In the game, the Champions League follows the `groups32` format: 32 clubs split into eight groups of four, with the group stage played over two legs — home and away, six games — followed by four knockout rounds: round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final. The first three are always played over two legs; the final is always a single game, on neutral ground. Winning everything from the group stage to the title is thirteen games without losing — the six group games plus the six from the three two-legged knockout rounds plus the final: this competition's 13-0 seal. The database has seventy-one editions seeded, without a gap, from 1955-56 to 2025-26.
There is a detail worth noting: Cristiano Ronaldo has two rare cards in this competition. One is the 100 — the 2013-14 edition, the one with seventeen goals in a single season and the Décima —, the other is the 99 left winger, from the 2012-13 edition. A player has at most three distinct ratings per competition, and the special-rarity cards are the exception to that rule: it is what allows both. It is the same competition recognising two different campaigns from the same player, with distinct cards for each.
The competition's all-time great
Cristiano Ronaldo — 2013-14
Cristiano Ronaldo is the competition's all-time top scorer — across both eras, the European Cup and the Champions League —, its all-time top assister and the player with the most free-kick goals. Within the Champions League era, which began in 1992-93, he is also the one with the most goals in finals and semi-finals — the criterion for the 100 in this database is dominating the competition's entire history, not a single campaign. The chosen card is from 2013-14, the year of seventeen goals in a single edition — an all-time record for the competition — and of the Décima, Real Madrid's tenth European title; the Mr. Champions title doesn't come from that one season, it comes from the career as a whole, and the season is only the one that best shows it.
GK
Iker Casillas — 2001-02
Iker Casillas won three Champions League titles with Real Madrid — 2000, 2002 and 2014 — and captained the side that lifted the Décima in 2014, after a career built on decisive saves that closed out finals. The card is from the 2001-02 edition, the second of the three.
RB
Dani Carvajal — 2023-24
Dani Carvajal won six Champions League titles with Real Madrid — 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2024 —, six finals played and six won, a record no other right-back in the competition's history matches. He also scored in one of them: the 74th-minute goal in the 2024 final, against Borussia Dortmund. He has held this spot since September 2026: the previous owner, Dani Alves, has three Champions League titles with FC Barcelona, four finals played and an assist in the 2015 one — half the titles, and a rung below on what decides this competition, the act inside the knockout rounds. The card is from the 2023-24 season, the one with the sixth title and the goal that sealed it.
CB
Paolo Maldini — 2006-07
Paolo Maldini won five European titles and played eight finals for AC Milan — no defender in the competition's history has done more. Two of those titles (1988-89 and 1989-90) were still won as the European Cup, the competition's name before 1992-93. He is the first of the two centre-backs in the Champions League's icon eleven: the game gives that position two spots because every formation needs at least two centre-backs, and an all-blue eleven would be impossible with just one. The card is from the 2006-07 edition, one of the five.
CB
Sergio Ramos — 2013-14
Sergio Ramos played four Champions League finals and won all four, scoring in two of them: the 90+3 header in the Décima final, in 2014, and another in 2016, where he was named man of the match. The card is from the Décima edition itself, 2013-14 — the same season as the 100 card.
LB
Roberto Carlos — 2001-02
Roberto Carlos won three Champions League titles with Real Madrid — 1998, 2000 and 2002 — and set up the most iconic goal ever scored in one of the competition's finals: Zidane's volley, in 2002. The card is from that same edition.
CDM
Sergio Busquets — 2010-11
Sergio Busquets was the holding midfielder of the FC Barcelona side that won three Champions League titles — 2009, 2011 and 2015 — the player who defined the position in this competition. The card is from 2010-11.
CM
Luka Modrić — 2017-18
Luka Modrić won six Champions League titles with Real Madrid — more than any other midfielder in the competition's history. The card is from the 2017-18 edition.
CAM
Clarence Seedorf — 2006-07
Clarence Seedorf is the only player, among the 1,474 in this competition, to have won it with THREE different clubs: Ajax in 1994-95, Real Madrid in 1997-98, and AC Milan in 2002-03 and 2006-07 — four titles in all, with twelve years between the first and the last. Across every squad this game holds, from 1955-56 to today, nobody else has that feat. The card is from the last of those four titles, 2006-07, the one that closes the twelve-year span. In this competition, a title means having been in the champion squad — 11 to 16 players —, not having started the final: games and appearances by season don't exist in any file here, and it is worth saying so rather than letting the sentence sound more precise than it is.
This card used to belong to Zinedine Zidane, who scored the goal that decided the 2002 final — the volley in Glasgow, assisted by Roberto Carlos — but won this competition only once, against Seedorf's four. The swap didn't come from the rating: Zidane's 96 isn't even the lone top score for this position — it is tied with Ronaldinho, followed by Kaká and Platini on 95 and De Bruyne on 94, and every one of them, Zidane included, has a single title to their name. This competition's ratings have never gone through the recalibration tool that the game's other competitions already use, so they couldn't decide this pick. Isco and Héctor Rial also have four titles each, but all four of theirs came inside the same Real Madrid; Seedorf's came from three clubs and two eras of the competition — a record of the competition itself, not a question of who was more of a protagonist.
RW
Lionel Messi — 2010-11
Lionel Messi won four Champions League titles with FC Barcelona and scored 129 goals in the competition. The chosen card, 2010-11, is the one this competition's curation marks as his best individual campaign playing for Barça.
LW
Cristiano Ronaldo — 2012-13
Cristiano Ronaldo won five Champions League titles and is the competition's all-time record scorer, with over 140 goals. This position's card is from the 2012-13 edition — the following season, 2013-14, is the one that earns him the 100 in this competition, not this one.
ST
Alfredo Di Stéfano — 1959-60
Alfredo Di Stéfano won the first five editions of the European Cup, between 1956 and 1960, and scored in all five finals. The card is from the last of those five, 1959-60.