Curated playlist
FIFA Men's Century Club
- Lionel MessiLionel Andrés Messi was born on the 24th of June 1987 in Rosario, a city in the Santa Fe Province of Argentina. By the time he was ten years old, doctors had told his family he would stop growing. His body could not produce enough growth…
- 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…
- Luka ModrićLuka Modrić scored the only goal against Chelsea on the 21st of March 2009, a composed finish that silenced those who had called him a lightweight unfit for English football. He was just twenty-three, playing out of position, still…
- Philipp LahmPhilipp Lahm scored in the sixth minute of the 2006 FIFA World Cup's opening match, cutting inside the area and launching a right-foot shot into the top-right corner of the net. The venue was Munich. The opponent was Costa Rica. And the…
- Thibaut CourtoisThibaut Courtois made nine saves in the 2022 UEFA Champions League final, a record in the final since Opta began keeping records in 2003-04. Real Madrid beat Liverpool 1-0 that evening, and Courtois was named player of the match. But that…
- Grzegorz LatoGrzegorz Lato arrived at Stal Mielec as a teenager in 1966, a boy from Malbork joining a club stuck in the Second Division. Few people in Poland could have predicted what came next. Over the following decade, Lato would drag that…
- Nicolás OtamendiNicolás Otamendi was born on the 12th of February 1988 in Buenos Aires, and by the time he lifted the FIFA World Cup in December 2022, he had done something almost no outfield player in the history of the tournament could claim: he had…
- Cristiano RonaldoCristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro was born on the 5th of February 1985 in the São Pedro parish of Funchal, the capital of the Portuguese island of Madeira. His mother, a cook and cleaning woman, wanted to abort him. Her doctor refused.…
- Andrés GuardadoJosé Andrés Guardado Hernández was born on the 28th of September 1986, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, to Andrés Manuel Guardado and Teresa Hernández. At seven years old, he joined the youth ranks of local club Atlas, the very academy that would…
- Manuel NeuerManuel Neuer made his Bundesliga debut with Schalke 04 on matchday two of the 2006, 07 season. He came on as a substitute for the injured Frank Rost during a 2, 2 draw against Bayern Munich. The twenty-year-old eventually secured the…
- Miroslav KloseMiroslav Klose scored 16 goals in the FIFA World Cup across four tournaments, a record no player has matched. He was born on the 9th of June 1978 in Opole, a Silesian city in Poland, and he arrived in West Germany as an eight-year-old in…
- Thomas MüllerThomas Müller was born on the 13th of September 1989 in Weilheim in Oberbayern, Bavaria, and grew up in the nearby village of Pähl. Fifty kilometres from home, a ten-year-old boy made a journey that would define the next quarter century of…
- 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…
- Landon DonovanLandon Donovan scored the only goal of the match in the dying seconds against Algeria at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, off a rebound from a Clint Dempsey attempt, sending the United States to first place in their group for the first time since…
- Diego ForlánDiego Forlán Corazo was born on the 19th of May 1979 in the Carrasco neighborhood of Montevideo, Uruguay. His family history is deeply rooted in professional football. His father Pablo played for Peñarol and São Paulo while representing…
- James RodríguezJames David Rodríguez Rubio was born on the 12th of July 1991 in Cúcuta, Norte de Santander, and grew up in the city of Ibagué, Tolima. He made his professional debut on the 21st of May 2006 at the age of 14, becoming the second youngest…
- 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…
- Lukas PodolskiLukas Podolski scored a goal after just nine seconds in May 2013 against Ecuador. Not nine minutes. Nine seconds. It was the fastest goal in the history of the German national team, and the second fastest international goal on earth at…
- 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…
- 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…
- Iker CasillasIker Casillas Fernández was born on the 20th of May 1981 in Móstoles, a town in the province of Madrid, to a civil servant and a hairdresser. His father, José Luis, spent his spare time filling out football prediction pools. On one…
- 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…
- Harry KaneHarry Kane was born on the 28th of July 1993 at Whipps Cross University Hospital in Leytonstone, London, and he grew up fifteen minutes from Tottenham Hotspur's ground in a family of Spurs fans. When he was six years old, he joined a local…
- Rafael MárquezRafael Márquez Álvarez was born on the 13th of February 1979 in Mexico, and by the time he finished playing, he had done something no defender in the world had ever done before: appeared at five separate FIFA World Cups as captain. That is…