The UEFA Champions League is one of the most followed competitions in the world. Top clubs across Europe all target the Champions League as winning it crowns them as the best club in Europe if not the world.
There have been a lot of goals scored in the competition and unsurprisingly the list of top scorers is dominated by strikers and forwards like Ronaldo, Messi and Raul. However, there have been a lot of midfielders as well who have left a mark on this competition by scoring some important and stunning goals.
We take a look at the 10 best goal scoring midfielders of the Champions League era:
Note: Only central midfielders have been included, players who solely played as wingers and attacking midfielders have not been considered.
#10 Deco – 13 goals
Deco has played for some of the biggest clubs across Europe such as Porto, Barcelona and Chelsea. The Brazilian-born Portuguese midfielder has won the Champions League with both Porto and Barcelona.
Deco was a versatile, tactically intelligent, and creative midfielder, with excellent vision and technical ability. He was a generous team player and created plenty of goals and provided a lot of assists in his distinguished career.
He was initially deployed as a central midfielder by Jose Mourinho, but he is also capable of playing as a deep-lying playmaker. In addition to creating goals for his team-mates, Deco also contributed some important goals himself.
He possessed accurate shooting ability and he was an expert at free-kicks. Even though he lacked the stamina and physical ability, he more than made up for it by his passing, dribbling and shooting skills.
Deco scored 13 goals in the Champions League with all of his goals coming during his stint at Porto and Barcelona.
#9 Ivan Helguera – 15 goals
Ivan Helguera had a long and distinguished career at clubs such as Roma, Valencia and Real Madrid. The Spaniard played in a defensive midfielder role and yet he scored many important goals with most of them coming during his time at Real Madrid.
Helguera has won the Champions League twice with Real Madrid in the 1999/2000 and 2001/2002 season. The importance of Helguera is seen by the fact that he nearly won 50 caps for the Spanish national side and he even represented them during the 2002 World Cup.
Helguera enjoyed 8 successful seasons with Real Madrid from 1999-2007 before he moved to Valencia. What made his goalscoring exploits all the more exemplary was the fact that the Spaniard usually played in a defensive role for his team.
Helguera scored some very important goals in the Champions League.
#8 Michael Ballack – 16 goals
German legend Michael Ballack has had a long and fruitful career. The German midfielder has played in the Champions League with three clubs – Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Chelsea. Ballack was known for his passing range, powerful shot, physical strength and commanding presence in midfield.
One of the most complete and versatile players in the world, Ballack initially started playing as a sweeper before he was moved to a more advanced position. In Chelsea,he played the deep lying midfielder’s role to perfection.
On a technical level, he was a physically aggressive player and moved the ball efficiently. The technicality and intelligence of his game was extremely high and he possessed a powerful shot through which he scored some stunning long-range goals in his career.
Although Ballack made it to the Champions League finals twice in his career, he failed to win the competition in his distinguished career.
#7 Lucho Gonzalez – 18 goals
Lucho is probably the least flamboyant player on this list, but the Argentine is amongst the rare breed of midfielders with an eye for a goal and good long range shooting ability. Additionally he was a hard working player with good passing skills. He spent nine years in Europe with two separate stints with Porto on either side of his time at Marseille.
He last played in the Champions League in the 2013/14 season, where he was the standout performer for a below par Porto side which got knocked out in the Champions League group stage.
Lucho is well known for his fierce shot, passing skills and hardworking style, being affectionately known as El Comandante due to his leadership skills. The veteran Argentine was one of the key players in midfield for both Porto and Marseille in his long and distinguished career.
Lucho who is now 35 is playing for Argentine side River Plate.
#6 Juninho Pernambucano
The Brazilian is renowned for his free-kicks and is widely considered to be the greatest free-kick specialist of all time. A perfect example of his sheer brilliance is his impact on another free-kick specialist Andrea Pirlo. The Italian openly admitted that he had spent hours to try and study Juninho’s technique and the duo met in Brazil during the 2014 World Cup.
Juninho spent eight seasons in Europe and all of them were with French side Olympique Lyon who had never won a league title prior to his arrival, but went on to win 7 league titles on the trot in his first seven seasons at the club.
Although Juninho didn’t win any European titles during his time in France, he still managed to score some sensational goals in the UEFA Champions League. His stunning long-range free-kicks are still remembered fondly by many Lyon supporters.
#5 Luis Enrique – 19 goals
Current Barcelona manager Luis Enrique enjoyed a pretty successful spell at Real Madrid for 5 seasons winning a La Liga title in the 1994/95 season. Enrique stayed till his contract ran out and moved on a free transfer to Real Madrid’s huge rivals Barcelona in 1996.
The Catalan club’s fans were initially hesitant about their new acquisition but Enrique won their hearts by staying 8 seasons at the Camp Nou and scoring many times in the El Clasico against Real Madrid. Although the Spaniard spent 5 seasons at Real Madrid, he made a controversial statement saying: " I rarely felt appreciated by the Real Madrid supporters and didn't have good memories there.”
Although he played at two of Spain’s biggest clubs, he failed to win the UEFA Champions League title in his career. When he announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 34, he had racked up 144 goals in club competition while averaging over 1 goal per every 4 games which is exceptional for a midfielder.
#4 Cesc Fabregas – 19 goals
Although Chelsea will not be playing in the Champions League next season, Cesc Fabregas will definitely be hopeful of adding some more goals in the Champions League before calling time on his career. Still only 28, the Spaniard has played for three of the biggest clubs in the world – Arsenal, Chelsea and Barcelona.
The Spaniard scored the majority of his goals in Europe with Arsenal where he was the club captain. In fact his first Champions league goal which was for Arsenal made him the second youngest scorer in the tournament. The following season he started the Champions League final for Arsenal against his future employers Barcelona in a losing cause.
Between 2006-2011, Fabregas created the most chances in the top-division leagues of England, Spain,Italy and France. At Chelsea, he played a slightly deeper creative role but he was still very effective as he provided numerous assists during their successful campaign in the 2014/15 season.
Although he is mainly noted for his assists, Fabregas has also popped up with important goals throughout his career.
#3 Steven Gerrard – 21goals
Steven Gerrard is the one truly world class player who stuck with Liverpool throughout their good and bad times. A one-club man, Gerrard is a creative midfielder with limitless energy, who is renowned for scoring crucial goals at crucial times. A real leader, Gerrard is a tireless runner and has superb vision. A true hero at Anfield, Gerrard truly deserves the word ‘legend’.
Gerrard has had some of his best moments in the Champions League having played a pivotal role in Liverpool’s 2005 Champions League triumph. His goals against Olympiakos and AC Milan are still remembered fondly by the Liverpool faithful.
His return of 21 goals in the Champions League is all the more impressive as Liverpool did not qualify for the Champions League too regularly in the later stages of his career.
An inspirational midfielder and captain who almost single-handedly won Liverpool the Champions League, Gerrard is the third highest goal scoring midfielder in Europe’s premier club competition.
#2 Frank Lampard – 23 goals
A three-time Chelsea Player of the year and the club’s top scorer with 211 goals, Lampard has been an amazing player for Chelsea. His goalscoring exploits have been absolutely sensational right throughout his distinguished career.
He has been deployed as a central midfielder, as an attacking midfielder ,and as a defensive midfielder on occasions. A hard-working player with stamina and an ability to read the game, Lampard is also capable of functioning creatively, due to his technique, vision, and passing range.
In addition to his creative and defensive midfield roles, Lampard also possesses a keen eye for goal, due to his ability to make attacking runs, and his accurate, powerful shot from distance.These attributes enabled him to maintain a prolific goalscoring record throughout his career, despite his deep playing position. Lampard is also an accurate set-piece and penalty kick taker.
Lampard has scored goals against many European giants in his career, most notably on more than one occasion against the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Liverpool.
#1 Paul Scholes – 24 goals
The former Manchester United man scored less number of goals in the Premier League in comparison to his compatriots Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, but is much ahead of the two when it comes to the number of goals scored in Europe’s elite competition. However, Lampard and Gerrard are still active and therefore can still overtake Scholes.
Scholes won the tournament with Manchester United on two occasions and has finished second best with Manchester United on two occasions.
He was key to Manchester United’s treble success in 1998-99. The Englishman scored an away goal against Internazionale in the quarter final which put the tie out of the Italian side’s reach. Although Scholes was instrumental in United’s road to the final, he picked up a yellow card in the semi-final which ruled him out of the final against Bayern Munich through suspension.
The most important goal that he scored was probably the one he scored against Barcelona in 2008. It was the semifinal of the Champions League and the first leg finished 0-0 at the Nou Camp. In the second leg the game was evenly poised at 0-0 when Scholes picked up the ball from around 40 yards from goal, took a couple of touches and fired it in. United qualified for the final thanks to that goal and eventually won the tournament.
