9 superb players who never played in the Champions League: Wright, Di Canio…

The Champions League provides the biggest stage in club football, where the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo forged their legends by producing some of their most iconic performances. But it’s not the be-all and end-all.

Brilliant footballers including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo Nazario and Fabio Cannavaro never lifted the trophy, while others have enjoyed wonderful, fulfilling careers without even making a single appearance in the competition.

We’ve identified nine brilliant footballers who never once played in the Champions League.

Paolo Di Canio

Never once played in the Champions League, never once played for Italy. Wild.

While it’s no surprise that the Italian never competed in the Champions League during his West Ham pomp at the turn of the millennium, you’d have thought he’d have featured in the competition for one of Lazio, Juventus, Napoli, AC Milan or Celtic.

But nope. He won the UEFA Cup with Juve and featured in the UEFA Super Cup in 1994 after signing for reigning European champions Milan, where he won a Scudetto but struggled for playing time and didn’t make a single appearance in the Rossoneri’s run to the 1994-95 final.

Matt Le Tissier

There’s an alternative reality whereby Le Tissier produced some unforgettable moments on the European stage for a club like Monaco, Parma or Sampdoria – or, closer to home, took up that offers from Chelsea.

Maybe in that realm, he never went down one too many dodgy YouTube rabbit holes. In this reality he’ll talk your ear off about government-controlled weather and communist takeovers.

But before that he spent a wonderful career as one the great one-club men, loyal to Southampton to the end.

“If I had this time again I would make the same choices,” Le Tissier told Sporting Life.

“I put personal happiness above money and trophies and I enjoyed being a big fish in a small pond, I have never been afraid of admitting that. I could play football the way I wanted to play football for the majority of the time I was at Southampton.”

A brilliant, refreshing attitude to football that’s all too rare. He never was one for the sheeple. Ahem.

Ian Wright

Younger generations might not understand how Wright spent his prime years at Arsenal, becoming the grand old club’s all-time top goalscorer (since surpassed by Thierry Henry)… all the while never once playing in the Champions League or appearing in a major tournament for England.

Different times. The Three Lions’ options were stacked when it came to strikers, while it was a lot harder to make it into the Champions League before the competition was expanded to allow four sides to qualify.

The Arsenal legend actually shared the pitch with Di Canio in the 1994 UEFA Super Cup, having won the old Cup Winners’ Cup earlier that year.

He left Highbury after Arsenal made it into the Champions League in 1998-99, having won the title with his beloved Gunners the year before.

Les Ferdinand

Taken to Euro 96 ahead of a heartbroken Wright, Ferdinand is one of the best – and arguably now most overlooked – goalscorers of the Premier League era.

He scored four goals in four UEFA Cup appearances for Newcastle United in 1996-97 and even made a solitary cameo in the same competition for Besiktas in his younger days, but he never made it to the Champions League.

Only seven players have scored more non-penalty goals in the Premier League than Sir Les, who never took a spot kick in his career.

READ: The 10 top non-penalty goalscorers in Premier League history: Henry ahead of Salah…

David James

The only name in the Premier League’s all-time top 20 appearance-makers not to have featured in the Champions League, James played almost 300 times for Liverpool in the 1990s but never in Europe’s top competition.

With Manchester United invariably taking England’s spot throughout the 1990s, James had to make do with the UEFA Cup.

Clint Dempsey

Probably the best American outfielder to play in the Premier League, Dempsey might not be quite up there with the likes of Wright, Le Tissier or Ferdinand in terms of legacy.

But none of them can boast a moment on the European stage quite like his astonishing Europa League comeback clincher against Juventus in 2010 – his deft chip might well be the greatest goal in Fulham’s history.

Tottenham pipped Liverpool to his signature in 2012, but that was an era neither club were quite at the top level.

James Maddison

We’ve decided against choosing brilliant young footballers like Moises Caicedo and Nico Williams here, with the logic that, unlike the above retirees who ran out of time, they’ll surely make it into Europe’s top competition soon enough.

Quite possibly even next season.

With Maddison, you sense he’s running out of opportunities. Tottenham don’t look in any fit state to muster a challenge for Champions League qualification any time soon, although they could still make it by winning the Europa League this season. That’s a very big if.

The playmaker turns 29 later this year and you sense he might have one of those careers that’s not as great as it might have been.

“As a player, you don’t always share the same things but we want to be in the Champions League,” Maddison told Sky Sports last season.

“I sat there last night watching two huge quarter-final clashes and it’s a competition that we at Tottenham need to be in.”

Still waiting…

Iago Aspas

Forty-nine of the top 50 goalscorers across Europe’s five major leagues this century have played in the Champions League, with cult heroes like Antonio Di Natale, Aritz Aduriz and Fabio Quagliarella at least making a handful of appearances in the competition.

Aspas is the only one who hasn’t.

If you’re only aware of the Spanish forward from his inauspicious stint at Liverpool – don’t mention that corner – you’re missing out.

He’s scored 163 goals in 381 La Liga appearances for Sevilla and Celta Vigo, his boyhood club where he’s worshipped like an absolute god.

Genuinely one of the best, most consistent players in Spain over the past decade or so.

QUIZ: Can you name the top 50 goalscorers across Europe’s major leagues since 2000?

Lucas Paqueta

Fifty-five caps for Brazil. A Copa America winner. Has lifted a UEFA trophy. Represented AC Milan and Lyon. Zero Champions League appearances.

That can’t be right, can it? Apparently it can.

Paqueta has enjoyed some memorable European nights since he signed for West Ham back in 2022. The midfielder shone in their Conference League triumph in his debut season and subsequently looked more than comfortable in the Europa League.

With Manchester City reportedly sniffing around his signature, you imagine he’d have moved to an elite Champions League club by now were it not for the threat of a lengthy ban hanging over him.

What a devastating waste of talent it’ll be if he’s served a lifetime ban for Football Association spot-fixing charges. We can only wait and see.

READ NEXT: The four European heavyweights still chasing a historic treble in 2024-25

TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every club to win the Champions League/European Cup?