Lucy Bronze, Keira Walsh and the England Lionesses to have won the Women’s Champions League

To start, this list is dominated by the Lionesses who were part of the Arsenal side which became champions of Europe. Anita Asante was part of that historic team, playing 90 minutes in the backline in both legs of the 2007 UEFA Women’s Cup final, as it was known then, as the Gunners beat Umea 1-0 on aggregate.

Asante came through the system at Arsenal and spent five years in the senior team before leaving in 2008, to join Chelsea. The versatile centre-back also spent time in the United States and Sweden before retiring in 2022, having won 71 caps for England and four for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games. Today, she is part of the coaching staff at Bristol City.

Another versatile footballer, Leanne Champ was on the bench as Arsenal defeated Umea in the 2007 final, a triumph which was made all the more impressive by the fact that they were without her for most of that quadruple-winning season due to an ACL injury.

Capped 10 times at senior level by England, Champ also played for Millwall and Chelsea in England and spent time across the pond in the United States, representing three different clubs. After her playing days were over, she joined former NWSL side Boston Breakers as a coach before returning to London to work in Chelsea’s academy.

Just 17 years old when she became a champion of Europe, Gilly Flaherty had only broken into Arsenal’s senior team a few months earlier, but earned herself a spot among the substitutes for the Gunners’ finest hour. It was an exciting start to seven trophy-laden years in the first team, before she left for Chelsea in early 2014.

It was with the Blues that Flaherty finally earned her first England caps, the first of her nine coming in late 2015, and she would later also represent West Ham and Liverpool. The defender retired in early 2023 because of family reasons, having recently lost her father, and now works as a pundit and co-commentator.

Previously of Millwall and Fulham, Mary Phillip joined Arsenal in 2004 and was part of their rock solid defence across the 2007 UEFA Women’s Cup final, playing 90 minutes in both games. Her experience was key given the injuries in the backline – by the time this tie came around, Phillip had already won 16 domestic trophies and been representing England at senior level for 12 years.

Since calling time on her playing days at the age of 31, Phillip has been on a coaching journey that has regularly grabbed attention in the media as it is on the men’s football pyramid. Since 2019, the former Lioness has been manager of lower-league side Peckham Town, with whom she won the London Senior Trophy in 2020.

In her second of three stints at Arsenal when the quadruple was completed, Alex Scott was the unlikely goal-scorer who decided the 2007 UEFA Women’s Cup final. The full-back found the back of the net in second-half stoppage-time in the first leg and was a key player as the Gunners kept two clean sheets to allow that to be the winner, too.

Scott played 140 times for England in a 13-year international career that also included five games for Great Britain at the London Olympics and called time on her playing days in 2018. Since then, she has enjoyed a successful career in the media as a pundit and a presenter.

Though not in the squad for the final, Danielle Bowman (then Danielle Buet) featured during Arsenal’s 2006-07 UEFA Women’s Cup campaign after breaking into the first team as a teenager. Soon after, having struggled for game time in such a stacked team, the midfielder joined Chelsea and carved out a successful top-flight career with the Blues, Notts County and then Brighton. When she retired in 2022, she joined the staff at West Ham and is now working in Brighton’s academy.

In 2009, Bowman won the UEFA Under-19 Championship with England, made her senior debut the same year and was chosen as part of the Lionesses squad that reached the Euro 2009 final. She won eight caps for her country in total.

One of the most talented female footballers England has ever produced, Karen Carney started both legs of the 2007 UEFA Women’s Cup final after joining Arsenal from Birmingham City the year prior. She spent three years with the club before going across the pond to join a Chicago Red Stars team that was then coached by Emma Hayes, who had been the assistant during the Gunners’ quadruple campaign.

Carney would return to England in 2011 to rejoin her childhood club, Birmingham, and later reunited with Hayes at Chelsea in 2015. At England level, she won 144 senior caps, plus five for Great Britain, and was part of the Lionesses side that won an historic bronze medal at the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

Defensive injuries saw Katie Chapman play a little further back in Arsenal’s UEFA Women’s Cup triumph and her experience and versatility was important in the two clean sheets that helped the Gunners to victory. Chapman had already enjoyed hugely successful spells with Millwall, Fulham and Charlton before joining Arsenal in 2006, as well as six years with the England team. That know-how would later benefit Chelsea as they won their first major honours, the midfielder joining the Blues in 2014 after a short time in the United States and another stint with Arsenal.

Chapman called time on her Lionesses career in 2016, after racking up 94 caps, and her club career came to a close two years later. Today, she is an ambassador for Chelsea’s women’s team.

Lianne Sanderson joined Arsenal as a young girl and would eventually progress to the first team when she was still only a teenager, proving to be a goal-scoring machine for the Gunners. In the 2006-07 season, she scored 40 goals in 41 games as they won the quadruple.

The striker’s eclectic career would take her to 11 different clubs, across five countries and two continents, while helping her amass a half-century of caps for England. Sanderson’s final appearance for the Lionesses came in 2015 and she hung up her boots four years later, now enjoying a career in the media.

Widely regarded as the greatest player in the history of the Lionesses, Kelly Smith didn’t actually play in Arsenal’s UEFA Women’s Cup final due to suspension. Her contribution to them getting there was big though, as only Sweden star Hanna Ljungberg and Brazil icon Marta – both playing for the Gunners’ opponents in the final, Umea – scored more goals in the competition in 2006-07.

The European triumph came in Smith’s second of three spells with Arsenal, the forward regularly enjoying opportunities in the United States in her career before retiring while back at the Gunners in 2017. She had played her 117th and final England game three years earlier and hung her boots up as the Lionesses’ all-time top-scorer, a record that would be broken by Ellen White in 2021. Smith returned to Arsenal in 2023 to coach in the women’s academy and joined the first-team staff shortly afterwards.

Having left in 2000, Rachel Yankey returned to Arsenal in 2005 and spent the next 11 years helping the Gunners rack up even more silverware, including their European title. The iconic winger played every minute of the two-legged final.

For the Lionesses, Yankey was similarly ever-present, playing 129 times across a 16-year career to become the most capped England player of all-time, male or female, for a brief period. She also represented Great Britain at the Olympics in 2012.

After calling time on her career in 2016, Yankey coached the London Bees while they were in the second tier. Now, like several of her fellow quadruple-winners, she is enjoying a career in the media.

Bar a short loan spell with the Ottawa Fury, Faye White only played for Arsenal in her 17-year career and she was the captain of the team when they won the UEFA Women’s Cup in 2007, though injuries limited her to a place on the bench for the final.

She won 32 trophies with the Gunners and established herself as a key figure for England as well, with no one sporting the armband for the Lionesses for longer. White won 90 caps for her country in 15 years and was the skipper when England reached the Euro 2009 final. The former defender is another of the Gunners’ historic squad that regularly acts as a co-commentator and pundit today.

The final name on this list who became a European champion with Arsenal, Gemma Davison came off the bench during the 2007 UEFA Women’s Cup final and helped the Gunners see the game out as they triumphed on the continent.

The winger came through the youth set-up at Arsenal and would enjoy four separate spells with the club after breaking into the first team in 2005, regularly crossing the Atlantic for professional opportunities in that time but always returning to the Gunners. Her last appearance for the club came in 2013, with time at Liverpool, Chelsea, Reading, Tottenham and Aston Villa following, before she signed for Watford in 2022.

Davison played the last of her 16 games for the Lionesses back in 2017, but she is still playing at club level, making 11 appearances for Watford in the second-tier in the 2023-24 season, aged 37.

After Arsenal’s triumph, it would be 11 years before another Lioness would call themselves a European champion, Bronze ending that wait in 2018 when she won the rebranded Women’s Champions League with Lyon. It was the full-back’s first season in France and she was a key part in helping the dominant team in Europe remain as such, scoring two goals on their run to a final that needed extra-time but saw Lyon defeat Wolfsburg 4-1.

Bronze has since won three more UWCL titles, two with Lyon and one with Barcelona, and has also been crowned a champion of Europe with England, as part of the Lionesses side that won Euro 2022. She is the only Englishwoman to win the Champions League with two different clubs.

Bronze’s move to Lyon was the first in a flurry for Lionesses, with Izzy Christiansen the first to join her in France just a year later. Injuries prevented the England star from really showcasing the form that had caught Lyon’s eye while she was at Manchester City, but she won plenty of trophies during her 18-month stay, including the 2018-19 Champions League title.

The midfielder, whose 31st and final appearance for the Lionesses came in 2019, returned to England midway through the 2019-20 season and re-joined Everton, the club with which she started her career. It was fitting, then, that she retired while with the Toffees, that decision made at the end of the 2022-23 season when she was still only 31 years old. Christiansen is now a regular pundit and co-commentator.

Next to arrive at Lyon was Nikita Parris, who signed from Man City in the summer of 2019. Despite huge competition for her place, the forward had an impressive two seasons with the French giants and played an important role in the 2019-20 quadruple-winning season, even if she missed the UWCL final due to suspension.

Parris returned to England in 2021, won the Euros with the Lionesses in 2022 and is now trying to force her way back into the national-team picture. The 30-year-old’s most recent appearance under Sarina Wiegman came two years ago, that her 71st for her country.

A few weeks after Parris’ move, Alex Greenwood became the third Lioness in Lyon’s squad when she joined from Manchester United. Then a full-back, it was in France when she started to transition into a centre-back, though the only appearance she made in the 2019-20 Champions League win was as a substitute in the final.

Greenwood returned to England after that season and has since become a key player for Man City as well as for the Lionesses in her new role, with a 100th cap not too far away now.

Lyon became the 15th club of Jodie Taylor’s career when she joined the French side on a short-term deal in the summer of 2020. Her arrival came just a few weeks before the 2020 Champions League final, delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and meant that she was able to be involved in OL’s triumph, making appearances from the bench in the quarter-final and the final.

Lyon extended Taylor’s deal until the end of the 2020-21 season and from there she would return to the United States, where she spent a lot of her career, for spells with the Orlando Pride and the San Diego Wave. In 2023, Taylor made one more club move, to Arsenal, before announcing her retirement later that year at the age of 37.

The striker’s final England appearance had come four years earlier, while her finest hour for the Lionesses was at Euro 2017. There, Taylor became the first woman to score a hat-trick for England at a major tournament, helping her finish ahead of Vivianne Miedema in the race for the Golden Boot.

Keira Walsh became the latest addition to this list when Barcelona beat Wolfsburg in the Champions League final in 2023. It was part of a treble-winning campaign for the Catalans and a successful first season abroad for the England midfielder.

Barca made Walsh the most expensive female footballer of all time when they secured her services in the summer of 2022, following an outstanding – and triumphant – Euros campaign with the Lionesses. To date, the 27-year-old has already made 73 appearances for her country since debuting back in 2017.