Why Gareth is now Britain’s SECOND best export (so far)
GARETH BALE’s second Champions league victory with Real Madrid makes him only the second Briton after steve McManaman to win that competition — or the European Cup — more than once with a foreign club since 1956. scotland’s Paul lambert and England’s Owen Hargreaves are the only other Britons to win the trophy with a foreign club — lambert with Dortmund in 1997 and Hargreaves at Bayern Munich in 2001. Four other Britons have been runners-up: Kevin Keegan ( Hamburg, 1980), laurie Cunningham (Real Madrid, 1981), steve Archibald ( Barcelona, 1986) and Chris Waddle (Marseille, 1991). so which British and Irish exports have been the biggest hits overall, not just in the biggest European competition but at major clubs in terms of titles, goals and impact? Sportsmail judged every contender who had at least one spell in a ‘ Big Five’ European league on six criteria: longevity overseas (games), goals per game, European Cup success, other trophies, major personal honours, and economic ‘ weight’ of the deal that took them abroad. Every player was marked out of 10 for each criterion to give us Sportmail’s top 10 Brits abroad, with their total marks out of 60.