List of football players with top tier honours

This is a list of football players who have achieved all top tier domestic league, continental cup and international cup honours defined as winning:

• a top tier domestic league title with a club, including all FIFA sanctioned national top level divisions, and
• a top tier confederation club competition title with a club, including all the six main club competitions:
  • AFC Champions League, CAF Champions League, CONCACAF Champions League, Copa Libertadores, OFC Champions League and UEFA Champions League and/or the predecessor trophy such as the European Cup, and
• a top tier confederation nation competition title with a national team, including all the six main nation competitions:
  • AFC Asian Cup, Africa Cup of Nations, CONCACAF Gold Cup, Copa América, OFC Nations Cup and UEFA European Football Championship, and
• a FIFA World Cup title with a national team.

Main list

As of May 2009 a total of 25 players have achieved this feat. Nine have represented Germany (and/or West Germany), eight Brazil, seven France and one player has represented Argentina.

• Bold denotes players still playing professional football.

No nation outside of Europe or South America has won the FIFA World Cup (as of 2006), so there are no players representing such nations on this list. Nonetheless, Christian Karembeu was born in New Caledonia and Marcel Dessaily in Ghana, so Oceania and Africa are indirectly represented.

World Cup finalists who nearly qualify

No continental club cup

Lothar Matthäus won the 1980 European Championship and 1990 World Cup with West Germany, seven domestic league titles with Bayern Munich and one with Internazionale but was on the losing side in the 1987 European Cup final and the 1999 UEFA Champions League final. His long time club Bayern Munich managed to win its fourth European Champion Clubs' Cup in 2001, one year after he retired.

Ronaldo has had success in all three categories but not yet in a top Continental cup title. He was a World Cup winner in 1994 and 2002 and a Copa América winner in 1997 and 1999 with Brazil. In 2003 he was a La Liga winner with Real Madrid and in the same year came closest to a Confederation club title when he was a losing semi-finalist in the Champions League.

Dino Zoff has both a UEFA European Football Championship (1968) and a World Cup winner's medal (1982) and six Scudetto titles with Juventus. However, he never appeared in a European Cup final.

No international-level Confederation cup

Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles and Ian Callaghan, have won a domestic league title, a European Cup medal and a World Cup medal, but no European international trophy. Paolo Rossi, Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo and Alessandro Del Piero are amongst Italian players and Karl-Heinz Riedle and Bodo Illgner as Germans with a similar record.

Pelé won the World Cup with Brazil on three occasions (1958, 1962, 1970), the Copa Libertadores with Santos twice (1961, 1962) and top domestic honours in both Brazil and the USA (the latter with New York Cosmos in 1977). However, he never won a Copa América.

No World Cup winners' medal

Argentinian Claudio Caniggia did win the Copa América in 1991, and both the Copa Libertadores and the Primera División with River Plate in season 1985-86. He also won a Scottish domestic title with Rangers in 2003. He appeared in three World Cups, losing in the 1990 final in the Stadio Olimpico, Rome.

The German Matthias Sammer did win the UEFA European Football Championship in 1996, and both the UEFA Champions League in 1997 and the Bundesliga in season 1994-95 and 1995-1996 with Borussia Dortmund. He also won two East-German domestic titles with Dynamo Dresden in 1988-89 and 1989-90 and was member of the VfB Stuttgart team which won the domestic title in 1991-1992. He appeared only at the FIFA World Cup 1994, were Germany did not reach the final in Pasadena after 3 consecutive final appearances.

The German player Felix Magath won the UEFA European Football Championship in 1980, and the UEFA Eurppean Cup in 1983 and the Bundesliga in season 1978-79, 1981-82 and 1982-83 with HSV. The German squad with Magath reached the FIFA World Cup final twice in 1982 and 1986, but got only runner-up both times.

Four players from Spain's Euro 2008-winning squad have also won both domestic league championships and confederation club championships. Carles Puyol, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta won La Liga in 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2008-09 (Xavi also in 1998-99) and the UEFA Champions League in 2006 and 2009, all with Barcelona. Similarly, Iker Casillas won La Liga in 2000-01, 2002-03, 2006-07 and 2007-08 and the UEFA Champions League in 2000 and 2002 with Real Madrid. The four have also all represented Spain in the FIFA World Cup.

Michael Ballack

Michael Ballack has achieved the unique distinction of having come runner-up in all the above categories - in the Bundesliga on four occasions, the Premier League (2006-07 and 2007-08), in the Champions League in 2002 and 2008, the 2008 UEFA European Championship and the 2002 World Cup, with three of them occurring in a single year on two separate occasions. He has, however, won four national titles in Germany.

Managers

As yet, no manager has succeeded in winning a career quadruple of the trophies detailed above.

Luiz Felipe Scolari comes closest, winning the Brazilian Championship in 1996 with Grêmio, the Copa Libertadores in 1995 & 1999 with Grêmio and Palmeiras respectively, the World Cup in 2002 with Brazil, and as a runner-up in Euro 2004 with Portugal.

Franz Beckenbauer is remarkable for appearing on the successful list of players and also having been a Bundesliga and World Cup winning manager in 1993–1994 and 1990 respectively. He was also a runner-up in the World Cup Final as both a player and manager, in 1966 and 1986 respectively.

Marcello Lippi has won the Italian football championship on five occasions and the 1996 Champion's League with Juventus, and the 2006 World Cup with Italy.

Johan Cruyff achieved a club cup Treble as both a player and manager, in both regards he falls short of meeting the criteria for this list. As a player he won the Eredivisie on eight occasions and European Cup with Ajax three times and was a World Cup runner-up with Holland in 1974. As a manger of Barcelona he won La Liga and the European Cup. However he did not win a European international trophy as a player and has never managed a national side.

Helmut Schön is the only coach to win both a World Cup and a European Championship. Mário Zagallo can claim a similar achievement. Twice a World Cup winning player he also managed Brazil to success in this competition in 1970 and in the 1997 Copa América.

See also

• List of UEFA Champions League winning players
• European Cup and Champions League records and statistics
• UEFA club competition records
• List of players who have won multiple FIFA World Cups
• :Category:FIFA World Cup-winning players
• The Quadruple - a club version