Continental charms: our all-time European Cup and Champions League Team is a who's-who of the past half-century of world soccer

UNLIKE MAJOR NATIONAL team events, European club competitions offer an annual stage for the world's greatest players. The task of selecting an all-time All-Star Team from Europe's top club tournament is therefore not only a great argument starter, but a more accurate way of naming the best players in modern soccer history than selecting the cream of the World Cup crop.

Created in 1955, the European Cup pitted the defending champions of the continent's domestic leagues in a season-long tournament. In its first 15 years, Latin teams were dominant, led by the Real Madrid dynasty of the late 1950s. In the 1970s and early `80s, Northern European clubs from Holland, Germany, and England won 15 straight championships. Since 1985, teams from nine different countries have won the rifle.

In 1996--under pressure for more money from the continent's top nations--the tournament was expanded and renamed the Champions League. Ironically, under the new format, non-champions qualify from some of Europe's top leagues, while the representatives from smaller nations have to play a series of qualifiers in order to advance to round-robin play.

Not surprisingly our list is dominated by Europeans: Most of the Brazilian greats of the 1950s through `70s--including Pele--played club ball in South America. And because the season-long event requires a sustained high level of play rather than flashes of brilliance, most of great European players of the past half-century dot our squad. Here are the greatest players in European Cup history:.

FORWARDS

First Team Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool

In the year following Liverpool's first European Cup win, Dalglish had the unenviable task of replacing the Reds' departed hero, Kevin Keegan. He did so with gusto, leading liverpool to the Cup in 1978 and scoring the only goal in the final match. Dalglish and Liverpool then became fixtures at the European Cup, stringing together eight consecutive appearances in the tournament--and a second rifle, in 1984. That stretch was only snapped by the five-year ban on English teams from European competition following the Heysel Stadium disaster, in which Liverpool fans were blamed for causing a portion of the stands to collapse, killing 39 people.

Alfredo Di Stefano, Real Madrid

One of the greatest players of all time, Di Stefano led Real Madrid to wins in the first five European Cups, scoring in each of those finals--including registering a hat trick in 1960 in a 7-3 win over Eintracht Frankfurt Madrid's dynasty captivated fans and drew interest in the tournament from its onset Over that time, Di Stefano teamed with Hector Rial and later with Ferenc Puskas to form two of the most deadly striker combinations in history. He fittingly played his last game for Real in a European Cull finals, in 1966.

Eusebio, Benfica

Benfica were already champions before Eusebio arrived, but his addition to the 1961 European Cup winners ensured the team would advance to the finals in three of the next four years. In the first of those years, Eusebio, only 20, was the difference, capping his team's comeback by scoring the final two goals in a 5-3 win that effectively ended the Real Madrid dynasty. Eusebio's team never lifted the trophy again, losing one-goal title games to Milan's top two clubs, AC (1963) and Inter (1965), but he was the competition's dominant player in the first half of the `60s.

Second Team Francisco Gento, Real Madrid

Gento, the baby of Real Madrid juggernaut, is the only player to have won six European Cups. The speedy left winger wasn't as prolific a scorer as many of the Madrid stars--more often he stretched opposing defenses, creating holes for his more fabled teammates--but it was his 107th-minute strike that gave Real a 3-2 extra-time win over AC Milan in the 1958 finals. In all, Gento appeared in eight Champions Cup finals and a record 90 European Cup matches, scoring 31 goals in the competition.

Sandro Mazzola, Inter Milan

Mazzola was a two-goal wonder in Inter's first Cup finals victory (1964) and finished as the tourney's leading scorer that year. Inter repeated as champions in 1965, defeating Eusebio's Benfica in the finals, 1-0. Mazzola led the club back to the semifinals in each of the next two years, advancing to the finals in 1967 where they lost 2-1 to Celtic--despite a goal from the Italian midfielder. Mazzola capped his career by captaining Inter to a runners-up spot in the 1972 European Cup.

Raul, Real Madrid

The monopoly police prevent us from honoring Puskas or Rial--two other great Real Madrid strikers from the late 1950s and early 1960s--so it's another Bernabeu star that fills the final spot up front. In the late 1990s, Raul was criticized for not being a big-game player--never mind that he was barely out of his teens at the time. Raul finally tasted Champions League glory in 2000 and then again in 2002, scoring in the finals in each year. Through 2002, Raul had a record 37 goals in Champions League competition.

MIDFIELDERS

First Team Johan Cruyff, Ajax Amsterdam and Barcelona