The first uefa.com users’ Team of the Year poll was launched on 12 December 2001.

Concept
The criteria for Team of the Year concept was straightforward and presented in simple terms: "Naturally, there were many fine individual displays too [in 2001], and rather than impose our own "expert" selections of the top players of the year, uefa.com is asking the real experts, the site’s users, to vote for their Team of 2001.”

First team
The users responded with a cumulative poll of over three million votes before the team was announced on 3 January 2002. Since then the concept has been the same: uefa.com writers have come up with 60 nominations and the uefa,com users have selected the eleven players and one coach to make up the final selection. The first such selection was not dominated by any one club with UEFA Champions League finalists FC Bayern München and Valencia CF both having two players chosen, while UEFA Cup winners Liverpool had one player and one coach in the dream dozen.

King Henry
In total 58 individuals have been selected on the eight uefa.com users' Teams of the Year. The most successful player has been French forward Thierry Henry. He was selected on the first four teams, missed out by a mere 1,000 votes on the Team of 2005 before garnering his fifth selection in the 2006 team. Alessandro Nesta and Carles Puyol have been selected four times while Zinédine Zidane, Pavel Nedvěd, Gianluigi Buffon, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard and José Mourinho have all appeared in three selections. Puyol, Ronaldo and Gerrard have also been nominated for the 2009 team.