Meet Jovan Kirovski, the first American to win the Champions League: “I wanted to be the best player in the world”

Before players like Clint Dempsey, Christian Pulisic or Giovanni Reyna made headlines in Europe, one American quietly broke ground in the world’s most prestigious club tournament: Jovan Kirovski.

While Steve Trittschuh was the first American to play in the Champions League (then known as the European Cup), California-born Kirovski was the first to win it.

The soccer-mad son of Macedonian immigrants got his first break in 1992 when he impressed while playing as a guest for Glasgow Rangers in a youth tournament in Northern Ireland.

Aged 16, he was offered a place at Manchester United and spent the next four years at Old Trafford, playing for the reserve team alongside David Beckham and Paul Scholes as well as occasionally training with the senior squad. United offered him a contract but Kirovski, who had been staying on a college visa, was denied a work permit. In July 1996, he left the UK for Germany, to join Borussia Dortmund on a free transfer.

The first American to win the Champions League

A towering striker with an imposing presence and an eye for goal, Kirovski made his Bundesliga debut against VfL Bochum on October 4, 1996 and scored his first goal for the club in the next game against Duisburg.

Maybe that was what persuaded coach Ottmar Hitzfeld to include him in his squad for the Champions League group game against Atlético Madrid. Kirovski played in the home and away games against Atlético, coming on as a late sub in both. That alone guaranteed him a winners’ medal when Dortmund went on to be crowned champions of Europe the following May, beating Zidane’s Juventus in the final in Munich.

Apart from his two brief outings against Atlético, Kirovski was only called up another two times during that European campaign - he watched the group game against Steaua Bucharest from the bench and also the first leg of the semi-final - against his old club Manchester United. Nevertheless, not only had he earned a winners’ medal, he was the first American soccer player to win the Champions League.

“Dortmund at the time, it was a different Dortmund than it is today. We had Jürgen Kohler, we had Matthias Sammer, [Andreas] Möller, all World Cup champions, big players. And young players were not getting chances,” Kirovski told Grant Wahl. “So for a young player, it was impossible. To break into a team like that was impossible. I didn’t want to just make it as a professional, I wanted to be the best player in the world”.

But for a 20-year-old American, it was an invaluable learning process. “I went there from Alex Ferguson to Ottmar Hitzfeld. In my job today, to be able to learn from these kinds of people, whether it’s the players on the field, or the coaches, it really benefits me. It benefits me today”.

A rare feat

Kirovski says he keeps his prized Champions League winners’ medal in a bank safe. Only one other American soccer player owns one - Christian Pulisic, who won with Chelsea in 2020/21.

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