With Ademola Lookman and Ayoub El Kaabi becoming the latest Africans to score in the UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League finals, respectively, we highlight the nine players from the continent who have scored in European cup finals!
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On Wednesday night, the Moroccan hitman scored the only goal of the Conference League final as Olympiacos won their first-ever European title. The Greek outfit beat returning finalists Fiorentina at the home of their league rivals AEK Athens, with El Kaabi making it 11 goals in the competition this season.
His double-digit goal haul in the UECL, coupled with his five goals during their Europa League campaign, means the Casablanca native has scored more goals in European competition in a single season than any other African has been able to with 16 strikes, according to Sports Mole.
The 30-year-old has thus etched his name into the history books of European football as well as Olympiacos folklore, and his feat comes a week after another African star, Lookman, made history in another European competition.
Facing a Bayer Leverkusen side that was, at the time, unbeaten in all competitions up until the famous encounter in Dublin, Atalanta became the first team to thwart Xabi Alonso's charges in the 2023/24 season, courtesy of the Nigeria international's goals.
The London native scored once in the first half, before completing his hat-trick with a second-half brace to become the first African player to score three goals in a major European cup final and the first player to score a hat-trick in a major European cup final in 49 years.
Here are the nine African stars who have scored in major European finals:
The Super Eagle followed in the footsteps of his compatriots Alex Iwobi and Joe Aribo in the list of Nigerians who have scored in the Europa League final, with Iwobi doing so for Arsenal in the 2018/19 edition, while Aribo scored for Rangers in the 2021/22 decider. Unlike La Dea, though, the Gers and the Gunners were unable to win their Europa League finals.
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Having had African goalscorers in the finals of the aforementioned competitions already this past season, perhaps Borussia Dortmund's Sebastien Haller could also strike in their upcoming UEFA Champions League final against Real Madrid on Saturday.
The Ivory Coast international has already scored in a major competition final this season, having found the back of the net in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, and now has the chance to do the same in European club football's biggest game of the season.
If Haller does score in that final this weekend, he will join an elite list of talented players to have done this. The first to accomplish such a feat was Algerian Rabah Madjer, when he scored for FC Porto in the 1986/87 final of the European Cup. Mohamed Salah is the only other north African to score in a Champions League final, when he helped Liverpool claim their sixth European title at the expense of Tottenham Hotspur with a 2-0 victory in the 2018/19 season.
All the other Africans that have scored in the final of Europe's biggest club competition are from west Africa, with Samuel Eto'o, Didier Drogba and Sadio Mane having set the precedent for Haller. Mane is the only one among them who scored only for his team to lose the final, when his equaliser against Real during the 2017/18 decider was cancelled out by a Gareth Bale brace, with the Reds ultimately losing 3-1.
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Eto'o, meanwhile, scored in two separate finals. The first came in 2005/06 against Arsenal in a 2-1 Barcelona win, while the second came against Manchester United in the 2008/09 edition in a 2-0 victory in Rome. Drogba netted his iconic final goal against Bayern Munich in the 2011/12 iteration at the Allianz Arena, with his strike forcing extra-time, and he would go on to score the decisive penalty that would see Chelsea being crowned European champions for the first time.
