Stat of the Day | 76: Barça players in the European final
Barça have appeared in the final of Europe’s premier club competition eight times over the years, and won five of them (1992, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015). They had to make do with runners-up medal on the other three occasions (1961, 1986 and 1994). In total, 76 different players have featured in these games.
Barça lost 3-2 to Benfica in their first final, 1960/61. The eleven that played that ill-fated night in Bern were Ramallets, Foncho, Gensana, Gràcia, Vergés, Garay, Kubala, Kocsis, Evaristo, Suárez and Czibor.
That would be followed by a 25-year wait to go to the final again, in 1985/86, but once more there would be no trophy. Steaua Bucharest won on penalties after a 0.0 draw in Seville. The 13 players who wore the Barça shirt that night were Urruti, Gerardo, Migueli, Julio Alberto, Víctor, Alexanco, Carrasco, Schuster, Pedraza, Archibald, Marcos, Moratalla and Pichi Alonso.
In 1991/92, Barça finally got to lift the trophy at Wembley with a 1-0 defeat of Sampdoria. Alexanco was the only player to have also appeared in the final six years earlier, the other 12 were all newcomers: Zubizarreta, Nando, Ferrer, Koeman, Juan Carlos, Bakero, Salinas, Stòitxkov, Laudrup, Guardiola, Eusebio and Goikoetxea.
Two years later, 1993/94 brought that awful night in Athens, when Milan cruised to a 4-0 victory. Six players that night had not appeared in the previous final: Nadal, Sergi, Quique Estebaranz, Amor, Romario and Begiristain.
There have been four further appearances in the final since then, and Barça won them all, in 2006 (2-1 against Arsenal), 2009 (2-0 against Manchester United), 2011 (3-1 against Manchester United) and 2015 (3-1 against Juventus).
Those games added a further 34 names to the list, but we’re not going to tell you who they are. It’s up to you to guess!