With the Champions League knockout rounds starting for the 2022/23 season, Dani Carvajal and two Real Madrid team-mates have the opportunity to equal a record set by former Los Blancos forward Paco Gento in 1966.
Gento remains the only player to have appeared in six European Cup final wins, but three players moved to within a whisker of equalling the left-winger’s record last May – Karim Benzema, Luka Modric and, er, right-back mainstay Dani Carvajal.
The triumvirate are the only players to have featured in all five of Real Madrid’s Champions League final victories over the past nine years.
Casemiro, Marcelo, Gareth Bale, Nacho and Isco were at the club but didn’t play in every showpiece, while Toni Kroos sits on four, having missed Bayern Munich’s 2013 triumph against Borussia Dortmund through injury, then moved to the Bernabeu in 2014.
This season represents an opportunity for Carvajal & Co. Cristiano Ronaldo reached five triumphs in 2018 but looks like he’ll be stuck there for eternity, just like Paolo Maldini, Alfredo Di Stefano and more.
Can any of the Blanco trio finally match Gento? The winger’s record has stood since he bagged his sixth European Cup for the Spanish club in 1966.
In order to do so, Real Madrid will have to navigate their way past Liverpool in the last 16, a repeat of the Champions League final from just 9 months ago. Real Madrid triumphed on that occasion in Paris, winning 1-0 courtesy of a Vinicius Jr goal to earn the Spanish side an unprecedented 14th European Cup/Champions League victory.
Real enter the tie against Liverpool having recently been crowned Club World Cup champions for the fifth time in their history, too. Regardless of the English side's underwhelming exploits in the Premier League this season, though, Real Madrid have a tough test on their hands to reach the quarter-finals.
Should they do so, and Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and Dani Carvajal can perhaps start to dream about winning their sixth Big Ears trophy - simply ridiculous if successful, quite frankly.
