Who Has the Most Champions League Assists? Analyst
Opta has collated data from the early years of theUEFA Champions Leaguepreviously unaccounted for, meaning we can now bring you the definitive stats for the most assists in Champions League history. Most UEFA Champions League Assists Ryan Giggs - 41 Cristiano Ronaldo - 40 Lionel Messi - 39 Ángel Di María - 38 David Beckham - 36 Luís Figo - 34 Xavi - 31 Neymar - 30 Kevin De Bruyne - 28 Raúl - 27 Karim Benzema - 27 Vinícius Júnior - 26 Kylian Mbappé - 26 Zinedine Zidane - 26 Andrés Iniesta - 26 Thierry Henry - 25 Dani Alves - 25 Thomas Müller - 25 Joshua Kimmich - 25 *all tallies excluding qualifiers.
The two most high-profile players in Europe over the last 30 years have been Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and they have been battling it out to be boththe top scorerand the top creator in the Champions League. A small cottage industry has sprung up over the debate over who the G.
T is, but while everyone knows how many goals those two players have scored in Europe's premier competition, until recently nobody knew whether one of them or someone else had the most assists because no source has all assists counted back to the date that the European Cup became the Champions League. Thanks to our team's relentless investigative skills and diligent research, Opta can exclusively reveal the player with the most assists in Champions League history, and it isn't Messi or Ronaldo… though they do come very close.
Opta has the most widely useddefinition of assists. We don't count penalties won, or award assists for goals after saves, rebounds or significant deflections.
We thoroughly check slow-motion videos and official reports to compile the most consistent and accurate database on the planet and, unlike some sources, our definition does not change season to season or competition to competition. There are eight players with 30 or more assists in the competition.
The first player to reach 10 goal assists was Zinedine Zidane. Long before Messi and Ronaldo were dominating the Ballon d'Or, the Frenchman was the top creator and best player in Europe.
Zizou was also the first player to reach 20 assists, on both occasions pipping David Beckham to the milestone. The former captains of France and England battled it out at the top of the charts while playing for Juventus and Man Utd and then while in the same team as part of Real Madrid'sgalacticos.
One third of Beckham's assists came from dead-ball situations while only 16% of Zidane's were from free-kicks or corners. But Zidane doesn't even make the top 10, coming in joint 12th in the ranking.
Beckham fared a little better, though, as you'll soon see. So, who are the top five all-time players for goal assists in the Champions League?