other player in the competition’s history.
READ NEXT: The all-time Champions League table: Real Madrid miles clear, Man Utd 4th…
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name Real Madrid’s top scorers in La Liga since 2000?
Klopp can stick his resignation – give us the 2022/23 Premier League manager merry-go-round again
As Andy Bernard once put it: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
Looking at the contract expiry dates of every current Premier League manager, it brought to mind how less than a year ago the coaching ranks of England’s actual top flight, the Greatest League In The World, included Sam Allardyce, Dean Smith, Frank Lampard and Ruben Selles.
In order, they are: unemployed; head coach of Charlotte FC; unemployed; head coach of Reading.
A ranking of the 40 individuals who oversaw at least one Premier League game last season is an engrossing shrine of rank incompetence. Four of the bottom five are currently out of work; the other is in the Saudi Arabian mid-table on a run of nine games without a win. Four of the bottom five were England midfielders tipped for great things.
The odd one out was Cristian Stellini, whose performance earned a bed-ridden Antonio Conte a Premier League Manager of the Month nomination in February and saw him promoted to interim manager upon his compatriot’s inevitably furious departure in March, before being sacked himself in April.
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He wasn’t even the most noteworthy caretaker. That was how Gary O’Neil started out at Bournemouth and he is part of the coaching furniture now. Ryan Mason made Spurs feel something, as his contract states he must every other April. Michael Skubala had three games in charge of Leeds and two of them were against Man Utd. Bruno Saltor helped Chelsea keep their last clean sheet of the season and they played 11 games after he left. Roy Hodgson tricked Crystal Palace into giving him the permanent job by turning them into the country’s most potent attacking force. Leicester helped relegate themselves by keeping Adam Sadler in place for two winnable home matches they promptly lost before going down by two points. Aaron Danks had two tries in the Aston Villa dug-out, both winning and losing 4-0.
For fear of leaning a little too hard into the ‘dudes can literally just sit around and name old sports players and have the best time’ thing, it is almost impossible not to do precisely that for the Premier League managers of 2022/23.
Allardyce replaced Javi Gracia! Thomas Tuchel is being schooled by Xabi Alonso but was a Premier League manager a literal season ago! Bruno Lage, Ralph Hasenhuttl and Jesse Marsch were all there and are each currently out of work! Nathan Jones has had to drop down to League One when all we want is to update the greatest quotes of his time at Southampton in which he torched his career but still stopped Manchester City winning the Quadruple!
This season has been pathetic by comparison. Positively risible. An embarrassing effort all around. Two managerial changes. Two. And while Villa took 12 days to take the chasmic leap between Gerrard and Unai Emery, and Wolves sacked Lage on October 2, giving *checks notes* Steve Davis the temporary keys until Julen Lopetegui took over on November 14, both Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest replaced their managers within a day.
No chance for some random to pop up on the touchline or in awkward press conferences where they repeat that they are Just Here To Do A Job For As Long As The Club Needs Me. No member of the former manager’s coaching staff being drafted in on the pretence they weren’t already taking training and doing all the drills. Nothing. Chris Wilder was basically appointed before Paul Heckingbottom was sacked but that is as close to farce as the Premier League manager merry-go-round has come so far.
And that is frankly disappointing. We are on course to end the season with 18 of the same managers who started it in precisely the same place, despite a great number of teams in the league under-performing. The two new faces are also entirely old, one returning to his former post and the other on his third Premier League job with a Saudi sojourn in between.
Without advocating for owners and chairmen to start indiscriminately pulling the trigger, at least give us something. We can’t keep pretending Newcastle are going to replace Eddie Howe with Jose Mourinho, particularly now they’re good again. Jurgen Klopp tried to inject some drama but a summer resignation is the last thing we need when Lampard, Smith and Allardyce are waiting in the wings for more sudden mid-season work.
The 2022/23 season really did spoil us and we never realised.
Man City backed to sign former Arsenal midfielder after cold water poured on Real Madrid switch
Bennacer has been playing for AC Milan for the past five seasons. He won the Serie A with them in his third campaign (2021/22), scoring twice and assisting once in 31 games.
It represented the peak of a long journey from being sold by Arsenal to Empoli for under £1million in 2017 after a single appearance for the Gunners’ senior side.
Since his two seasons at Empoli, first in Serie B and then Serie A, Bennacer has made 152 appearances for Milan, and has finished in the top four on three occasions.
A host of injury problems has meant his role has never been a massively consistent one, but according to his international teammate Slimani, the midfielder was one of the world’s best before he had to have surgery on a knee injury last season.
“The injury he suffered last spring held him back. Previously he was considered one of the best midfielders in the world, but I’m sure he’ll be back even stronger,” Slimani told Gianluca di Marzio.
Slimani believes the return to that level could see Bennacer make a move to a top side.
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Indeed, he has named three of the last four Champions League winners as clubs who could take him on board.
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“I have known him since 2017, and I can say that he deserves to be where he is,” Slimani said.
“He could play for teams like Manchester City, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Especially because he is still young.
“I maybe would have left [Milan] already. Where [should he go]? To the Premier League!”
Indeed, with Slimani suggesting the Premier League is the place to go for Bennacer and believing he’s good enough for Manchester City, that move could be one that comes to fruition at some point.
Guardiola could turn the tables
If that was to happen, Pep Guardiola could turn the tables on Arsenal. Of late, the Mikel Arteta has raided his former side for talent more than once, signing Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko and also looking at Joao Cancelo.
Bennacer moving to City would see Guardiola become the one benefitting from a former Arsenal player, rather than it being the other way around.
While the midfielder played just 71 minutes of senior football at the Emirates as a youngster, Slimani believes he was capable of big things then, and that’s even more true now.
“When he was 17 or 18 years old, it was already immediately noticeable that he had a lot of quality. And, without taking anything away from Milan which is a great club, I believe that he can aim even higher,” Slimani added.
As such, Guardiola getting Bennacer through the door could show Arsenal they made a mistake in 2017, and they could soon pay for it.
READ MORE: Petr Cech labels Liverpool ace the best in the world, with Man City superstar only third
Man Utd apologise to club legend after 'disgracefully' dumping him out of his seat
Manchester United have apologised to Norman Whiteside after dumping the club legend out of his seat at Old Trafford.
Whiteside spent 11 years at Old Trafford, winning two FA Cups during his time with United. He is viewed as a legendary figure by many at the Red Devils, having become the youngest player to score in both the FA Cup final and League Cup final while with United.
He is also the youngest player to score a senior goal for United and the youngest man to feature in the World Cup. Whiteside came through the academy at Old Trafford and became a hero for his home fans.
The midfielder was forced to retire early due to injury and has held a platinum season ticket at United for more than 25 years. But the club relocated him for a recent game as they reconstruct hospitality areas at Old Trafford.
Whiteside's wife Dee was left furious at the move. She wrote on Twitter : "So, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a loyal supporter. Doesn’t matter if you played for your club, @ManUtd can just dump you from your seat when they feel like it, so they can expand exec seating! Absolute disgrace!
"I’d like to make clear that this post is not just about Norman. There are a whole block of loyal supporters who expressed their views to me at the West Ham game, but they feel as if they have no voice or platform to voice their anger."
United have now responded to Whiteside's wife's claims, insisting they have the "greatest respect" for him. But they have insisted the reasons for the relocation are valid despite the anger of season ticket holders.
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A spokesperson said: “We have the greatest respect for Norman as a legend of the club, and understand the disappointment caused to him and other season ticket-holders by seat relocations.
"These happen for various reasons, including, next season, the moving of matchday hospitality seats into consolidated blocks to address fan concerns about them being dispersed around the stadium.
"Other changes next season include the removal of hospitality seating from the Stretford End and installation of further rail seating in the North-West Quadrant, bringing benefits to many fans but also causing some disruption.
"No additional hospitality seats are being created at the expense of season ticket-holders - in fact hospitality seating will reduce by more than 500 next season. We are committed to working with all season ticket-holders affected by relocations, including Norman, to find them the best possible alternative seats elsewhere in the ground.”
But Mrs Whiteside has been left unhappy despite that apology. She wrote: "It's not just about Norman, many of the 'United family' we sit with have been in that block for 20-30+ years, and are all really angry about this ENFORCED seat relocation.
"At a time when the football has been less than spectacular and the season ticket price is increasing!" Replying to another fan, she added: "There are so many of us who have supported United together in that block who are angry as hell, and it looks like we count for nothing".
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