🎥 The 10 greatest goals in Champions League history | OneFootball

Cristiano Ronaldo’s overhead kick took the world’s breath away on Tuesday evening but how does it rank in Champions League history?

Well, we don’t know.

Goals are notoriously hard to rank because everyone has different tastes – perfect team play, spectacular individual skill, solo efforts?

Does the goal have to be as unique as possible? That certainly helps.

And the significance? It’s a lot harder to remember group stage goals and scoring when your side is already four goals up is not quite the same but those goals deserve some consideration, even if the weighting works against them.

We’ve done our best to take all of the above into account so, without further ado, here are our 10 best goals in Champions League history.

Here goes nothing…

10: Frank Lampard v Barcelona

We can’t think of another goal like this, not on this stage. A forgotten moment of genius and a deft piece of skill.

And yes, he meant it.

9: Claudio López v PSV Eindhoven

Volleys are hard and they look great but it feels like there’s so often luck involved, an element of hit and hope.

That wasn’t the case here – López swivelled and simultaneously controlled and smashed the ball all in one touch. All the more better having come from a long pass.

8: Juninho v Bayern Munich

If we were going to include a free-kick (and we were always going to) it had to be one from Juninho.

The master of the dead ball hit his best ever against Bayern Munich and, for bonus points, sent a bewildered Oliver Kahn crashing into his post.

7: Cristiano Ronaldo v Ajax

Team goals often get overlooked. They aren’t spectacular enough  for some people, we guess. Those people are wrong.

Ronaldo has scored every type of goal imaginable but it’s unfairly forgotten that Mourinho’s Madrid was a breathtaking counter-attacking machine.

This was them at their very best: swift, destructive, elegant, unstoppable.

6: Lionel Messi v Bayern Munich

Jérôme Boateng was the best defender in the world at the time, Manuel Neuer the best goalkeeper and Pep Guardiola was considered the best coach as he returned to Camp Nou.

Lionel Messi made all three of them look absolutely ridiculous.

You can almost hear someone in the distance shout ‘TIMBER!’ as the Argentine sends Boateng spinning before he chips Neuer with his ‘weak’ foot.

5: Thierry Henry v Real Madrid

The Bernabéu has seen some unbelievable players and even more unbelievable goals but this still seemed to take them by surprise.

Perhaps the most impressive thing is that four players actually get close to Henry but it looks like nobody does. His long stride takes him away from one, two, three Galácticos and he strikes just as a young Sergio Ramos arrives.

For a man who specialised in them, this was probably the best solo goal of his career.

4: Dejan Stanković  v Schalke

Oh, a halfway line volley? That’s cool.

Yeah it’s cool and it’s even cooler when it comes at San Siro within the opening minute of a Champions League game.

Poor Manuel Neuer couldn’t believe his luck.

3: Cristiano Ronaldo v Juventus

Maybe the best goal of Ronaldo’s 649 career goals to date. Yes, really.

The five metre dash to reach it. The seven foot leap. The connection while almost upside down and still moving backwards in midair. Perfectly into the corner.

All around the stadium, Juventus fans stood up to applaud. That says it all.

2: Zinedine Zidane v Bayer Leverkusen

A scorer in two World Cup finals, Zidane was a man for the occasion. He lived up to it once again in the 2002 Champions League final.

Roberto Carlos’ cross seems to spend an age in the air as Zidane sets himself, waiting for it to drop.

The most striking thing is  just how high the Frenchman gets his leg as he makes contact with the ball.

For many it’s the greatest goal ever scored in European football, but…

1: Lionel Messi v Real Madrid

At the height of Pep Guardiola’s rivalry with José Mourinho, his greatest pupil secured a place in history. Sometimes you can just sense something special is unravelling right before you and this goal was exactly that.

Like he usually does, Sergio Busquets saw it before the rest of us, stopping the ball dead before allowing Messi to do the rest.

The two biggest and best clubs in the world, the most competitive rivalry in the world, was decided within the blink of an eye.