Champions League: What happened the last time Lionel Messi & Cristiano Ronaldo didn't play? | OneFootball

Highlights

Following their moves to Saudi Arabia and the USA respectively, this season will be the first time in 21 seasons that neither of Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo will participate in the Champions League.

The two legends of football are the top two goalscorers in Champions League history, with Messi scoring 129 goals and Ronaldo scoring 140 goals in the competition. They have a combined eight Champions League titles to their name (Ronaldo with five, Messi with three) and also both appear in the top two for appearances, with only former Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas separating the pair.

Ronaldo played in the Champions League for three different clubs, Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Juventus, playing for United on two separate occasions. He also won the Champions League at two clubs, winning one title at United and four at Madrid. Messi played the majority of his games for Barcelona, where he won all of his three Champions League titles, before spending two seasons in France at Paris Saint-Germain.

The records do not stop there, however, Ronaldo also holds the record for most goals in a single season, with 17 in the 2013-14 campaign, and has a record seven Champions League Golden Boots to his name, with six of them in consecutive seasons. Messi also holds the record for the most goals in one match in the Champions League, with the five goals he scored against Bayer Leverkusen in 2012, joint with Luiz Adriano and Erling Haaland.

Both players also played in teams that are arguably the greatest in Champions League history. Ronaldo was key in Madrid’s success in the 2010s, where they won four out of five titles and the Portuguese international won the Golden Boot in every season in that run. Messi, meanwhile, scored in the 2010-11 final against Manchester United in a 3-1 victory at Wembley Stadium. There was also the team from the 2014-15 final, where they had a front three of Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suárez, where they beat Juventus 3-1 in Berlin.

The pair only shared the stage in a Champions League final once, way back in 2009 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, where goals from Samuel Eto’o and Messi gave Barcelona a 2-0 win over Ronaldo’s Manchester United.

So that raises the question, what happened in the Champions League the last time neither of them were active? Well, for that, we'd have to go all the way back to the 2002/2003 season, so let's do just that and take a look at what went down, from the winners to the player with the most assists.

The 2002-03 Champions League

This was the last season that neither of the pair participated in the competition, with it looking very different back then. Teams would have to get past two group stages to reach the knockouts, which began from the quarter-finals.

Barcelona would dominate their groups, winning 11 of the 12 games they played in the group stages, before losing to eventual finalists Juventus in the quarter-finals. Manchester United, Valencia, and Ajax would all reach the quarter-finals before being eliminated.

In the semi-finals, we would see an all-Italian clash between Milan rivals AC Milan and Inter Milan, along with two European giants going head-to-head in Real Madrid and Juventus.

The two Milan sides would play out a 0-0 draw in the first leg, with AC Milan as the home side, although both legs would be played at the San Siro due to the two sharing the stadium. AC Milan eventually took the lead in first half added time in the second leg through Andriy Shevchenko, meaning Inter would need to score twice due to AC’s away goal. Inter would get a goal back with under 10 minutes to go through Obafemi Martins, however, that was not enough and would see AC Milan progress on away goals.

At the Santiago Bernabeu, Real Madrid would beat Juventus 2-1, with Brazilian ‘R9’ Ronaldo opening the scoring before David Trezeguet equalised. Roberto Carlos gave Madrid the victory on the night giving them a lead to take to the Stadio Delle Alpi. Juventus would coast past Madrid, leading 3-0 after goals by Trezeguet, Alessandro Del Piero, and Pavel Nedved, before a goal by Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane in the 89th minute would lead to nervy final moments, however, Juventus held on and set up an all-Italian final against AC Milan.

The Final

In a final at Old Trafford, AC Milan beat Juventus on penalties after a 0-0 draw. This was their sixth Champions League win, which was, and still is, only bettered by Real Madrid.

Coming into the final, Juventus were the champions of Italy, with Milan coming 11 points behind. However, the sides faced each other twice in the Serie A, with both teams coming away with a 2-1 home win.

The game would feature many legends of the game, with the likes of Gianluigi Buffon, Lillian Thuram, Del Piero, and Trezeguet all starting for Juventus. Milan’s team consisted of Alessandro Nesta, Paolo Maldini, Clarence Seedorf, and Filippo Inzaghi to highlight just a few. The managers of the sides were Marcelo Lippi and Carlo Ancelotti.

In the penalty shootout, five players out of 10 would miss their spot kicks, leaving Shevchenko with the chance to win the Champions League, with a penalty which he sent Juventus’ Buffon the wrong way. Milan’s captain Maldini received Man of the Match; he also was the only player that year to feature in all 17 possible games in the competition.

Who scored the most goals & got the most assists?

Manchester United’s Ruud van Nistelrooy was the reigning Golden Boot holder, after scoring 10 goals in his debut campaign for United in the Champions League. He would then repeat this feat in the next season, with 12 goals in five fewer games to the previous season. The top 10 scorers would consist of football superstars at the time, with Inzaghi, Hernan Crespo, Raul, Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, and Alan Shearer all featuring in the top 10.

Meanwhile, Valencia’s Pablo Aimar and Milan’s Rui Costa would share the most assists in the season with five each. Real Madrid’s Raul would be the only player to feature in the top 10 for goals and assists after scoring nine and assisting four.