This year we are picking a team of the season with a difference: I am allowed only one player per team. Of course, as finalists Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal have players with claims to all of these positions, so apologies to Willian Pacho and Declan Rice, among others. But what this format does allow for is an overall view of the Champions League season that was.
Goalkeeper: David Raya (Arsenal)
Even as Arsenal lost the final’s penalty shootout to PSG in Budapest, Raya was heroic, making a save from Nuno Mendes. During the game itself, Raya’s decision-making was up to the standards of his exemplary season. He closed out the Champions League campaign with nine clean sheets, having conceded just five goals in 14 matches. Robert Andrich’s header from a corner for Bayer Leverkusen was the last non-penalty to beat Raya in the competition, and it came in the round of 16.
Right-back: Pedro Porro (Tottenham)
Yes, a Spurs player made the cut. Remember Thomas Frank? A decent record in Europe served as a fig leaf for the Dane’s unpopular regime. Spurs managed to finish fourth in the group stage, and Porro’s skills as an overlapping full-back were to the fore, such that he has recently been linked with a return to Manchester City, where he spent three years as part of the club’s loan army.
Centre-back: Alessandro Bastoni (Inter)
Although this season will be remembered as the one where Bastoni’s red card in the playoff against Bosnia wrecked Italy’s chances of making the World Cup, he remains his nation’s best defender. Inter, runaway Serie A champions, remained stingy in defence in the Champions League, conceding just seven in the group stage, with Bastoni as their organiser and deep-lying playmaker.
Centre-back: Odin Bjørtuft (Bodø/Glimt)
The Norwegian club from the Arctic Circle were the romantic story of the season, beating Manchester City, Atlético Madrid and Inter before surprisingly losing heavily to Sporting in the last 16. If Jens Petter Hauge was the headline maker off the left wing, it was a defence led by Bjørtuft that laid the foundations. He ranked third in ball recoveries, on 81, behind only PSG’s Mendes and Pacho.
Left-back: Matteo Ruggeri (Atlético Madrid)
Another Italian, and a player who represents the latest stage of Diego Simeone’s dynasty at Atlético. Ruggeri set up Alexander Sørloth’s goal in a crucial quarter-final first-leg win at Barcelona, helping the club to the semis for the first time since 2016-17. Ruggeri, who joined Atleti from Atalanta last summer, is very much a Simeone player; a defender first and foremost. He was assigned to Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal in that quarter-final and lived to tell the tale even when the teenager was showing off his full array of tricks.
Defensive midfielder: Morten Hjulmand (Sporting)
Though they surrendered their Portuguese title, Sporting had a fine Champions League season, finishing in the top eight of the group stage among five English teams, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Their Danish captain was at the fulcrum, though he was sorely missed for the first leg of an attritional two-legged quarter-final with Arsenal. Hjulmand is set to be heavily featured in summer transfer talk as a midfielder of poise and tenacity.
Central midfielder: Aleix García (Bayer Leverkusen)
Leverkusen’s run to the last 16 was something of a surprise in a disappointing European season for Bundesliga clubs. García, a well-travelled former Manchester City youngster, serves as his team’s metronome, completing 91.25% of his passes. He scored a spectacular group-stage goal against PSG, leaving their goalkeeper, Lucas Chevalier, flat-footed with the venom of his shot.
Central midfielder: Dominik Szoboszlai (Liverpool)
The postscript to Liverpool’s unhappy season was Arne Slot’s departure on Saturday, although few others escaped with credit. Szoboszlai was among the exceptions. There has been talk of the Hungarian ascending to club captaincy, and it makes sense considering that when Liverpool were good, he was usually at the centre of it. Often asked to play at full-back, his best football came as the marauding midfielder he was bought as. He rattled in five goals in 12 Champions League matches, and was star man when Liverpool smashed Galatasaray 4-0 at Anfield. His opening goal set the tone for a rare Liverpool high point.
Left-wing: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (PSG)
Left-wing is where many of the best players could be found in 2025-26, sometimes even within the same club, with Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé both wanting to play there for Real Madrid. Bodø/Glimt’s Hauge was one of the season’s stars. Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon won himself a move to Barcelona with 10 Champions League goals from that position. There can, though, be little doubt that Kvaratskhelia has been the best of them all. Though he was not at his best in the final, as he left the field exhausted and battered, there were still moments of class. Over the season, his bewildering mix of orthodox left-wing play and the explosive power he generates places “Kvaradonna” above the rest.
Right-wing: Lamine Yamal (Barcelona)
Injuries and growing pains slowed the progress of football’s most exciting talent this season, but there have been enough shards of brilliance to make him an inevitable choice here. There are moments when he pulls off skills that would have been beyond Messi and Ronaldo at their peak. In a losing effort against Atlético in the quarter-final, Lamine Yamal was often incredible, with one spin beyond two defenders followed by a 50-yard diagonal to Marcus Rashford on the opposite flank a vignette of pure footballing genius. Pray for his good health at the World Cup.
Striker: Harry Kane (Bayern Munich)
Mbappé outscored Kane’s total of 14 by a single goal this season, but the Englishman gets the nod here as he has shown another side of himself within Vincent Kompany’s exciting Bayern Munich. Kane has always been about more than merely plundering goals, and the creative edge he showed at Tottenham with Son Heung-min was replicated this season in his keen understanding with Bayern’s flying wingers, Michael Olise and Luis Díaz. Kane has been a worthy successor to Robert Lewandowski at Bayern, totalling 61 goals overall for his club this season.
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