Since rebranding from the European Cup to the Champions League in 1992, the continent's top club tournament has produced countless iconic moments.
Here, we've picked out just a selection which have particular pictorial value – from sublime moments of individual brilliance to tremendous team triumphs.
Why don't we get straight down to business?
Mesut Ozil was more than capable of producing a moment of magic, as he proved to sensational effect for Arsenal against Ludogorets Razgrad during the 2016/17 Champions League group stage.
It would have been an impressive goal in any circumstances, but this audacious chip won the game for the Gunners as they fought back from 2-0 down in Bulgaria.
In 2021, then 13-time European champions Real Madrid hosted competition debutants Sheriff in the group stage – there was only going to be one winner, right?
Well, yes – but it was the minnows from the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria, who triumphed 2-1 through Sebastien Thill’s 90th-minute winner at the Bernabeu.
It looked an even more remarkable result after Real went on to lift the trophy for a 14th time that season.
It was no great surprise that Wayne Rooney began his Manchester United career with a bang – but to hit a hat-trick on your debut (both for the club and in the Champions League) is the stuff of dreams.
Having completed a £20 move from Everton, Wazza struck three times – and provided an assist – to help his new side to a 6-2 demolition of Fenerbahce in their first home game of the 2004/05 group stage.
The first final of the fully rebranded Champions League saw Marseille become France’s first European champions.
Basile Boli scored the only goal against Milan at the Olympiastadion in Munich, but OM’s victory was soured after it emerged that club officials had bribed players from Valenciennes – their opponents on the final day of the league campaign – to underperform.
Marseille were relegated to Ligue 2 and banned from Europe as a result, but they got to keep their Champions League crown.
Deportivo La Coruna enjoyed heady days at the start of the 21st century, surprisingly winning the 1999/2000 LaLiga title and reaching the semi-finals of the 2003/04 Champions League.
To achieve the latter feat, Depor overturned a three-goal first-leg deficit against holders Milan. Incredibly, they did what they needed to do in the first 45 minutes of the second leg, Albert Luque making it 3-0 on the night and 4-4 on aggregate – before Fran made absolutely sure with a fourth goal in the second half.
Bayern Munich’s 2020 final victory over PSG was iconic for a couple of reasons, one of them rather depressing: it took place in an empty stadium as Covid restrictions kept fans out.
Kingsley Coman got the only goal against his former club at Lisbon’s Estadio da Luz, with the showpiece game taking place in August due to the onset of the pandemic forcing the competition to press pause.
In 2006, Arsenal appeared in their first Champions League final – but they could hardly have got off to a worse start against Barcelona in Paris: Jens Lehmann’s 18th-minute foul on Samuel Eto’o saw the goalkeeper became the first player ever to be sent off in a European Cup or UCL final.
Sol Campbell headed the 10-man Gunners ahead before half-time, but Barca ultimately made their extra man count and triumphed through quickfire goals from Eto’o and Juliano Belletti relatively late on.
Porto and Monaco’s meeting in the 2004 final represented a clash of Champions League underdogs – in the fairly unglamorous host city of Gelsenkirchen.
Jose Mourinho’s Porto had seen off Manchester United earlier in the tournament, while Didier Deschamps Monaco had defeated Real Madrid and Chelsea – but Mourinho’s Deco-inspired side ultimately secured the trophy with relative ease, winning 3-0.
Borussia Dortmund had already been UEFA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup finalists – winning the latter competition in 1966 – but this was the big one.
Not that the Black and Yellows needed any incentive, but it would have been all the sweeter to triumph at the Olympiastadion – home to their most bitter rivals, Bayern Munich – and they did so convincingly, seeing off reigning European champions Juventus 3-1.
Real Madrid had won the first five European Cups back in the late 50s and early 60s, but this was the first three-peat of the Champions League era.
At a time when it ought to have been tougher than ever to retain the continent’s ultimate honour, the Spanish giants made it seem pretty easy under the tutelage of club legend Zinedine Zidane, winning finals against Madrid rivals Atletico, Juventus and Liverpool.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest players ever to grace the Champions League stage, Cristiano Ronaldo collected his fifth winner’s medal as Real Madrid defeated Liverpool in 2018.
The five-time Ballon d’Or recipient had already tasted glory three times in the competition with Los Blancos and once with Manchester United.
As Real Madrid claimed their 15th Champions League crown by defeating Borussia Dortmund at Wembley in 2024, two of their biggest stars equalled iconic Real captain Paco Gento in becoming European champions for the sixth time.
For Luka Modric, it was sixth victory with Los Blancos, while fellow midfield maestro Toni Kroos – making the final club appearance of his career – had previously triumphed four times as a Real player and once at Bayern Munich.
Carlo Ancelotti underscored his reputation as one of the very best managers of all time by leading Real Madrid to glory in 2022.
Overseeing a 1-0 defeat of Liverpool at the Stade de France, ‘Don Carlo’ surpassed Real predecessor Zinedine Zidane and legendary Reds boss Bob Paisley to become the first coach to reach the milestone of four Champions League successes.
Was Luis Garcia’s crucial goal for Liverpool in the second leg of the 2004/05 Champions League semi-final against Chelsea at Anfield over the line? We’ll probably never know for sure.
But the officials said it was, and that’s all that mattered as the Reds sealed a spot in the biggest match of all for the first time in 20 years.
Ajax rekindled their 70s glory days by being crowned champions of Europe for the fourth time with a 1-0 victory over Juventus in Vienna.
Patrick Kluivert notched the only goal of the game as Louis van Gaal’s youthful side saw off Juventus; in doing so, he became the youngest scorer in the final of the competition, aged 18 years and 327 days.
Arguably no manager has ever come as close to perfecting football as Pep Guardiola – whose extraordinary Barcelona side achieved peak tiki-taka en route to beating Manchester United in the 2011 Champions League final.
And what did he get for his troubles? Chucked in the air by his own players on the Wembley pitch at full-time – that’s what.
The very same final which saw Pep Guardiola take flight was a particularly special one for Eric Abidal.
Barcelona’s left-back had recently returned following surgery to remove a liver tumour – and in a fantastically classy gesture, skipper Carles Puyol gave his armband to Abidal and let him raise the trophy.
A matter of months before they signed that Ronaldo, the ‘original’ Ronaldo tore Manchester United a new one at Old Trafford.
Ruud van Nistelrooy’s goal at the Bernabeu in the first leg had given Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils a fighting chance in their 2002/03 quarter-final, but R9 clearly wasn’t in a benevolent mood: he hit a blistering hat-trick as Real lost 4-3 on the night but won 6-5 on aggregate, reinforcing his status among the top players on the planet end ending the hosts’ hopes of reaching a final at their own ground.
Chelsea won their first Champions League the hard way, beating Bayern Munich on penalties in the final on the German giants’ own patch, the Allianz Arena.
What’s more, the Blues had gone 1-0 down with just seven minutes of the 90 remaining – but two minutes from time, up popped their regular saviour, Didier Drogba, with a towering header in what proved to be the last game of his first glittering first spell at the club.
The 2010/11 El Clasico semi-final clash was always likely to be a classic, and a 1-1 draw in the first leg at the Camp Nou gave Real Madrid a slight but hardly insurmountable advantage over Barcelona heading into the return match at the Bernabeu.
With the game still goalless after 75 minutes, the hosts looked to be heading through to the final on away goals – but as so often, Lionel Messi had other ideas, completing a decisive brace with a trademark solo effort that saw him leave four Real players for dead before sliding the ball past Iker Casillas.
Eight years later, Messi scored – in FFT’s view – an even better goal. The stage was the same: the Champions League semi-finals; the opponents were different: Liverpool.
The amazing Argentine found the net for the 600th time in his Barcelona career with an inch-perfect curling free-kick from 30 yards at the Camp Nou, giving his side a (seemingly) commanding 3-0 first-leg lead.
With 15 goals, Cristiano Ronaldo was the 2017/18 Champions League top scorer by a fair distance – and he scored the single best goal of that season’s tournament by a fair distance.
Having opened the scoring three minutes into Real Madrid’s quarter-final first-leg trip to Juventus, CR7 made it 2-0 in show-stopping fashion, unleashing one heck of an overhead kick to give Gianluigi Buffon less than no chance.
Tottenham lost the 2019 Champions League final to Liverpool, but their fans are never going to forget how they got there – for the first time in their history.
Leading 3-0 on aggregate with just 35 minutes to, Erik ten Hag’s spirited young Ajax side looked certain to advance; Spurs forward Lucas Moura had other ideas, though, hitting a hat-trick which he completed with a bedlam-causing 96th-minute winner in Amsterdam.
The night before Spurs’ incredible comeback, Liverpool mounted a magnificent recovery mission of their own.
Trailing 3-0 to Barcelona from the first leg, Jurgen Klopp’s Reds harnessed the famous Anfield atmosphere to blow Messi and co. away with a stunning 4-0 victory – capped by Divock Origi’s strike from Trent Alexander-Arnold’s instantly iconic quickly taken corner.
Before guiding Chelsea to back-to-back Premier League titles, Jose Mourinho made his mark in England as manager of Porto. Specifically, he did so by masterminding a 3-2 aggregate win over Manchester United in the last 16 of the Champions League.
After Costinha scored in the 90th minute to put Porto ahead and all but through, Mourinho galloped down the Old Trafford touchline like a man possessed. Scenes.
In 2009, Manchester United were aiming to become the first side to retain the Champions League / European Cup since Milan 19 years earlier.
It wasn’t to be, with Lionel Messi bagging one of his most famous goals, besting Rio Ferdinand in the air to head Barcelona into a 2-0 lead – after Samuel Eto’o had opened the scoring – and seal Pep Guardiola’s first UCL triumph as a manager.
The previous year, United were crowned champions of Europe for the third time, defeating Chelsea on penalties in an all-English final at a sodden Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
Blues captain John Terry had the chance to win it, but he slipped and hit the post with his team’s fifth spot-kick and the Red Devils ultimately emerged victorious.
Without question one of the very best British footballing exports of all time, Gareth Bale won it all with Real Madrid – and the Welsh wing wizard won his fourth Champions League with one of the great final performances.
Remarkably, Bale only came on as a 61st-minute substitute – but he more than seized his opportunity, putting Los Blancos 2-1 up with a simply jaw-dropping bicycle kick from not far inside the box.
As flares rained down upon the San Siro and shrouded the stadium in red mist during the first leg of the Milan derby quarter-final in the 2004/05 Champions League, Marco Materazzi and Rui Costa stood side by side, making for one of the great sporting photos.
At one point, Materazzi rested his arm on Costa’s shoulder, as if to symbolise what football is ultimately all about: friendship.
Down 4-0 from the first leg, Barcelona would have to make Champions League history to overcome PSG in the last 16 of the 2016/17 tournament – and that’s exactly what they did on a truly unforgettable night at the Camp Nou.
Barca found themselves 3-0 up in the second leg with 40 minutes still to go – plenty of time to bag an equaliser – but Edinson Cavani’s 62nd-minute goal for PSG threw an almighty spanner in the works. Now, the hosts had to score three more owing to the away goals rule.
A Neymar brace put Luis Enrique’s men one away, but time was running out and they needed hero. And the Blaugrana got it in the form of Sergio Roberto, whose 95th-minute strike made it 6-1 on the night and 6-5 on aggregate – completing the biggest European Cup or UCL comeback of all time aka La Remontada.
Any winning goal in a major final is hugely significant, but some are markedly more momentous than others.
There can be few better examples than Zinedine Zidane’s decisive strike for Real Madrid against Bayer Leverkusen in 2002: an absolutely phenomenal left-footed volley from the edge of the box to secure the only Champions League winner’s medal of his career.
Ok, we found a better example of a momentous winner than Zidane’s: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s treble-clincher for Manchester United in the 93rd minute of the 1999 final against Bayern Munich in Barcelona.
United had trailed for 85 minutes when Teddy Sheringham equalised in Barcelona – and it took just two more to completely turn the match on its head. Football: that is all.
No logical person thought Liverpool had the faintest chance of winning the 2005 Champions League final when they went in at half-time 3-0 down to a rampant Milan side. This, though, is a sport which regularly defies logic to Spock-infuriating levels.
Within 16 minutes of the second-half kick-off, Rafael Benitez’s Reds were on level terms through goals from talismanic skipper Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso – and they kept the score at 3-3 all the way to penalties (with a little help from goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek and his ninja-like reflexes).
Following further heroics from Dudek in the shootout, the Reds were crowned champions of Europe for the fifth time – and rarely has a captain hoisted that enormous trophy aloft with such unbridled ecstasy as Gerrard did that night in Istanbul.
