Curated playlist
Ligue 1 players
- 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…
- Kylian MbappéKylian Mbappé stood in a stadium of 80,000 people on the 16th of July 2024, wearing the number 9 shirt of Real Madrid. He was 25 years old. Just nine years earlier, he had been a teenager at Monaco's reserve team, brought on by coach…
- 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…
- Manuel AmorosManuel Amoros was born on the 1st of February 1962, in Nîmes, in the Gard department of southern France. His parents were Spanish, and they had left Spain to escape the regime of Francisco Franco. The boy grew up to wear the shirt of some…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- Enzo ScifoEnzo Scifo was eighteen years old, and one hundred fifteen days, at the 1984 European Championship. He had just helped Belgium beat Yugoslavia 2-0 in the tournament's opening match. That made him the youngest player yet to appear in the…
- Fabien BarthezFabien Barthez let a teammate kiss the top of his shaved head before kickoff, a ritual meant to bring good luck to France's goalkeeper. Nicknamed Le Divin Chauve, "The Divine Bald One," Barthez turned that bare scalp into one of the most…
- Guillermo StábileGuillermo Stábile arrived at the 1930 FIFA World Cup as a last-minute replacement, stepping onto the pitch only because the first-choice striker suffered an anxiety attack before kick-off. By the time the tournament ended, he had scored…
- Lucien LaurentLucien Laurent scored the most historically significant goal in the history of football, and almost nobody at the time understood what they had just witnessed. On the 13th of July 1930, at the Estadio Pocitos in Montevideo, Uruguay, a…
- Paul PogbaPaul Labile Pogba was born on the 15th of March 1993 in Lagny-sur-Marne, France, to Guinean parents, and by his early twenties he had become the most expensive footballer on the planet. The number tells the story bluntly: €105 million, the…
- 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…