How often does the best team in Europe actually win the Champions League?

How often has the modern Champions League offered up the best champion? Miguel Delaney takes a closer look at the history of Europe's premier club competition

Does the best team always win the Champions League? (Getty)

At the heart of club football’s greatest competition, there is a great contradiction. The Champions League - as the old European Cup - was set up to decide Europe’s best team, but it isn’t really designed to do so. It is a competition that only ends up with the most rightful winner some of the time, and by coincidence rather than organisation.

The reasons for this are obvious, and universal to all knock-out competitions. You don’t have to play well that often to go far, freak one-off performances can have a hugely disproportionate multiplying effect, and the low number of consequential games means basic luck can have an even bigger effect. Sides can also develop that rare kind of cup momentum, where they the very occasion seems to transform them.

So, once through the group stages, a team can genuinely get to the final with just two or three properly top performances, the right draws, and riding their luck a bit. See Chelsea 2012 for that. That kind of run, meanwhile, can also suddenly eliminate a side having a sensational season who suffer one bad night. See Liverpool 2005 against Chelsea for that.

The route to last season’s final offered a classic example of the contrast. While Atletico Madrid put in four genuinely epic performances to beat two of the best sides in Europe Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Real Madrid were nowhere near that convincing. They were well beaten by an inferior side in Wolfsburg 2-0, before obviously greater individual quality carried them through, and then creaked past a limp Manchester City in two very flat last-four games. The Madrid derby of a final still swung on a series of sliding-door moments like Antoine Greizmann’s penalty and Cristiano Ronaldo’s big miss, before being decided by a shoot-out, and both had already finished behind Barcelona in the league. The Catalans had really just suffered one bad three-week spell at precisely the wrong time in what was really a rapturously good season. It can happen, and has happened to many great teams.

So, with that in mind, how often has the modern Champions League offered up the best champion?

There are a few obvious qualifiers here. First of all, it’s pretty obvious that you have had to won your league or at least gone very close as a defending champion, although it should also be accepted that some teams will naturally focus on Europe having first won the league. Performance level and the manner of elimination is key, and how out of synch the decisive match was with their general campaign, or how much it was conditioned by fundamental luck.

Season Winners / Best team

Season	Winner	Best team
1992/93	Marseille	Milan
1993/94	Milan	Milan
1994/95	Ajax	Ajax
1995/96	Juventus	Juventus
1996/97	Borussia Dortmund	Juventus
1997/98	Real Madrid	Juventus
1998/99	Manchester United	Manchester United
1999/00	Real Madrid	Bayern Munich
2000/01	Bayern Munich	Bayern Munich
2001/02	Real Madrid	Real Madrid
2002/03	Milan	Real Madrid
2003/04	Porto	Arsenal
2004/05	Liverpool	Chelsea
2005/06	Barcelona	Barcelona
2006/07	Milan	Chelsea
2007/08	Manchester United	Manchester United
2008/09	Barcelona	Barcelona
2009/10	Inter	Barcelona
2010/11	Barcelona	Barcelona
2011/12	Chelsea	Barcelona
2012/13	Bayern Munich	Bayern Munich
2013/14	Real Madrid	Atletico Madrid
2014/15	Barcelona	Barcelona
2015/16	Real Madrid	Barcelona

Pep Guardiola and Barcelona celebrate winning the Champions League in 2011 (Getty)

So, how often has the Champions League thrown up the most rightful winner? We say 10 out of 24. Here’s why.

1992-93: even before you get to the fact Marseille were stripped of the French title for match-fixing, a narrow 1-0 final win doesn’t negate the reality Milan were this era’s best side.

1993-94: there was probably much of a muchness between Milan and Barcelona at this point, but the fact the Italians won the final so heavily 4-0 with so many absentees, proved their status.

1994-95: Ajax were the team that rightfully gave Louis van Gaal his reputation, as their high-speed football saw them beat Milan home, away and then on neutral ground in the final.

1995-96: Ajax may have been champions, but Juventus had a power and maturity beyond them that season. Players from the Dutch side would later complain about the source of that power

1996-97: a good team, Dortmund were never as convincing as Juve had been throughout the campaign, but being convincing on the same night was enough.

1997-98: it was much the same in 1997-98 as 1996-97, although questions remain about that Juventus.

1998-99: It may have gone to those spectacular last few minutes but, given how Manchester United had won two other trophies and so many matches against so many other big sides in exactly that way, it was really the most appropriate manner to proclaim their superiority

1999-00: A Real Madrid between the old order and the Galactico era, that saw them finish as low as fifth in Spain, but thereby capable of catching out odd gaps in superior Manchester United and Bayern teams.

2000-01: Still motivated by the devastation of 1999, Bayern had a focus that put them beyond anyone else.

2001-02: In their centenary year, this was the trophy Real wanted most, and they won it with a goal for the ages. It may have seen them fade in defending the Spanish title, but they were capable of greater performances on the greater stage. Zinedine Zidane’s strike reflected the level they were at.

2002-03: Milan were thrashed by Real in the group stage, and beaten by Juventus in Serie A, but then benefitted from the latter eliminating the former in the semis to win on penalties

2003-04: Arsene Wenger’s great missed opportunity, and Jose Mourinho’s great launchpad moment. Porto could well have beaten Arsenal, but the key to that team was how they performed so above themselves.

Jose Mourinho celebrates winning the Champions League with Porto in 2004 (Getty)

2004-05: Liverpool may have been a side possessed in Europe, but they still needed many borderline moments and a remarkable late Eidur Gudjohnsen miss to eliminate a Chelsea side running away with the title.

2005-06: having glided to the final through their raucous football, Barca then showed a different side and real resilience to win it. There was no other rightful winner that year.

2006-07: A Carlo Ancelotti side did what a Carlo Ancelotti side often do, and overcame a poor domestic season to raise their level on the continent, but might it have been different had Chelsea not lost to European bogey team.

2007-08: It might have gone to penalties in the final, but Manchester United had already beaten Chelsea to the title. They also had Europe’s best defence, best attacker, and most complete side.

2008-09: Barcelona may have rode their luck in the second leg against Chelsea but, by the time they had dismantled Manchester United, they had risen to a new level.

2009-10: it could be argued it took more than Inter’s defence to stop Barcelona, but also a volcano, an injury to Andres Iniesta, and a late goal wrongly disallowed. At the same time, the effort made the Italians deserving winners.

2010-11: no debates here, because there were simply no equals to Barca. A great side’s peak.

2011-12: another semi-final when Barcelona were denied by an improbably sequence of events, not least some ludicrous missed chances in the first leg and Leo Messi missing a spot-kick in a year when he broke a historic goals record, but Chelsea also had that rare cup momentum.

2012-13: from the start, there was only one winner - the Bayern team so ferociously driven by the previous season’s final defeat

2013-14: Atletico won the Spanish league and were mere seconds from deservedly winning the Champions League too. It was just their luck that, in the biggest match, they faced the team they have the biggest complex with - their rivals.

2014-15: a treble says enough, as does the fact this Barca were being debated as potentially better than the Guardiola side.

2015-16: Real were second best to Barca at home, but again benefitted from Atletico’s ability to frustrate the Catalans… and Atletico’s frustrations with facing Real.