To better highlight the whole field among Europe’s elite, we chose an XI that couldn’t feature more than one player from any one team. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
