The award, which was judged on performances in last season's Champions League competition, was presented to Terry by Paolo Maldini.

Terry took the honour last year and in 2005 but he is yet to lift Europe's top trophy.

He was the thickness of a post away from doing so in the 2008 penalty shoot-out defeat by Manchester United in Moscow, and he is determined to succeed before his career comes to a close.

"What I try to do is come into training and work very hard every day and not to be able to get my hands on the Champions League trophy is enough motivation for me," said Terry. "That is something I am aiming to do with Chelsea."

The votes were cast by the coaches of the 16 teams that reached the knockout stages of the competition. The best midfielder was Xavi and best forward was Lionel Messi, both of Barcelona.

On the day Terry received his award, Chelsea were handed a relatively comfortable draw in the group stage of this season's Champions League tournament.

The Blues face Atletico Madrid, Porto and Apoel Nicosia, and chief executive Peter Kenyon was more than happy with the outcome.

Portuguese champions Porto have been frequent recent opponents for Chelsea, having faced the Blues in the group stage in 2004/05 and the quarter-finals in 2006/07.

Atletico Madrid, who finished fourth in Spain last season, will be new opponents for the Londoners while Apoel, from the Cyprus capital Nicosia, came through the qualifiers by beating FC Copenhagen.

"We have to generally be pleased with the draw," said Kenyon. "There are no easy games and no easy groups but overall there is not too much travel and we managed to avoid one of the big ones.

"We have played Porto twice in the competition and ex-Porto players have been an important part of Chelsea's history. We know Porto better than most."

Meanwhile, Kenyon confirmed it was most unlikely Chelsea would be adding to the squad before the group games begin.

"We have concentrated on re-signing the players we wanted and that has been really successful," said Kenyon. "We have had a great start to the season and (manager) Carlo Ancelotti, before he joined, was very happy with the squad, and we have strengthened that with Yuri Zhirkov.

"We are happy with the squad and we believe this year we can go on further."