All the British Players to Win the Champions League With an Overseas Club
By Ali Rampling
Lyon won the 2019/20 Champions League with a spine made up of real, proper, salt of the earth English talent.
By spine we mean four players, two of whom came on as substitutes in the final and one who was suspended for the big game (oops).
The Lyon foursome are not the first British players to taste European glory while plying their trade away from their homeland. Let's take a look at who they are, and the illustrious company they find themselves in.
Lucy Bronze
Lyon's victory on Sunday evening made Lucy Bronze the first English player in history to win three consecutive Champions League finals.
Regarded as the greatest right-back in the world by the majority - and the greatest player in the world by some - the full-back signed for Lyon in 2017, and started each of their three Champions League finals during her time with the club.
She scored an absolute beauty of a volley to knock former side Manchester City out of the semi finals in 2018, but with the 2020 final confirmed as her final game for Lyon, she could be making her way back to the Academy Stadium.
Nikita Parris
Parris won the treble during her debut season with Lyon, but missed the Champions League final after getting sent off for two bookable offences during the French outfit's semi-final victory over PSG.
It didn't prevent the England forward from getting her hands on a winner's medal, but she managed to resist going full John Terry for the celebrations, sticking with the match day shirt and tracksuit bottoms combination.
Parris is one of the few English players expected to be sticking around at Lyon next season, meaning their could be more European success on the horizon for the 26-year-old.
Jodie Taylor
Jodie Taylor has played an absolute blinder.
She only signed for Lyon on 4th August, won the Coupe de France Féminine four days later, and then got her hands on a Champions League winners medal despite only making two substitute appearances in the entire competition.
Taylor is on loan at Lyon from OL Reign - the two teams share the same owners - but is only expected to stay with the club until the end of 2020.
Alex Greenwood
A short by sweet stay in Lyon for Greenwood, who joined the club in 2019 alongside Parris. Having already won the lot in France, the left-back is expected to return to England shortly.
Greenwood was restricted to a cameo in the Champions League final, coming off the bench to help see the game out in injury time.
The England international has played for Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United in her career thus far, and is heavily expected to complete the north-west set by moving to Manchester City during the upcoming transfer window.
Izzy Christiansen
The second half of Christiansen's stay in Lyon was a less enjoyable affair. After picking up an injury on international duty which would ultimately cost her a place at the 2019 World Cup, she was not deemed fit enough for a place in the Lyon squad for the 2019 Champions League final.
However, she still collected a medal thanks to her exploits in the earlier rounds as Lyon beat Barcelona 4-1 in the final - with compatriot Toni Duggan on the losing side.
Christiansen called time on her Lyon career eight months later to return to the WSL and sign for Everton.
Jess Fishlock
The Welsh talisman has been an OL Reign player since 2013, but has used the off-season to go out on loan here, there and everywhere.
Thanks to her various loan moves across Europe, Fishlock has two Champions League winner's medals to her name. The first came in 2015 with Frankfurt, where, despite returning to Seattle prior to the final, her contributions were deemed too instrumental for her not to pick up a medal.
She played in the Champions League final for Lyon four years later to claim her second European crown with victory over Barcelona.
Gareth Bale
From one Welsh icon to another.
Bale became the first British person to win a hat-trick of successive Champions League finals after winning three on the bounce with Real Madrid between 2016 and 2018, adding to the winner's medal he first collected back in 2014.
The 31-year-old hit found the net during his debut Champions League final appearance - becoming the first Welshman to score in the final of the competition - and repeated the feat four years later with a famous overhead kick.
Imagine doing all of that and the fans still not liking you.
Owen Hargreaves
If you are an English player who wins the Champions League with an overseas side, the chances are you will end up on BT Sport [see below].
After joining Bayern Munich as a 16-year-old in 1997, Hargreaves could not have asked for a better debut season with the senior side.
He made his Bundesliga debut in August 2000, and within nine months he was already a league champion and was starting in a Champions League final. The midfielder played the full 120 minutes as Bayern beat Valencia on penalties.
Steve McManaman
Before shooting to fame thanks to his sparkling analysis on the television, Steve McManaman was actually just as good, if not better, with the ball at his feet.
The Liverpudlian joined Real Madrid in 1999, becoming just the second Englishman to ever play for the club.
He turned in a player of the match performance in the 2000 Champions League final and scored a stunning volley to boot as Real beat Valencia 3-0, becoming the first ever English player to win the Champions League with a foreign club. McManaman then did it all over again two years later, coming off the bench during Real's victory over Bayer Leverkusen.
Paul Lambert
The honour of being the first British player - and currently only Scottish player - to win the Champions League with a foreign side belongs to Paul Lambert.
The Scot was instrumental in Borussia Dortmund's Champions League final victory over Juventus in 1997, keeping a certain Zinedine Zidane in his back pocket and setting up the opening goal as his side ran out 3-1 winners.
Lambert was a trend setter when it came to moving from the UK to join Dortmund, and the likes of Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham look sure to follow in his footsteps by rocking up at League One Ipswich any day now.