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There have been a litany of awesome players in the UEFA Champions League down the years, so much so that creating an Ultimate XI is a task that could, in theory, drive one to madness.
Luckily for you, and by extension, your sanity, UEFA has done all the heavy lifting by creating an all-time Ultimate Team Of The Year. They put this together simply by cramming all the players that have featured the most in a TOTY into one slightly awkward looking 4-3-3 formation. That being said, it's all of you wonderful people who vote for TOTY, so maybe the lifting wasn't quite that heavy on UEFA's part. Whatever. Moving on...
Team of the Year 2016 vote launches Monday!
Who has featured the most amount of times down the years? Meet the all-time XI. #TOTY pic.twitter.com/z7wpXpAVJv— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) November 18, 2016
Not surprisingly, there are a lot of Barcelona players in here. There's Lionel Messi (because duh), Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol, who were all part of the Barcelona teams that won four Champions League titles in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015 (with the exceptions of Pique, who won it with Manchester United in 2008, and Puyol who had retired before the 2015 triumph).
So basically, UEFA's XI is that unstoppable Barcelona side plus some other dudes. Although those other dudes are pretty damn good.
Ronaldo has been included in the Team of the Year 10 times, 3 more than any other player.
— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) November 18, 2016
We have Cristiano Ronaldo (again, duh), along with his Madrid compatriots Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas. Thierry Henry fills out the final slot of that world-demolishing front three, while the cerebral Philip Lahm and the Hero of Istanbul himself, Steven Gerrard, make up the rest.
It's a pretty fearsome XI, although we're not sure about Sergio Ramos at right-back, and the absence of Gigi Buffon just feels...well...wrong. Gerrard, for all his heroics, is also a bit of a surprise pick, seeing as he has only one Champions League title in his locker.
But hey, that's just us. Who do you think got snubbed? Who would you put in your all-time XI?
