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Ranking every Champions League winner

By James Dudko

MADRID, SPAIN - MAY 27: Cristiano Ronaldo (2ndL) of Real Madrid CF holds the trophy as he poses for a picture with his teammates Karim Benzema (R) and Gareth Bale (L) during the celebration with their fans at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium the day after winning the UEFA Champions League Final match against Liverpool on May 27, 2018 in Madrid, Spain. Real Madrid CF is the only European football team with 13 European Cups (Photo by Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
MADRID, SPAIN - MAY 27: Cristiano Ronaldo (2ndL) of Real Madrid CF holds the trophy as he poses for a picture with his teammates Karim Benzema (R) and Gareth Bale (L) during the celebration with their fans at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium the day after winning the UEFA Champions League Final match against Liverpool on May 27, 2018 in Madrid, Spain. Real Madrid CF is the only European football team with 13 European Cups (Photo by Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid via Getty Images) /
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Every winner of the European Cup and Champions League from 1956 to 2018 ranked.

Liverpool or Tottenham will become the 64th winner of the Champions League, European Cup to the older fans, on Saturday, June 1.

But where will the latest winner rank alongside Manchester United’s treble winners of 1999 or the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Real Madrid that lifted the trophy the last three years in a row under Zinedine Zidane?

Pep Guardiola’s artful Barcelona teams also deserved to be mentioned among the greats given how they dismantled rebooted versions of United in two finals.

Every winner is ranked here based on a few simple criteria. First, the star power of each squad is taken into account. How good were the players? Were those involved in their prime? Second, the quality of the opposition is also a factor. How many great sides were beaten before a new winner was crowned? Finally, performance in the final helps tip the scales. Was the trophy won emphatically and in a stylish way or was it snatched through cautious pragmatism?

Expect to see most consecutive winners bracketed together. So the Real team that won the first five iterations of the tournament is classed as one group, as are the hat-trick of titles claimed by the “Total Football” purists of Ajax in the 70s.

Find out who are the greatest winners of the European Cup/Champions League:

AC Milan’s Daniele Massaro (c) surrounded by Marseille’s (l-r) Jean-Jacques Eydelie, Marcel Desailly and Jocelyn Angloma (Photo by Neal Simpson – EMPICS/PA Images via Getty Images)
AC Milan’s Daniele Massaro (c) surrounded by Marseille’s (l-r) Jean-Jacques Eydelie, Marcel Desailly and Jocelyn Angloma (Photo by Neal Simpson – EMPICS/PA Images via Getty Images) /

49. Marseille: 1992/93

Marseille edged past a strong AC Milan team in the first year the competition was played under the now familiar Champions League moniker.

As impressive as the achievement looks, the bigger question is should Marseille’s win be counted? It came as the power of the day in Ligue 1 became embroiled in a scandal involving owner Bernard Tapie.

Marseille were found to have bribed players of Valiencennes to go easy in a match so Tapie’s men could save energy for Milan. Tapie eventually served eight months for his part in match-fixing, while Marseille forfeited the Ligue 1 title won in the 1992/93 season.

The nefarious history is why Marseille prop up this list despite winning the first Champions League with a squad packed with talent. Marcel Desailly, Alen Boksic, Rudi Voller and Fabian Barthez all played in a final settled by Basile Boli’s first-half goal.

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