A History Of Kiwi Footballers In The UEFA Champions League
A few years ago, two and a half years ago to be precise, The Niche Cache published this little round-up of all the goals ever scored by New Zealanders in the English Premier League. It was in the days immediately after Chris Wood moved from Leeds United in the Championship to Burnley in the big league, back when there was still a feeling that he may not have the tekkers to make a permanent home of it in the top flight. Six different New Zealanders (including Wood) had taken the pitch in Premier League games at the time combining for 16 goals.
Since then Chris Wood has transformed himself into a genuine Premier League striker. Back in the day he’d already scored once for Leicester City in amongst his 10 prior PL apps, all of which came off the bench, but he’s now hit double figures in each of the three campaigns he’s played for Burnley – 31 goals in 88 matches. Two more games and he’ll hit 100 matches all up in the English top tier, behind only Ryan Nelsen (198 games) and Winston Reid (166 games). There haven’t actually been any new kiwis to crack the Premier League since that article a couple years back but Chris Wood and his goalscoring exploits have definitely helped knock the door down for Aotearoa players beyond the typical crunching defenders (although those dudes are still welcome too) and with some of the talent coming through into the national team these days, under the tutelage of one of the rare other blokes to have kitted up in this competition in Danny Hay, it’s surely only a matter of time until we get another representative.
But then at the same time it’s 2020 now and horizons have been stretched across seas and continents and while the powerhouses of world club football remain in Europe, England ain’t the be all and end all. Sarpreet Singh made his Bundesliga debut a few months back for Bayern Munich in Germany and has continued to impress for their reserve team ever since he signed from the Wellington Phoenix. Ryan Thomas is back after a long term injury and fast making himself a hero at PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Tyler Boyd may no longer be eligible for the All Whites but he’s worked his way up to Beşiktaş where he’s a regular matchday squadie for one of the more storied teams in Turkey. Joe Bell has just signed with Viking FK in Norway, a team that has eight league titles in its history and last season won the Norwegian Cup (finishing fifth in the league). Matt Garbett has just signed for Falkenbergs FF in Sweden’s top division and made his debut a few weeks back in the League Cup competition. Give it some time and there’ll be plenty more where these lads came from too.
It’s only been two and a half years since that Premier League goals article but already it’s been outgrown in those two incredible ways: Chris Wood’s goals have swamped the stats while the proliferation of other kiwis around Europe has caused us to step back and survey a wider landscape. So let us do the same thing here. Let’s put a two and a half year timer on and aim for the shining, beautiful stars by looking at the history of Aotearoa footy players in the UEFA Champions League in the hope that this’ll soon be out of date. Right now it’s a slim list... but on the current trajectory it can’t be long until a couple more hombres y mujeres join that most illustrious company in the most illustrious club footy comp on the whole damn planet.
Now, first of all, a very necessary note to point out that kiwi women have been relatively common in the Champions League. Especially Ali Riley. The Women’s Champions League only began in the 2001 and has only recently started to get the prominence it deserves but Ali Riley has been a mainstay year after year. In seven seasons with Swedish club Rosengård she won three league titles, three runners’ up medals, three Swedish Cups, three Swedish Super Cups and competed in six Champions Leagues. Where, frustratingly, you’ll notice a bit of a trend...
2012-13 – Knocked out by Lyon in the Quarter-Finals (8-0 on aggregate)
2013-14 – Knocked out by Wolfsburg in the Round of 16 (5-2 on aggregate)
2014-15 – Knocked out by Wolfsburg in the Quarter-Finals (4-4 on aggregate, away goals)
2015-16 – Knocked out by Frankfurt in the Quarter-Finals (1-1 on aggregate, lost on penalties)
2016-17 – Knocked out by Barcelona in the Quarter-Finals (3-0 on aggregate)
2017-18 – Knocked out by Chelsea in the Round of 16 (4-0 on aggregate)
Yeah those quarter-finals were a bit of a bastard. That Rosengård team was really good there for a while too, it’s a shame. The team that only lost on away goals to Wolfsburg had Marta, Sarah Gunnarsdóttir, Anja Mittag , and Ramona Bachmann all in the same crew (along with Ali Riley of course) and deserved to go deeper. The last four of those seasons Riley started every single Champions League game for the club (which by the way has no group stage, it’s straight to knockouts at Round of 32 so fewer overall matches) and even after she left Sweden she still played a couple times as Chelsea made the semi-finals in 2018-19 and appeared in three UCL games for Bayern Munich earlier this season before leaving for Orlando SC in the USA. Add them together and she played in 35 UCL matches all up for three different clubs.
In recent years that’s made Ali Riley a bit of a lone ranger, although Rosie White did play two games in the UCL while she was with Liverpool back in 2015 while Katie Duncan played twice for FC Zürich in the 2015-16 season and Erin Nayler got to sit on the bench while at Olympique Lyon in the 2016-17 season. Delving further back, Emma Kete featured once for PK-35 Vantaa of Finland in 2010-11. There might be one or two others with spare appearances too, the stats are tough to find.
Then we have Rebecca Smith. She was a key part of the Wolfsburg team that qualified for the comp the with a second placed finish in the 2011-12 Bundesliga. That was her third season with the club, having played the majority of the games throughout. However by the time of their Champions League campaign the following season the knee injuries that would prematurely end her career had already set in and she never actually played in the UCL. Wolfsburg went on to beat Lyon 1-0 in the final to lift the trophy and complete a triumphant treble along with the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, all without Rebecca Smith in the mix. But she was still on the books when they won all that so she is technically a Champions League winner, how about that?
In terms of actually playing in the latter stages of the competition, it has been done. Ria Percival was with Frankfurt in the 2011-12 season and played six times (four starts) as they made it to the Champions League final, losing 2-0 to Lyon. Percy was subbed on for the last half hour of the final having played all 180 minutes in each of the two previous legs, against Arsenal (semis) and a pre-Ali Riley Rosengård (quarters). As far as the research suggests, and some of it could be a bit sketchy because again details are scarce, that’s unprecedented. Ali Riley didn’t play in the semis when she was there with Chelsea. Rebecca Smith was injured when Wolfsburg made it. Ria Percival is the only kiwi footballer to kick a ball in anger in those most legendary of games.
As for the fellas the list is even shorter. Just the four blokes (as far as the research has offered up so far). Of course many more have played in qualifying but we’re only interested in the group stages and beyond, the real deal. Even the Europa League is scarce... Ryan Thomas got two games in the group stage this season with PSV and prior to that pretty sure it was Chris Wood in his Birmingham City days the last to make it that far. Ivan Vicelich’s first season at Roda JC saw them make the quarters of the UEFA Cup, as it was known back then, but he wasn’t in the squad for either leg as they lost on penalties to AC Milan. He did played a minute off the bench against Bordeaux in the previous round though (and some Intertoto Cup a few years later, for what that’s worth). Mostly dudes just fall short in qualifying – Winston Reid has had three separate runs where he’s been knocked out before the group stage, two with West Ham and one with Midtjylland. Ryan Nelsen did get a little UEFA Cup action with Blackburn once upon a time. There are a couple more too... but that ain’t why we’re here.
Danny Hay’s Champions League exploits were extremely slim but memorable. After a useful spell at Perth Glory in Oz, he went to Germany where he trialled unsuccessfully with VfB Stuttgart (a team that would one day many years later sign Marco Rojas... but never play him and then get relegated, call that divine justice). But then he had a much happier time of it trialling with Leeds United during their preseason tour,. In fact he did so well that he missed the 1999 Confederations Cup with trial commitments - although Hay himself said he’d wanted to play and the decision was down to coach Ken Dugdale, whatever, irrelevant old beef. Hay would win a three year contract with Leeds and he spent his first season with the reserves and kinda tragically the rest of his time there was spoiled by injuries... although he did manage to appear in four Premier League games.
The first of those Premier League games was as a half-time sub in a 4-3 win over Tottenham. Lucas Radebe had gone off hurt with Spurs up 1-0 but a quickfire double from Mark Viduka was boosted by an Alan Smith double and Leeds got the win. Hay then missed their next match but was given his first start the week after... away to a Manchester United team that featured the likes of Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Dwight Yorke, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer... and David Beckham came off the bench to score the second in a 3-0 United win.
Hay would also start Leeds’ next two games: a 1-1 draw with Bradford City and a 3-2 League Cup defeat away at Tranmere Rovers. Then he got 74 minutes off the bench in a 4-3 win over Liverpool (at Elland Road) after Jonathan Woodgate had to be replaced. The Reds were 2-0 up after twenty minutes, Sami Hyypia and Christian Ziege with the goals... before Mark Viduka scored all four, the first two to level it up, then Vladimir Smicer put Liverpool back in front, then Viduka scored two more for the win. Steven Gerrard and Robbie Fowler were among the subs used by gaffer Gerard Houllier that day.
Danny Hay never played again for Leeds again but prior to that little run of games he’d actually already made his club debut in a Champions League group stage game away to Barcelona. Yup, a couple minutes left in a 4-0 Leeds defeat at the Camp Nou and on came Danny Hay for a little cameo. The goals that day were scored by Rivaldo, Frank De Boer, and Patrick Kluivert (2). Hay would sit on the bench for each of their remaining five group stage games though he wouldn’t take the field in any of them. All up he only played six times for Leeds United’s first team... but in those six games he got to play against some of the finest players on the planet at the time versus Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, and Liverpool (no offence to Bradford City & Tranmere Rovers diehards). Can’t say he didn’t get a few glorious memories out of all that.
Next up is Chris Killen, a fella who has been kinda wiped from history because of some post-playing indiscretions (to the point where he didn’t even make the initial article here until we got a tip off from a reader), he played five times for Celtic in the 2007-08 group stages. It had been a long old ride to get there, joining the Manchester City academy as a 17 year old out of Miramar Rangers although he only ever made three appearances for the senior team there, totalling 26 minutes. And this was back in 2001-02 either so it wasn’t like he was being blocked out by Sergio Aguero, we’re talking City back when they were in the First Division (now the Championship). To be fair, they did get promoted by winning the league that season and have been in the Premier League ever since. Killen started the season scoring goals on loan at Port Vale but was recalled by manager Kevin Keegan after a few injuries and would make cameos against Rotherham, Norwich, and Walsall as well as sitting on the bench a bunch of times. He was top scorer for the reserves that season with 11 goals in 18 appearances.
With no real pathway to the City first team after their promotion he then left to sign with Oldham Athletic in what’s now known as League One, signing for a reported £250k. He had a mixed time there, struggling to hit the net in his first couple seasons (six goals in 46 games combined) but with 14 goals in 30 matches in 2004–05 he was the club’s top scorer that term. He then left to join Hibernian on a free transfer in January 2006 and safe to say he wasn’t really missed by the Oldham folks. Killen had a moan at his lack of playing opportunities and the club’s managing director thus savaged him in a statement on the club website. But he scored on debut for Hibernian and in the following season got his first taste of European footy in the Intertoto Cup. Killen scored 19 goals in 32 games all up for Hibs before an Achilles injury got in the way. He rejected a one year contract to stay there and instead signed with big dogs Celtic on a three year contract despite rumours he was about to move to Cardiff City.
And it was there that the Champions League and Chris Killen crossed paths. He was a 68th minute substitute away to Shakhtar Donesk, a 2-0 loss with Celtic conceding both goals in the first ten minutes. Killen replaced Aussie Scott McDonald and the Shakhtar team that day featured a 22 year old Fernandinho, later to star at Killen’s old club Man City. He also played six minutes off the bench against a stacked AC Milan team (seriously, the names here!) who were also the small matter of defending Champions League winners at the time. Celtic won 2-1 at home thanks to a dramatic last minute Scott McDonald goal in the rain. Still a famous result – Killen’s out there in #33 putting in that terrible initial cross.
Killen’s only Champions League start came next up in a 1-0 loss away to SL Benfica. He was subbed off with quarter of an hour remaining (amongst the subs for Benfica in this one were Angel Di Maria and Freddy Adu!). Killen also got 34 minutes in place of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink in the home win over Benfica and was again a late sub against Shakhtar as Celtic scored another last minute winner (Massimo Donati with the goal) which helped put Celtic into the knockouts... where they faced Barcelona. Killen was an unused sub in the home leg and was out of the squad for the away leg. That’s five games, one start, totalling 137 minutes. No goals but he was out there for two dramatic late winners so that counts for something.
Killen’s Celtic career never took off. Starts were hard to come by and he only scored 3 goals in 36 games all up – spending chunks of his second season on loan at Norwich and then in January of his third season he was sold to Middlesbrough to reunite with his old gaffer Gordan Strachan (who was sacked by Celtic at the end of season two). Killen did play one more Champions League qualifier against Dinamo Moscow in 2009-10 and he got half an hour all up across three appearances in the Europa League group stages that same season. And that was that.
Thus we come to the sneakiest name on the list: Kim Wright. The defender played six times for the All Whites in non-capped international matches in the around the turn of the 90s and therefore makes an unlikely addition to the club but while he was playing in Malta in the early 90s his team Floriana made it through two legs of qualifying in 1993-94 against Ekranas Panevezys of Lithuania (winning each leg 1-0, Wright starting one and coming off the bench in the other). That put them into the first round proper where they met Porto across two legs. Wrighty played all 180 minutes as they lost 2-0 away and went out with a scoreless draw in Malta. A year previous they’d made the first round of the UEFA Cup but lost 8-2 on aggregate to Borussia Dortmund, Wright playing 180 mins there too. Not the most storied of Champions League excursions but it still counts.
But Wynton Rufer, mate. Here’s where you go for storied Champions League excursions. He wasn’t just there to smell the roses, he was there to break some hearts. Having made his name in Switzerland with FC Zurich, FA Aarau, and Grasshoppers, Rufer moved to Werder Bremen in Germany in 1989 where he’d spend the next six seasons helping the team during one of the finest eras in its history. Their coach at the time was the great Otto Rehhagel who would later take charge of Bayern Munich briefly and would eventually coach Greece to one of the all-time underdog stories as they won Euro 2004. Rufer was the club’s top scorer in four of his six seasons, his name still spoken of with adoration all these years later.
In his time at Werder Bremen, Wynton Rufer won the Bundesliga title in 1992-93, he won two DFB-Pokals (1990-91 & 1993-94), and also two DFB-Supercups (1993 & 1994). Pretty incredible haul of trophies there and that’s only the domestic stuff. He was also a major part of the Bremen side that lifted the 1991-92 UEFA Cup Winners Cup. An actual continental competition and the bloody guy won it, too right. Not only did he win it but he played a massive part in the whole campaign, even scoring in the final.
Rufer scored a first-half hatty in their opening game. It was a 6-0 win away at Romanian side Bacău and they bossed the second leg too for an 11-0 aggregate win. That nudged them into a second round tie with Ferencváros of Hungary... creeping through with a 4-2 win over two legs. A scoreless draw in the away leg then helped them survive and advance with a 2-1 victory over Galatasaray of Turkey in the quarters before they met Club Brugge in the semi-finals. There they needed to win at home after losing 1-0 in the first match... but goals to Marco Bode and Manfred Bockenfeld meant they did exactly that and in the final they met Monaco of France.
Klaus Allofs scored five minutes before the break, Wynton Rufer scored ten minutes after it. Werder Bremen won 2-0 in Lisbon to lift the trophy. A feat that will never be repeated... on account of that competition not having existed for over twenty years. The rebranding of the Champions League in the early nineties took away from the remaining prestige of the Cup Winners Cup and after the 1998-99 season it was merged in with the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League). Oh yeah and managing Monaco that day? Some cheeky upstart called Arsene Wenger. Wonder what ever happened to him...
As a reward for that one they then got to play the annual European Super Cup the following season against the European Cup winners... just so happening to be the Johan Cruyff-managed Barcelona who had beaten Sampdoria 1-0 after extra time for their first ever European Cup title. In those days it was a home and away tie and Rufer missed the home tie as Klaus Allofs scored a late equaliser to take a 1-1 score into the second leg in Spain. Rufer returned for that one to face a Barca team which featured the likes of Ronald Koeman, Hristo Stoichkov, Michael Laudrup, and some fella called Pep Guardiola. Rufer scored from the penalty spot late in the first half... but Barca won it 2-1 to lift the trophy.
That season may have started off on a bummer note (albeit a memorable bummer note) but it ended up being a legendary one. Werder Bremen won the Bundesliga title by a single point, the third in their history (they’ve since won it again in 2003-04, they also won it the season before Rufer was signed and were league champs for the first time in 1964-65), and Rufer was the third top scorer in the entire league with 17 goals in 32 games.
That put them into the Champions League the following season. First round (same stage/season as Kim Wright’s two UCL apps, btw) they played Dinamo Minsk of Belarus. They beat them 5-2 in the first leg in Bremen with Rufer scoring twice and then a Rufer penalty earned a 1-1 draw in the away leg to east through into the next round. It was Levski Sofia from Bulgaria that they met there and Rufer scored again in a 2-2 draw. A late leveller cost Bremen the away win there but they beat them 1-0 in the home leg to slip on into the group stage... which was the top eight teams split into two pots of four, playing six home and away games before the top two in each group go into the semis. Yeah, the competition’s format has changed a fair bit over the years, mate.
Werder Bremen had AC Milan, Porto, and Anderlecht in their group (the other group was Barcelona, Monaco, Spartak Moscow, and Galatasaray) and they lost their first game away to Porto 3-2, although Rufer did score late on as they threatened a comeback from three goals down. Next game he scored twice in a 5-3 win over Anderlecht where they really did spring a comeback. A legendary comeback. They were 3-0 down at half-time before Rufer scored the first and fifth goals in an incredible win, also setting up the third. They call that game the Wonder von der Weser in Bremen. Wynton Rufer was absolutely magical.
After that they lost 2-1 away to AC Milan before drawing 1-1 with the same opponents at home as the Italian side scored with quarter of an hour left to cancel out a Wynton Rufer penalty. But Werder Bremen they got thrashed 5-0 at home by Porto, consistently picked off on the break by the Portuguese side (managed by Sir Bobby Robson) as they desperately pushed for goals, and the 2-1 win over Anderlecht in the last game didn’t really matter. The quest had come to an end.
AC Milan went on to win the final with a brilliant 4-0 victory over Barcelona, even more brilliant considering Franco Baresi was out suspended and Marco van Basten out injured against a Barca team that had just won its fourth Liga championship in a row. Fabio Capello masterminded a shocking win which to this day is still talked of as one of the great UCL grand finals. Most importantly, his team were able to keep Ronald Koeman from scoring which meant that Koeman and Rufer got to share the Golden Boot award. Eight goals each. Rufer’s coming in 10 games (888 minutes) which kicks Koeman’s arse as he needed 12 games and 1075 minutes to get there (granted Koeman was a midfielder). Just to repeat that little note... Wynton Rufer won the Golden Boot in the Champions League. The actual Champions League in which only one other man from Aotearoa has ever even played and he only got a couple minutes. It’s absolutely astounding how far ahead of his time Wynton Rufer’s achievements were.
That was the only season when Wynton Rufer got to play Champions League football. He’d hang around a little longer with Bremen before signing in Japan, cutting that stint short to play second div in Germany after Otto Rehhagel got the job of trying to get FC Kaiserslautern back in the top flight... which they did. Afterwards he returned to Aotearoa.
But his European footy record goes way deeper. He played UEFA Cup a couple years with FC Zürich and had a Cup Winners Cup effort with Grasshoppers too (they went out in the first round). Werder Bremen also had a run to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in his first season there, losing to Fiorentina on away goals – Rufer scored four times in 10 games in that campaign. His record in European comps is kinda mindblowing...
UEFA Champions League: 8 goals in 10 games
UEFA Cup: 6 goals in 16 games
UEFA Cup Winners Cup: 8 goals in 17 games
UEFA SuperCup: 1 goal in 1 game
Total: 23 goals in 44 games
In case you were wondering, there have been plenty of Australians who’ve played Champions League and beyond, including five fellas (Kewell, Chipperfield, Viduka, Schwarzer & Moore) who have played more UEFA competition games than Rufer. But none of them have scored more goals than him. Harry Kewell scored 21 times in 88 games and he was the closest. Mark Viduka, Danny Hay’s old teammate, scored 18 times in 56 games. Not quite the same, aye? S’pose that’s why they named him Oceania’s Player of the Century.
Also whack an ad whenever you read a goodie and tell a mate about us too
Keep cool but care