The best Champions League finals of all time

We’ll start with the first European Cup final ever. It would be the first of many wins for Real Madrid, but Reims has not stayed a European soccer powerhouse. The French squad was up for this game, though. In fact, at one point Reims was winning, 3-2, in this match. However, Madrid mustered a couple of goals in the second half resulting in a 4-3 victory.

These are the two teams with the most European Cup/Champions League wins of all time. Milan has seven, but Real has a whopping 13. That includes their victory in 1958. In addition to two storied franchises meeting up, this was the first finals to go into extra time, where Real got a goal from Francisco Gento for a 3-2 win.

This is, and will likely always be, the highest-scoring game in Champions League final history. These two teams combined for 10 goals, although a whopping seven of those came from Real Madrid. In fact, two players combined for all seven of them. Alfredo Di Stefano had a hat trick, but Ferenc Puskas, arguably the best player in the world at the time, had four.

This was a battle of the heretofore only teams to ever win the European title. Real had won the first five of these tourneys, with Benfica coming off a 3-2 win over Barcelona the year prior. The Spanish team had Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas, who scored a hat trick in this one. However, the Portugese squad had Eusebio. He who scored the goal to make it a 4-3 game and then added one more to give Benfica the 5-3 victory for back-to-back European Cups.

Benfica were European powerhouses in the ‘50s and ‘60s, almost entirely on the back of Eusebio. By this time, though, the all-time great wasn’t quite the player he used to be. Meanwhile, Man U had guys like Bobby Charlton and George Best on their squad. The game was tied, 1-1, after 90 minutes, but in extra time United scored three goals for a 4-1 win.

Part of why this game is here is because it’s fun to see Feyenoord and Celtic in a Champions League final. That’s probably never going to happen again. It also helps that this game went into extra time, with the Dutch team getting a 2-1 win.

Liverpool were European powers, and Roma, playing in their first European Cup final, had fortune on their side, as the game happened to be played in Rome. That couldn’t get the Italians a win though. In what was the first time the finals went to a shootout, Liverpool earned the victory.

Marseille were definitely the underdogs to Milan, who had a ton of talent on their roster. France had captain Didier Deschamps, though, who would become the youngest captain of a Champions League side when Marseille won 1-0. However, the team was then caught up in a match-fixing scandal, sent down to France’s second division and banned from Europe the next year, keeping them from defending their title.

This was not one of those down-to-the-wire exciting games. Milan took down a talented Barcelona squad, 4-0. Four goals in a soccer game is fun, sure, but this is really here because of just how impressive Milan was. This was perhaps the best single-game performance by any team in a Champions League final. The Italian giants were true beasts.

Jurgen Klopp did not invent the idea of Borussia Dortmund as powers in Europe. Dortmund featured two former Juventus players in Jurgen Kohler and Andreas Moller. Juventus had a couple of French players you may have heard of, named Didier Deschamps and Zinedine Zidane. And yet it’s Dortmund that owned this game, 3-1, their only Champions League title in their history.

Welcome to Fergie Time. Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad was losing 1-0 in the waning moments of the game, and a loss seemed guaranteed. Then Man U got a goal in injury time to tie things up. Current United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer added another goal a couple of minutes later to get Manchester the stunning 2-1 win.

Leverkusen are not a traditional German powerhouse, but for one year they were able to buck the odds and make the final against the kings of the Champions League in Real Madrid. All the goals in this game, a 2-1 win for Real, came in the first half. However, the winning goal from Zinedine Zidane is considered an all-time great score, which alone could be justification for making this list.

Portugal was not the soccer powerhouse it had been in the early days of this tournament. Guys like Eusebio didn’t play for Portuguese teams anymore. In 2004, though, Porto won it all by taking down Monaco, 3-0. This was also the introduction for many to a promising young manager by the name of Jose Mourinho.

Ask anybody, aside from Milan fans, what the best Champions League final of all time is, and they are probably going to say the Miracle in Istanbul. The Italians were up, 3-0, at the half, and seemed primed to cruise to a victory a la 1994. Liverpool had other ideas. The Red scored three goals of their own in the second half and then won the game in a penalty shootout for the incredible comeback win.

Barcelona and Arsenal were both potent squads this year, but this game got off to a crazy start. Arsenal goalie Jens Lehmann was sent off in the 18th minute, leaving the Gunners down a man. However, they scored first and were leading at halftime. The shorthanded Arsenal squad couldn’t hold on though. Barcelona scored twice in the second half for the 2-1 win.

It was the first, and until 2019’s final happens the only, all-English finals. Large chunks of the game were not super-riveting, but it was tied, 1-1, after regular time and eventually would be decided in an exciting shootout, which gets it on this list. Manchester United got the win, even though Cristiano Ronaldo missed his kick.

These two teams had met a couple of years earlier in the 2009 final, which Barcelona won 2-0 in a solid, if unremarkable, affair. The rematch was a better game. The two teams were tied 1-1 at halftime before Lionel Messi, the greatest player of his era (sorry, Cristiano Ronaldo) gave the Catalan side the lead. An insurance goal gave Barcelona a 3-1 win.

This was a magical run for Chelsea. They had a rough go of it in the Premier League, finishing sixth and firing manager Andres Villas-Boas. Roberto Di Matteo had taken over as caretaker manager and helped lead the Blues to the Champions League final. They weren’t just playing Bayern Munich. This game was taking place in Bayern’s stadium, the first time a team had home-field advantage since 1984. It wasn’t enough, as Chelsea got a win in a penalty kick shootout.

The two best teams in Germany dueled it out one more time this year for the title of top team in Europe. Bayern had won the Bundesliga, not to mention the German League Cup, and they completed the treble here with a 2-1 win over their rivals. It was a Dutch player, though, Arjen Robben, who scored the winner in the 89th minute.

The final score of 4-1 in favor of Real does not properly tell the story of this game. Atletico was up 1-0 for the bulk of the game, but then Sergio Ramos tied it for Real in injury time. Los Blancos then proceeded to score three goals in extra time to earn the win over their Madrid rivals.