10 forgotten ballers we can’t believe will play Champions League football in 2026-27
The Champions League is football’s greatest gathering of superstars. Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane and Lamine Yamal will be hoping to get their hands on the trophy in 2027.
But, in the early stages at least, it also has a wonderful tendency to remind us of footballers we’ve not thought about in ages. And this season is no exception, with former Chelsea, Tottenham, Newcastle and West Ham players surprisingly showing up.
We’ve taken a look at some of the forgotten stars who will be playing Champions League football in 2026-27.
Domagoj Vida (AEK Athens)
We loved the Game of Thrones extra during Croatia’s golden era. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.
Given his absence from their 2026 World Cup squad, without giving it much any thought we kind of assumed he’d quietly retired. But no, the centre-back is still going at the age of 37, having made over a hundred appearances for AEK Athens since joining them in 2022.
Dinamo Zagreb. Dynamo Kyiv. Besiktas. AEK Athens. The guy loves being early Champions League group/league phase cannon fodder.
A special mention for one-time colossal Real Madrid flop Luka Jovic, who will be leading the line for the Greek Super League outfit.
N’Golo Kante (Fenerbahce)
The Saudi Pro League has been enough of a thing for long enough now that we’re accustomed to players going for a quick payday before rebuilding their career back in Europe. Jordan Henderson, Gabri Veiga, Aymeric Laporte. The list goes on.
But we fully expected to have seen the last of Kante when he left Chelsea for Al-Ittihad back in 2023. Well into his thirties and evidently slowing down, with little else to achieve in European club football, there was little left for him to do but stack up a vault of cash, Scrooge McDuck style, out in Jeddah.
More fool us. Kante returned to Europe in January and was even named in Didier Deschamps’ Les Bleus squad for the 2026 World Cup.
This list could’ve been entirely comprised of Fenerbahce players, to be fair. Ederson! Nathan Ake! Milan Skriniar! Nelson Semedo! Marco Asensio! Romelu Lukaku! This might be the ultimate Turkish Super Lig hodgepodge.
Mario Lemina (Galatasaray)
Perennial Super Lig champions Galatasaray give Fener a run for their money on that front, to be fair.
Alongside the likes of Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane, Rafael Leao, Lucas Torreira and Victor Osimhen – all of whom are pretty well-known poster boys for the Turkish Super Lig in 2026 – there’s also former Southampton and Wolves stalwart Mario Lemina.
The tough-tackling yellow card machine is actually into his second stint at Rams Park, having spent the 2019-20 campaign out there on loan from Saints.
Sasa Kalajdzic (LASK)
You might (not) remember the 6’7″ beanpole striker scoring a grand total of two Premier League goals across thirteen appearances for Wolves.
He spent four years on their books and only left permanently in the summer, joining LASK after featuring on loan in their Austrian double-winning campaign last term.
LASK faced Vida’s AEK in their opener. A battle straight out of Westeros, that.
Florian Thauvin (Lens)
We love a lesser-trodden career path.
Thauvin enjoyed two excellent spells with Marseille either side of his altogether more forgettable stint at Newcastle United. After that, he spent two years in Mexico with Tigres UANL before establishing himself as something of a cult hero at Udinese.
He signed for Lens last summer and was a surprisingly influential part of a side that challenged PSG for the Ligue 1 title, while he can consider himself genuinely unlucky to have missed out on Deschamps’ France squad in the summer.
The 33-year-old winger has scored three goals in three games for Lens so far this season and will be raring to go with a relatively forgiving league phase draw that includes Slavia Prague, Sporting Lisbon, Club Brugge, Como and RB Leipzig – before trickier tests against Liverpool and Manchester City after Christmas.
Nabil Bentaleb (Lille)
Tottenham “selling Elvis and signing The Beatles” feels like several lifetimes ago.
Of that motley crew of Gareth Bale replacements, Erik Lamela, Nacer Chadli, Roberto Soldado, Paulinho, Etienne Capoue and Vlad Chiriches have retired, while last man standing Christian Eriksen is very much on the downslope of his career in the German second tier with Wolfsburg.
We appear to have Mandela affected ourselves into remembering Bentaleb was one of that lot.
But he was an academy graduate who was emerging around the time that the not-so-magnificent seven were signed.
That explains why the Algerian is only 31 years of age and seemingly has plenty left in the tank. Like Eriksen, he made an unlikely return to the pitch after suffering a heart attack.
He’s now into his fourth season and second successive Champions League campaign with Lille, where he shares a dressing room with Kylian Mbappe’s little brother Ethan, ex-Saints left-back Romain Perraud and a 39-year-old(!) Olivier Giroud.
Kevin Wimmer (Slovan Bratislava)
All of a sudden we’re feeling pretty nostalgic about mid-2010s Tottenham.
The Austrian centre-back’s peak years were spent bouncing around without ever really making an impact.
He was on Stoke City’s books for four years, with loan spells at Hannover, Mouscron (who?) and Karlsruher SC yielding little of note, before he returned to Austria with Rapid Wien.
He’s since settled down at Slovan Bratislava, where the past three years have brought three Slovakian league titles.
Ivan Perisic (PSV)
We could’ve sworn that Perisic was on the verge of hanging up his boots for good when he joined Spurs as a grizzled veteran. That was four years ago.
The Croatia stalwart suffered an ACL injury during his time at Tottenham, while a return to his boyhood club Hajduk Split appeared destined to be his final chapter.
Barely anything came of that in the end and his contract was terminated by mutual consent before an unlikely Indian summer with PSV.
He’s won back-to-back Eredivisie titles with Peter Bosz’s all-action side and is once again gearing up for Champions League football. We included him in last year’s edition of this feature and he continues to impress us.
Andre Silva (Porto)
Last season, Jan Bednarek (along with Wout Faes, weirdly on loan at Monaco) ticked the ‘what are you doing here!?’ box in UEFA competition, with the Polish defender featuring in the Europa League.
And, to be fair to him, he’s made a pretty good fist of it. After a somewhat hapless time in the Premier League, Bednarek was by all accounts excellent in Porto’s Primeira Liga title triumph last season.
We’re therefore just about used to seeing Bednarek in these parts. Andre Silva, however, will take a little more getting used to.
The European journeyman is back at his boyhood club after most recently having a so-so stint with La Liga relegation battlers Elche.
Pablo Fornals (Real Betis)
Manuel Pellegrini’s Verdiblancos have a wonderfully fun squad. Republic of Ireland hero Troy Parrott joins roulette king Antony, questionable Bielsa-era Leeds signings Marc Roca, Diego Llorente and Junior Firpo and football’s most sustainably-minded socialist Hector Bellerin.
There’s also perpetually cheerful former West Ham fan favourite Fornals. Lovely stuff all round.
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