10 oldest goalscorers in Champions League history | OneFootball

Highlights

The Champions League is almost certainly the ultimate prize in club football and sees the very best sides in Europe come up against each other every year. This means that it also sees the game's very best players battle it out with one another as they aim for glory.

Some of the greatest players of their generation are best remembered for their exploits in the Champions League, with Cristiano Ronaldo going down as the greatest goalscorer (140) in the competition's history as he lifted the trophy five times with Manchester United and Real Madrid. Lionel Messi is second on that list with 129, and it was his performances that pushed Barcelona to two titles in the space of three years between 2009 and 2011.

Over the years, there have been many household names within the competition as their longevity has allowed them to compete at the highest levels across multiple decades and leave a lasting impression. Ronaldo has also made more appearances in the Champions League than anyone else with 183 across 19 years between 2003 and 2022.

However, due to him only being 36 when he scored his final Champions League goal, for Man United against Villarreal in November 2021, the Portuguese superstar just misses out on the list of the 10 oldest goalscorers in Champions League history. Join GIVEMESPORT as we find out who does make it onto the list.

10 Laurent Blanc

Laurent Blanc was a grizzled veteran of the game when he signed for Manchester United in August 2001. At the age of 35, he was hastily brought in as a replacement for Jaap Stam, who had recently left for Lazio, and initially, the Frenchman found himself unpopular with United fans, who were angry at the decision to sell Stam.

However, Blanc ended up proving a reliable presence at the back in his two seasons in England, making 75 appearances in all competitions and weighing in with several important goals, including a bullet header in a 3-2 win over Olympiakos in October 2002. The Frenchman would retire at the end of that season.

9 Olivier Giroud

Olivier Giroud has sometimes gone under the radar as a prolific goalscorer throughout his career. As of 2023, he is France's record goalscorer with 56 out of 128 caps and has scored 24 Champions League goals across 11 years of playing in the competition.

His latest came in a 2-1 win over PSG in November 2023, with a towering header that ended up being the winner for his AC Milan side. The Frenchman had signed for the Italian giants after nine years of relative success in London with Arsenal and Chelsea, and he continued to bang in the goals for Milan despite being in his late thirties.

8 Edin Dzeko

Edin Dzeko is an established goalscorer in European football who was prolific at Wolfsburg, Manchester City and Roma before he signed for Inter Milan as a 35-year-old in 2021. The Bosnian immediately hit the ground running for the Italian giants, scoring 17 goals in 49 appearances in his first season at the club, and his second campaign, he played a starring role as Simone Inzaghi's side launched an unlikely bid for the Champions League crown.

In the semi-finals, they were drawn to face deadly rivals AC Milan across two legs and in their first clash, the forward got his side off to a dream start as he held off his marker to volley home from a corner after just seven minutes. Inter won the tie by an aggregate score of 3-0, and the 37-year-old Dzeko started in the final against his former employers Man City, who edged the match 1-0.

7 Luka Modric

Luka Modric is one of the greatest midfielders of his generation and his performances for Real Madrid and Croatia in the year of 2018 saw him become the first player since Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo to win the Ballon d'Or in 11 years. His longevity is another aspect of his game that will see him go down in football history.

The Croatian made his professional debut in 2003 and twenty years later, he was still one of the first names on the teamsheet for Real Madrid at the age of 38. Modric is also one of the most decorated players in Champions League history, with five trophies to his name, and he became one of the competition's oldest-ever goalscorers in November 2022, when he scored a penalty in a 5-1 rout for Los Blancos over Celtic.

6 Javier Zanetti

Javier Zanetti was similarly renowned for his longevity during his playing career and spent nineteen years at Inter Milan between 1995 and 2014, making 858 appearances before retiring at the age of 40. Despite being a regular starter throughout his time in Italy, he only weighed in with 21 goals for the club due to being deployed as either a right-back or a defensive midfielder.

Zanetti only ever scored twice in the Champions League and his second goal came in October 2010 when, at the age of 37, he finished off a free-flowing Inter move to give them the lead against Tottenham. Sadly for the Argentinian, his first goal in almost three years was overshadowed by a stunning hat-trick from Gareth Bale, who terrorised Zanetti down the left flank all night and announced himself on the world stage.

5 Filippo Inzaghi

Filippo Inzaghi is an iconic name in Champions League history. The striker is the 11th-highest goalscorer in the competition's history with 46, including both goals in the 2007 final as his AC Milan side got revenge on Liverpool, after the Reds memorably came from three goals down to beat the Italians in the final two years before.

Inzaghi was 34 years old at that time, but he continued to frequently find the net for Milan for the next five seasons and continued to shine in the Champions League in particular. His final contribution to the competition came in November 2010 when he scored a ten-minute brace to turn a tie with Real Madrid on its head, although unfortunately for the 37-year-old, Leon would equalise for Los Blancos in the dying embers.

4 Sergio Ramos

As of December 2023, only eight players have made more Champions League apperances than Sergio Ramos, who will go down as one of the most decorated players in the competition's history. He won four Champions League titles with Real Madrid, captaining the club to three of them, and made over 140 appearances in the competition, weighing in with a total of 16 goals - an impressive total for a defender.

In 2021, Ramos left Los Blancos after 16 years at the Bernabeu and spent two years with PSG before returning to Sevilla, the team he'd started his career with, in the summer of 2023 and typically, his first goal in this second spell for the club came in the Champions League. The commanding centre-back got on the end of Ivan Rakitic's delightful free-kick to give his side the lead against PSV, although the Dutch side would come back to win 3-2, making this the only goal on this list that was scored in a defeat.

3 Ryan Giggs

Ryan Giggs was another player renowned for his longevity and enjoyed an immensely successful career spent solely with Manchester United. In 24 years at Old Trafford, the Welshman won 13 Premier League titles, four FA Cups, four League Cups and two Champions League and played 963 matches.

For a long time, Giggs held the distinction of being the only player to score in every Premier League season from 1992 to 2014 and as of December 2023, he is the seventh-highest appearance maker in Champions League history. His final goal in the competition came in September 2011, in the shape of a powerful strike to level the score against Benfica, which he scored less than three months before his 38th birthday.

2 Francesco Totti

We move from one famous one-club man to another. Francesco Totti joined his boyhood club AS Roma's youth ranks in 1989 and didn't leave the club until 2017, during which time he made 786 appearances and scored 307 goals before hanging up his boots at the grand old age of 40.

Had Totti wanted to leave his beloved Roma, he could have notched up considerably more than the 56 appearances and 12 goals in the Champions League he ended his career with, as he was an incredible talent who frequently drew the interest of Europe's top clubs. He scored his final goal in the competition at the age of 38, with a rocket of a free-kick to give La Lupa the lead in a group stage match away at CSKA Moscow in November 2014.

1 Pepe

In November 2023, Pepe became the first player in his forties to score a goal in Champions League history. The fearsome centre-back had spent a successful ten years with Real Madrid, winning the competition on three occasions, before embarking on an 18-month spell with Besiktas and then joining Porto for a second time in his career, aged 35.

He immediately became a regular starter for the Portuguese side and remained so heading into the 2023/24 season despite being 40 years old. The captain's first goal of the campaign came in a 2-0 win over Royal Antwerp in the group stage, when he met Francisco Conceicao's back-post cross with a towering header to become the oldest goalscorer in Champions League history.