The 9 players from Arsenal’s 2008-09 Champions League squad still playing in 2025
Sixteen years have passed since Arsenal‘s last appearance in a Champions League semi-final, but a surprising number of players from Arsene Wenger’s squad that season are still playing today.
The big-name mainstays of that Gunners side who were ultimately well-beaten home and away by Manchester United have hung up their boots, from Theo Walcott to Alex Song, while Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie are already established coaches.
But there were several younger fringe players who are now seeing out the twilight years of their playing careers. We’ve checked in on the nine still playing today.
Lukasz Fabianski
One of the only players over the age of 40 contracted to a club in Europe’s five major leagues, Fabianski went on to have a respectably solid career after his seven years with an erratic reputation as a back-up at the Emirates.
The former Poland international notched over 150 appearances for Swansea City during their Premier League pomp and has since played over 200 times as a grizzled veteran for West Ham.
Alphonse Areola has won the battle to become the Hammers’ No.1 these days, but Fabianski did remarkably well to keep the Frenchman on the bench for a time.
Vito Mannone
Another one of Manuel Almunia’s deputies, Mannone joined Hale End from Atalanta’s youth ranks and featured intermittently amid a series of loans away.
The 37-year-old Italian went on to play more regularly for Sunderland and Reading, but he since dropped back to become something of a modern-day Stuart Taylor perennial back-up.
He’s spent the last five years out in France, warming the bench for Monaco, Lorient and – currently – Lille.
Wojciech Szczesny
Still something of a cult hero at Arsenal in large part thanks to his love of bantering off Tottenham, Szczesny first arrived at Hale End a few months before the 2006 Champions League final.
He was named on the bench in the 2008-09 campaign but was firmly down in the pecking order as a teenager, going on to make his senior professional debut the following season out on loan at Brentford.
After returning to his parent club, Szczesny won out the battle in Arsenal’s unconvincing post-Lehmann years but his reputation took a hit and Wenger reportedly didn’t take kindly to his smoking habit.
Szczesny later won three Scudetti in his prime years at Juventus and was named Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year when they made it nine in a row in 2019-20.
He hung up his gloves last summer but sensationally came out of retirement to play a starring role in Barcelona’s treble chase – with Arsenal potentially standing in his way in the Champions League final. What a story that would be.
Gavin Hoyte
“When you’re there you always think you’re going to make it – I was pretty confident,” Justin’s younger brother told us a few years back.
“I had my older brother there as well, so that helped a lot, seeing how he progressed.
“That was a big thing for me, seeing him play every week, watching him thinking, ‘I want to try and get to where he is.’”
The defender only made one Premier league appearance for his boyhood club, but he carved out a decent career lower down the football pyramid and is still playing for non-league Folkestone Invicta to this day.
READ: 5 Arsenal academy graduates you had no idea are still playing in non-league
Francis Coquelin
The tough-tackling Frenchman didn’t really break through for another few years, but he was around the first-team set-up after joining from lesser-known outfit Laval in the summer of 2008 and made his professional debut in the League Cup that year.
Coquelin remained on the Gunners’ books for another decade, featuring regularly after loans away to Lorient, Freiburg and Charlton and later enjoyed a second wind in Spain, winning the Copa del Rey with Valencia in 2018-19 and the Europa League with Unai Emery’s Villarreal in 2020-21.
There were fears that his career was over after suffering a serious injury and being released by the Yellow Submarine but after six months unattached the 33-year-old returned to action, signing for Ligue 1 side Nantes in January.
Aaron Ramsey
This was Ramsey’s debut season at Arsenal, having joined from Cardiff City as a youngster fresh from starring in the Bluebirds’ fairytale run to the 2008 FA Cup final.
His early trajectory was severely stunted by that horror injury suffered at Stoke, but he recovered to become one of the most popular figures of the oft-frustrating later Wenger era, one of the leading lights of a Gunners side that ended their trophy drought by winning three FA Cups in four years.
After his big move to Juventus never really worked out, Ramsey later represented Rangers and Nice before returning to his boyhood club in 2023.
Injuries have reduced his gametime severely over the past couple of seasons and he already appears to have made the transition into coaching, having been appointed Cardiff’s caretaker manager for the final few games of the 2024-25 campaign.
Ramsey’s Cardiff will face Jack Wilshere’s Norwich City on the final weekend. What in the broken Football Manager save is this?
Amaury Bischoff
The 2008-09 season was forgotten man Biscoff’s one and only year at the Emirates, in which he made a grand total of four appearances in all competitions.
An eclectic journeyman path has followed, with stops in the lower tiers of Portugal, Germany and France.
Surprisingly enough he’s still going at the age of 38. A few months back he joined German amateur outfit FV Sasbach.
He’s evidently in it for the love of the game.
Mark Randall
The Hale End graduate made a couple of appearances for Wenger’s first team before embarking on a career as a Football League stalwart, with Chesterfield, MK Dons, Barnet, Newport County and Crawley Town among the stops on his glamour tour.
In his latter years he’s found a settled home with Northern Irish side Larne, with whom he won back-to-back league titles with in 2023 and 2o24.
He’s now into his sixth season with the club.
Rui Fonte
The Portuguese midfielder made one League Cup cameo in the 2008-09 season, leaving Arsenal that summer and embarking on a career that’s seen him represent no fewer than 13 different clubs.
Sporting Lisbon, Benfica, Braga and Fulham are among the most noteworthy stops, although he didn’t pull up any trees for any of them.
Nowadays, he’s turning out in the Portuguese second tier with fallen giants Pacos de Ferreira.