8 great players who only have a Champions League winners medal ...

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo Nazario and Gianluigi Buffon are among the European football greats that never got their hands on the Champions League trophy. But that isn’t the be-all and end-all, as this lot will attest.

There have been some brilliant footballers over the years who’ve lifted ol’ big ears without really having played a role in the triumph, but their honours list nevertheless includes what’s arguably club football’s most prestigious piece of silverware.

Here are eight great footballers who have a Champions League winner’s medal without having really contributed.

Now a total superstar at Chelsea, a couple of years back Palmer was still being talked up as one to watch – albeit with cameo appearances few and far between as a fringe player in Manchester City’s 2022-23 treble.

The City academy graduate watched on from the bench as an unused substitute in all seven of their Champions League knockout games that season. His only start in the competition that year came in the final group stage match, a 3-1 dead rubber victory over Sevilla.

Palmer subsequently started the following season’s UEFA Super Cup victory over Sevilla, a game in which he scored and was named Man of the Match. He was sold to Chelsea a couple of weeks later and hasn’t looked back.

“I give them to my mum. I wanted to restock,” he told GQ of the medals he won whilst at City.

“Clear them out so I can stock up again. The feeling you get when you win… you just want it again. You don’t want to stop and never get that feeling again.”

There was a time in which Laporte was a key defender for Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Manchester City, but he’d been reduced to a role on the periphery for the 2022-23 treble season.

The defender only featured in one of the knockout matches in the Champions League that year, a second-half sub in the second leg against Bayern Munich – at which point they had a four-goal aggregate lead and their place booked in the semis.

Laporte moved to Saudi Arabia a short while after, but after dropping off the mainstream footballing radar he served a reminder of his quality with a starring role in Spain’s Euro 2024 triumph. He’s still only 30 years of age and it wouldn’t be a great shock to see him return to Europe in the next year or two.

The brilliant Belgian famously announced he was signing for the European champions, Chelsea, back in 2012. He spent seven years at Stamford Bridge and was among the very best players in the country during that stint, but he rarely made it to the latter stages of the Champions League.

The Blues went on to win it a second time in 2021, two years after he departed for Real Madrid, and he eventually got his hands on the trophy the year after. But he barely played his part, having severely struggled to live up to his club-record €100million transfer.

Hazard only made one eight-minute substitute appearance in the knockout stages that year, a late appearance in the 1-0 Round of 16 defeat to PSG. He never made it off the bench in the second leg remontada and played no part in the subsequent ties against Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Marcos Alonso, Hakim Ziyech and Olivier Giroud never made it off the bench in Chelsea’s against-the-odds 1-0 victory over Manchester City, but they had all played at least some kind of role in the run to Porto final.

Gilmour, on the other hand, only made one start – under Thomas Tuchel’s predecessor Frank Lampard – in a 1-1 group stage dead rubber against Krasnodar.

The Champions League remains the only honour of the Scotland international’s career to date, but you wouldn’t bet against him adding more under Antonio Conte at Napoli. Watch this space.

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Alright, “great” might be a stretch if you’ve watched the Dutch striker’s quite frankly baffling performances for Manchester United so far this season. But the 23-year-old earned plenty of plaudits for Bologna last season, instrumental in Thiago Motta’s side punching above their weight to qualify for the Champions League. He might yet come good under Ruben Amorim.

Before catching the eye in northern Italy, Zirkzee came through Bayern Munich’s academy and was just breaking through as a rotation option for main man Robert Lewandowski in their 2019-20 treble-winning campaign.

He received a Champions League winner’s medal as a teenager, but his only appearance was a four-minute cameo in a group-stage victory over Tottenham.

We feel a tad harsh than this one. Not once but twice, Sturridge did more than a lot of the other names in this list.

First up, the striker was actually a prominent player for Chelsea in 2011-12. He started 28 games in their disappointing Premier League campaign that year, and also started five Champions League outings, including both legs of the last 16 tie against Napoli.

But he was withdrawn at the hour mark of their memorable second-leg comeback against the Serie A outfit and barely featured from that point onwards, an unused substitute in both legs against Barcelona and the final against Bayern.

Latterly, he made seven appearances in Liverpool’s 2018-19 Champions League triumph, scoring and assisting against PSG and Red Star Belgrade respectively in the group stage. But he only played 10 minutes in the knockout stages, was an unused substitute in the final, and only appeared in injury-time – after all the madness – to help see out the famous comeback 4-0 win over Barcelona.

Perhaps uncharitable, but it’s hard to argue Sturridge playing any real role in either Champions League triumph. Technicality is admittedly a stretch, granted.

READ: 10 players we totally forgot have won the UEFA Champions League

Arguably the very best left-back in world football right now, Hernandez has been consistently outstanding for both AC Milan and France for a number of years now.

Such is his form and status, it wouldn’t be a great shock if Real Madrid look at bringing him back to the Bernabeu. But he barely made it onto the pitch the first time around, firmly behind Marcelo in the pecking order.

Hernandez was an unused substitute in all seven of Los Blancos’ knockout matches in their 2017-18 Champions League win.

The most enigmatic of enigmatic wingers, Quaresma might not have hit the Ballon d’Or heights some believed were his destiny when he signed for European champions Porto in 2004 but he still enjoyed a wildly fun career.

Quaresma was twice named Porto’s Player of the Year, and even Portugal’s once upon a time – ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo – back in 2005. He won six league titles in Turkey and Portugal, countless more domestic honours, and was a part of Jose Mourinho’s treble-winning Inter squad in 2009-10.

But as with his Barcelona and Chelsea stints, Quaresma was just too mercurial to be trusted. He played a grand total of two substitute appearances totalling 34 minutes in the Champions League that year. He didn’t appear at all in the knockout stages and wasn’t even part of Mourinho’s matchday squad for the semis and final.