Curated playlist
FIFA 100
- Michael OwenMichael Owen scored one of the most talked-about goals in England's football history at the age of eighteen. Running from near the halfway line against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup, he beat two defenders and drove the ball past the…
- Djalma SantosDjalma Santos did not play a single minute of the 1958 World Cup until the final itself. Brazil's coach had dropped him in favour of a player named De Sordi. Santos watched from the bench as Brazil progressed through the tournament. Then…
- Didier DeschampsDidier Deschamps was once called "the water-carrier" by a former teammate, and it was not a compliment. Eric Cantona, the flamboyant Manchester United star, used the phrase to suggest that Deschamps's only contribution to the French…
- Ronaldo (Brazilian footballer)Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima scored five goals for Cruzeiro in a single game against Bahia on the 7th of November 1993. He was 17 years old. The Brazilian football federation would soon be calling him a prodigy, European clubs would soon…
- Gerd MüllerGerd Müller scored 68 goals in 62 international appearances for West Germany. That is not a misprint. Most top-level strikers celebrate if they average a goal every two games. Müller averaged more than one per game, across an entire…
- Davor ŠukerDavor Šuker scored the goal that silenced a World Cup semi-final. It was the summer of 1998, in France, and Croatia had never played at a World Cup before. Šuker struck first against the host nation, giving his country a lead they would…
- Sepp MaierSepp Maier spent his entire professional career with one club, making 709 appearances for Bayern Munich across seventeen seasons. He was born Josef Dieter Maier on the 28th of February 1944. He grew up to guard the goal for both Bayern and…
- Diego MaradonaDiego Armando Maradona was born on the 30th of October 1960 in a polyclinic hospital in Lanús, Buenos Aires Province, and raised in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the southern outskirts of the city. He died on the 25th of November 2020,…
- Zinedine ZidaneZinedine Zidane scored two goals in the 1998 World Cup Final, both headers, both from corners, in front of the entire world. France beat Brazil 3-0 that night at the Stade de France. More than one million people lined the Champs-Elysees…
- Gary LinekerGary Lineker was born on the 30th of November 1960 in Leicester, and a teacher once wrote on his school report that he concentrated too much on football and would never make a living at it. Lineker left school with four O Levels and joined…
- Paolo RossiPaolo Rossi was born on the 23rd of September 1956 in Prato, Tuscany, in the area of Santa Lucia. Twenty-six years later, he stood at the centre of one of the most improbable recoveries in World Cup history. The question that summer in…
- PeléEdson Arantes do Nascimento was born on the 23rd of October 1940 in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and he died on the 29th of December 2022 at the age of 82. The world knew him by one word: Pelé. He won three FIFA World Cup titles,…
- EusébioEusébio da Silva Ferreira grew up barefoot in the Mafalala neighbourhood of Lourenço Marques, kicking balls made of socks stuffed with newspapers rolled into spheres. By the time he walked off a Wembley pitch in 1966, tears streaming down…
- Franco BaresiFranco Baresi made his Serie A debut on the 23rd of April 1978, stepping onto the pitch for AC Milan at age 17. He had arrived at the club only because Inter Milan turned him away, choosing his older brother Giuseppe instead. What followed…
- Just FontaineJust Fontaine scored thirteen goals at the 1958 FIFA World Cup. Not across a tournament run that stretched years or multiple competitions. Thirteen goals in six matches, across a single World Cup in Sweden. No player, in any World Cup…
- RomárioRomário de Souza Faria was born on the 29th of January 1966 in Rio de Janeiro, and by the time he retired, the debate over whether he was the greatest striker who ever lived had drawn in some of the most celebrated players and coaches in…
- Jürgen KlinsmannJürgen Klinsmann scored sixteen goals in a single football match at the age of eight. He was playing for an amateur club in the small town of Gingen an der Fils. Football was still years away from becoming his profession. That boy from…
- Oliver KahnOliver Kahn won the Golden Ball at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the award for the tournament's best individual performer, despite having fumbled a shot directly to Ronaldo's feet to concede Germany's first goal in the final. No goalkeeper in…
- Franz BeckenbauerFranz Beckenbauer lifted the World Cup trophy as a captain in 1974, then lifted it again as a manager in 1990. Only two other men in football history, Brazil's Mario Zagallo and France's Didier Deschamps, have ever done the same. The fans…
- Gabriel BatistutaGabriel Omar Batistuta was born on the 1st of February 1969 in the Argentine town of Avellaneda, to a slaughterhouse worker and a school secretary. He grew up in the nearby city of Reconquista, where football was not even his first sport.…
- Gianluigi BuffonGianluigi Buffon was born on the 28th of January 1978 in Carrara, Tuscany, into a family that treated sport as a way of life. His mother was a discus thrower, his father a weightlifter, and both became physical education teachers after…
- Hristo StoichkovHristo Stoichkov was born on the 8th of February 1966 in Plovdiv, a city in southern Bulgaria, and he would grow up to be named by Pele himself as one of the hundred greatest living footballers on earth. That honor came in 2004, a decade…
- Lothar MatthäusLothar Matthäus was born on the 21st of March 1961 in Erlangen, Bavaria, to a father who had fled across the Oder River in 1944 ahead of the Soviet advance. That backstory of escape and reinvention threads quietly through everything that…
- Michel PlatiniMichel Platini scored nine goals in five matches at the 1984 European Championship, a record that stood for 37 years. That tournament, played on home soil in France, became the defining image of a career built on intelligence rather than…
- Teófilo CubillasTeófilo Cubillas was born on the 8th of March 1949, in Peru, and by the time he was 20 years old, Pelé himself had declared him his successor. That is not a small thing. Pelé, still active and at the height of his powers after winning the…
- Mario KempesIn the 105th minute of the 1978 World Cup final, Mario Kempes scored the game-winning goal against the Netherlands. He had entered that match as the only foreign-based player César Luis Menotti had selected for the entire tournament. By…