The 10 best African players in Champions League history
Africa’s finest footballers have shone on the grandest Champions League stages since the early 1990s. How could we possibly pick a top 10? The only criteria was that all of them had to be past winners. This esteemed list includes 3 Ghanaians, 2 Ivorians, a stylish Nigerian Super Eagle and Cameroonian football’s most iconic figure. We’ve also got a bonus 11th man from South Africa. Do you agree with our choices? Let’s get into it.
Samuel Eto’o
The African GOAT?
It’s difficult to escape the hypothesis that this 3-time Champions League winner, record-breaking goal machine and Indomitable Lion might be the best footballer who has ever hailed from the African continent.
He wasn’t just a fox in the box, though, as we saw in 2010. He operated in a modified wide attacking role alongside Goran Pandev and match-winner on that evening, Diego Milito, for Inter against Bayern Munich at the Bernabéu. José Mourinho is a master of managerial problem-solving and using Eto’o as a winger isn’t something that ordinary managers would have dreamt up. Top players are adaptable though.
Eto’o broke Arsenal hearts in Paris when he scored an equaliser for Barcelona in the 2006 final, and he was dashing the dreams of another Premier League giant, Manchester United, with his opener in the 2009 final when partnering Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi.
If Samuel Eto’o Fils isn’t the greatest African footballer of all time, who is?
Didier Drogba
Man for the BIG occasion
Cast your mind back to the 2012 Champions League final. The game seemed to be up for Chelsea, up against a formidable Bayern Munich team with the Germans also enjoying the luxury of home advantage and an 83rd-minute lead. These are the moments when BIG-game players step up to the plate, and one of Chelsea’s favourite sons did that in emphatic fashion in Bavaria.
Drogba was an expert at producing the goods when it really mattered. He scored goals in numerous domestic cup finals in England, but that 88th-minute equaliser against Bayern is probably the most important of his glittering career. Chelsea were outplayed for the majority of that contest but Drogba, a truly colossal presence in a blue jersey, produced a timely lifeline.
As if dictated by destiny, he stepped up to slot home the decisive spot-kick in the penalty shootout to crown the BIGGEST night in Chelsea’s history. Their fans will adore him forever.
Yaya Touré
Rolls Royce footballer
A dominant presence in both boxes, regular Premier League followers will all know how Touré could turn a game in an instant. He was a swashbuckling, match-winning, marauding midfielder who bagged 20 goals and 9 assists in the 2013/14 EPL season.
However, under Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, he was selected as a central defender in the 2009 Champions League final and didn’t put a foot wrong against a Man Utd attack boasting Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and later Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez from the bench. It just didn’t seem to faze him. That’s what you call a complete footballer producing a complete performance, on the BIGGEST stage.
Out of position, Touré’s display in the Eternal City of Rome now lives in the record books for eternity.
Mohamed Salah
The Egyptian King
Watching Salah as a fringe player at Chelsea, few would have expected his goalscoring prowess to escalate as it has done. Tied with Drogba on 44 goals in the Champions League, Liverpool’s main man is the joint-most prolific African player in the competition’s history.
Easily and consistently one of the best and most devastating players in the world between 2018 and 2021, he’s still the difference-maker for his club at the age of 30. If the Reds don’t qualify for next season’s group stage, the Champions League will be deprived of one of its most dazzling performers in recent years.
Sadio Mané
Legendary Lion of Teranga
Surely the best and most globally renowned Senegalese footballer in history, Liverpool’s attack initially struggled to adapt when Mané left Anfield for Bayern Munich at the end of 2021/22. It makes a lot of sense, given how relentlessly he outworked, outmuscled and outlasted his markers. He must be a nightmare to play against.
His personal best Champions League edition was 2017/18, striking 10 times. He scored in every round that season, including a hat-trick against Porto in the round of 16, home and away in the semi-final past Roma and even in the final as Liverpool were beaten by Real Madrid.
Mané’s CV is an astonishing one which includes Champions League and Premier League wins, as well as the first AFCON crown in his country’s long history.
John Obi Mikel
Calming influence
Ask Chelsea fans what they think of Obi Mikel and you’ll likely get glowing reviews of a player who was the glue in their 2012 triumph. Often teased by teammates for his poor goalscoring record, Obi Mikel’s firm focus was on breaking up opposition moves and then starting his own team’s attacking sequences.
Only players with special levels of humility and selflessness revel in a role like that and Obi Mikel was that guy. He showed his versatility for Nigeria’s national team, though, often deployed higher up the pitch and in the number 10 jersey for the Super Eagles.
This man played football at his own pace and in his own time, and did so with serious levels of style and panache.
Sulley Muntari
Outrageous talent in abundance
The Ghanaian midfield dynamo’s talent was never in doubt. Muntari enjoyed a colourful career which included an incredible FA Cup win with Portsmouth in 2008 and a miraculously memorable treble with Inter in 2010. He appeared in every round of the Nerazzurri’s Champions League triumph, helping Ghana reach the quarter-finals of WC10 a month later.
He also represented both Milan clubs. It’s strange to reflect on his résumé containing 84 international caps and numerous trophies and then think he could have possibly achieved more, such was the sheer level of natural ability Muntari possessed.
He also had one of the most ferocious left feet in the game. The streets will never forget Sulley Muntari.
Michael Essien
Power and poise
Nicknamed “The Bison”, Essien was simply built for elite level football. Capable of excelling in a number of positions, Essien was a true specialist box-to-box midfielder. Interestingly, however, he started at right-back in the 2008 Champions League final which Chelsea ended up losing on penalties to Man Utd. He would get his medal in 2012 though.
The Blues signed Essien from Lyon in 2005 for a then-club record fee of £24.4m in a move that felt like a turning point for the club. The Ghanaian helped elevate Chelsea’s midfield to a new level with his dynamism and knack of scoring at crucial times, making him the missing piece in an incredible new puzzle.
Essien’s strike against Arsenal at Stamford Bridge in 2006 that arrowed into the corner remains one of the most aesthetically pleasing goals in Premier League history.
Seydou Keïta
Malian midfield metronome
One of Guardiola’s most trusted lieutenants in battle, Mali’s Keïta was as reliable as he was talented. That stylish left foot helped him steady many ships throughout his football career, especially in the BIG matches that mattered most and in the crucial moments.
Keïta was comfortably one of the most underrated midfield maestros of his generation. It’s easy to understand why, since he shared a dressing room with Sergio Busquets, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta. It’s difficult to argue with 2 Champions League titles and 102 Mali caps though, and he appeared in both the 2009 and 2011 finals.
Abedi Pele
One of Ghana’s favourite sons
Back to where it all began for the Champions League in its modern guise, Black Stars icon Abedi wore the number 10 jersey when Marseille upset AC Milan to win the title in 1993. Among his teammates that night were the iconic French figures of Marcel Desailly and Didier Deschamps.
On an individual level, Pele was a 3-time African Player of the Year, an AFCON winner and of course a champion of Europe. What a career. Football heritage runs deep in Abedi’s family too, with his sons André and Jordan Ayew now proven Premier League and international stars.
So, who’s our bonus 11th man?
Benni McCarthy
Bafana Bafana’s best
South Africa’s first and only winner of the Champions League was a true trailblazer. Currently one of the first-team coaches at Man Utd, the former striker from Cape Town won 80 caps and scored 31 goals for his country, making him arguably the greatest player South Africa has ever produced. His European club career took him to Ajax, Celta Vigo, Porto, Blackburn and West Ham, before a return home with Orlando Pirates.
McCarthy memorably scored a brace in the 2004 round-of-16 first leg against Man Utd in Porto, and who can forget Mourinho sprinting down the touchline when his side grabbed an equaliser at Old Trafford that would send them through to the quarter-finals? This edition of the Champions League was one of the competition’s true underdog stories as 2 of the less fashionable sides, Porto and Monaco, went all the way.
Also an AFCON joint-top scorer in 1998,
, making a rapping cameo. It’s called Shibobo and was released in 1998.
With the 2023 final in Istanbul looming, Manchester City have the mighty Real Madrid standing in their way of another crack at the trophy. Algerian wing wizard Riyad Mahrez has scored 20 Champions League goals in his career so far. If he adds a medal to his collection this season, his name will have to be added to this prestigious African hall of fame.