Active EHF Champions League Men players with 15 or more seasons played (including 2023/24)
1. Nikola Karabatic: 22 seasons
Two decades ago Nikola Karabatic won the first of his four EHF Champions League titles with Montpellier HB. 20 years and two more titles later, the 39-year-old is still in the mood to earn a fifth winners' medal as he enters his 22nd season in the top European competition.
The other titles were won at THW Kiel and Barça, but after eight years with Paris Saint-Germain Handball, he is yet to lift the trophy. Will it be ninth time lucky in 2023/24?
2. Mirko Alilovic: 21 seasons
201cm-tall goalkeeper Mirko Alilovic has been scaring shooters in the EHF Champions League since the 2000/01 season, when he first played in the competition for Bosnian club HC Izvidac. In 2005/06 he switched to Spanish outfit Abanca Ademar Leon then to RK Celje Pivovarna Lasko.
Back-to-back runners-up medals with Veszprém in 2015 and 2016 are the closest he has come to winning the competition. After five more years in Hungary with OTP-Bank Pick Szeged, he moved to Poland and Orlen Wisla Plock this summer.
3. Timur Dibirov: 20 seasons
40 years old and embarking on season number 20, it is no exaggeration to say Russian wing Timur Dibirov has given half his life to the EHF Champions League!
The first nine of those seasons came in his homeland with Chekhovskie medvedi, before the most successful era of his career; twice a champion in nine year at HC Vardar. He probably won't play another nine with HC Zagreb, but 78 goals last season suggests he's still got it!
4. Mirsad Terzic: 19 seasons
What is it with Balkan-born players and longevity? With Frenchman Karabatic born in Serbia, three of the top four hail from the region.
Like Alilovic, Terzic also began his EHF Champions League life at Izvidac, now plays at Plock, spent time in Celje and Veszprem in between and only has runners-up medals with Veszprém to his name. Unlike Alilovic, he has three silvers to the goalkeeper's two. The comparisons do not end there, as like Dibirov, he is 40 and featured for Zagreb.
17 seasons
Ivan Cupic (Metkovic, Velenje, Rhein-Neckar Löwen, Kielce, Vardar, Zagreb)
Domagoj Duvnjak (Zagreb, Hamburg, Kiel)
Eduardo Gurbindo (San Antonio, Valladolid, Barcelona, Nantes, Bucharest, Kiel)
16 seasons
Mikkel Hansen (GOG, Barcelona, Köbenhavn, Paris, Aalborg)
15 seasons
Luka Karabatic (Montpellier, Paris)
Niklas Landin (GOG, Bjerringbro-Silkeborg, Rhein-Neckar Löwen, Kiel, Aalborg)
Aitor Arino (Barcelona)
