Curated playlist
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
- Dirk NowitzkiDirk Nowitzki stood in the visiting locker room in Miami in June 2011, carrying a 101-degree fever, his left middle finger held together by a surgically mended tendon. His team, the Dallas Mavericks, were one win away from their first-ever…
- Germany national football teamOn the 5th of April 1908, Germany played its first official international football match against Switzerland in Basel, and lost 5-3. It was an inauspicious beginning for a team that would go on to win four FIFA World Cups, three European…
- 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…
- France national football teamOn the 1st of May 1904, France played their very first official international football match against Belgium in Brussels, and the result was a 3-3 draw. Nobody watching that afternoon could have imagined what the next century would bring.…
- Tom BradyTom Brady arrived at the New England Patriots' old Foxboro Stadium as a sixth-round draft pick, carrying a pizza box and wearing the look of someone who had something to prove. Patriots owner Robert Kraft remembered the moment: Brady…
- Argentina national football teamArgentina's national football team took the field for the first time on the 20th of June 1902 in Montevideo, and beat Uruguay 6-0. Neither side had ever played an international match before that day, and Argentina walked away with six…
- Italy national football teamItaly's national football team played its first official match on the 15th of May 1910, defeating France 6-2 in Milan. Pietro Lana scored the very first goal, and the squad lined up in a 2-3-5 formation with Francesco Cali as captain. What…
- 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…
- Serena WilliamsSerena Williams stood at No.304 in the world rankings in November 1997 when she upset No.7 Mary Pierce and No.4 Monica Seles in the same tournament, a feat no lower-ranked player in the Open Era had managed. Within two decades she would…
- Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in October 1968 at age 21, speaking little English and carrying little money. He had already won the Mr. Universe title once, and he would go on to win it three more times. What…
- 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…
- Dikembe MutomboDikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1987 speaking almost no English. He had grown up in Kinshasa, attended Boboto College to prepare for a medical career, and spoke French, Spanish,…
- Simone BilesSimone Biles was six years old when a day-care field trip brought her to a gymnastics gym for the first time. Nobody around her expected that visit to matter. Decades later, sports writers would call her one of the greatest athletes alive.…
- 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,…
- Yao MingYao Ming weighed 11 pounds at birth in Shanghai on the 12th of September 1980 , more than twice the average weight of a Chinese newborn. His mother stood 6 feet 3 inches tall. His father stood 6 feet 7 inches. Both had played professional…
- 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…
- Arsène WengerArsène Wenger was born on the 22nd of October 1949 in Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France, the youngest of three children. His father Alphonse had been conscripted by force into the German Army, sent to fight on the Eastern Front at…
- Billie Jean KingBillie Jean King stood on the court at the Houston Astrodome on the 20th of September 1973, facing 55-year-old Bobby Riggs. She was 29 years old. Riggs had already beaten Margaret Court, the world's top female player, and claimed women's…