7) Gianluigi Buffon
Another Italian legend who has never won the Champions League is Juventus and Italy national team goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. His status among the elite has already been set in stone.
He is the only goalkeeper to have won the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year award (2003) and he has won the Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year award a record nine times. He was also voted the best goalkeeper of the 21st century.
But the only honour missing in his cabinet is a Champions League medal. The closest he ever came to lifting the trophy was in 2003 when Juventus faced their arch-rivals AC Milan at Old Trafford (where the match went into a penalty shootout and Buffon managed to make two saves, denying Seedorf and Kaladze but failed to stop Shevchenko’s penalty that gave Milan the title) and in 2015 when they lost to a treble-winning Barcelona side.
He has already won a World Cup with Italy in 2006. Only a Champions League trophy remains to be won to complete his resume.
8) Francesco Totti
Totti is well known for being one of the most loyal one-club men and one of the finest players of this era. The striker, who also plays as a trequartista, has won the Serie A Footballer of the Year twice and Italian Footballer of the Year a record five times.
Totti is also the second highest goal scorer in the Serie A (highest among those still active) with 2350 League goals. Having debuted with Roma at the young age of 16, Totti is still playing for the club – now in his 25th season!
But The King of Rome has never won the Champions League with his beloved AS Roma. In fact, the only major honours he has ever won with the Italian club are the Serie A title in 2001 and the Coppa Italia twice in 2007 and 2008. He too has won many runners-up medals in Italy.
But in Europe, Roma were never a real force, with their best runs coming in 2007 and 2008 where they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Manchester United on both occasions. It’s very sad that one of Europe’s most popular football players may never win a Champions League trophy.
