As France celebrate victory in the 2018 FIFA World Cup final, one member of their victorious team has an added reason to feel proud. A UEFA Champions League winner with Real Madrid in May, Raphaël Varane has become only the ninth player to feature on the winning side in World Cup and European Cup finals in the same year.
European Cup-World Cup double winners
1974: Sepp Maier, Paul Breitner, Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Uli Hoeness (Bayern West Germany)
1998: Christian Karembeu (Real Madrid France)
2002: Roberto Carlos (Real Madrid Brazil)
2018: Raphaël Varane (Real Madrid France)
To qualify, players must have appeared in both winning finals, so Luka Modrić just missed out after finishing a runner-up in Moscow. Mateo Kovačić was not eligible because he was an unused substitute when Real Madrid defeated Liverpool in Kyiv on 26 May.
It’s an elite club which Sami Khedira so nearly joined four years ago, an injury in the warm-up preventing him from turning out for Germany in their World Cup final win against Argentina. He had won the UEFA Champions League less than two months earlier.
European Cup-EURO double winners
1964: Luis Suárez (Internazionale Spain)
1988: Hans van Breukelen, Ronald Koeman, Berry van Aerle, Gerald Vanenburg (PSV Eindhoven Netherlands)
2012: Fernando Torres, Juan Mata (Chelsea Spain)
2016: Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe (Real Madrid Portugal)
A handful more endured bittersweet Khedira-like experiences. Wim Kieft lifted the 1988 European Cup with PSV but did not make it off the bench with the Netherlands in the 1988 UEFA European Championship final.
Real Madrid’s Nicolas Anelka met the same fate with France in 2000, while team-mate Christian Karembeu fared slightly worse – he was an unused squad member in the finals of both the 2000 UEFA Champions League and UEFA EURO 2000 (though he had been on the pitch to win both the UEFA Champions League and the 1998 World Cup two summers before).
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