Curated playlist
Men's association football forwards
- 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…
- 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…
- Sándor KocsisSándor Kocsis scored 11 goals at a single World Cup and left Switzerland in the summer of 1954 with a record that had never been matched. He was not yet 25 years old. He had scored two hat-tricks in the same tournament, a feat no player…
- 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…
- Oldřich NejedlýOn the 11th of June 1990, Oldřich Nejedlý died at the age of 80, just as that year's World Cup kicked off in Italy. Italy had also hosted the World Cup back in 1934, a tournament that made Nejedlý's name in the first place. What actually…
- 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…
- Helmut RahnHelmut Rahn had six minutes left, and a nation's fragile self-belief riding on his boots. It was the final of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, West Germany against Hungary, and the score stood at 2-2. Rahn received the ball just outside the…
- 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.…
- 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…
- Dražan JerkovićDražan Jerković was born in Šibenik on the 6th of August 1936, when the town still sat inside the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. People occasionally misspell his first name as Dražen, an error that still turns up in references to his career. He…
- 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…
- 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,…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- Leonel SánchezLeonel Guillermo Sánchez Lineros was born on the 25th of April 1936 in Chile, the son of a professional boxer. That detail matters. It hints at something the numbers alone cannot quite capture: that this man played football the way a…
- Arnold HillsArnold Frank Hills played just once for England, in a 5-4 win over Scotland on the 5th of April 1879 at the Kennington Oval. That single cap is a footnote compared to everything else he did. Hills was born on the 12th of March 1857 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…
- GarrinchaGarrincha was born with one leg six centimetres shorter than the other, with his left leg turning outwards and his right turning inwards. A doctor certified him as crippled in childhood. He grew up in Pau Grande, a district of Magé in the…
- 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…
- Mário ZagalloMário Zagallo was standing on the pitch at the Maracanã Stadium as a young soldier in 1950, watching Uruguay defeat Brazil in one of the most painful moments in his country's football history. He did not play that day. He was there in…
- 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…
- 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…
- Flórián AlbertFlórián Albert stood on a pitch in England in 1966, and made a crowd forget about Pelé. That is not a small claim. Hungary were facing Brazil in a must-win World Cup group match, and Albert, who had already claimed the Ballon d'Or the…
- 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…
- Salvatore SchillaciSalvatore Schillaci was born on the 1st of December 1964 in Palermo, Italy. He grew up in a poor family within that Sicilian city. His first steps into football began with Amat Palermo, an amateur team run by the local bus company. This…
- 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.…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- Leônidas (footballer, born 1913)Leônidas da Silva began his professional journey at the São Cristóvão club in Rio de Janeiro. He moved to Sírio e Libanez under coach Gentil Cardoso. When Cardoso left for Bonsucesso, he took Leônidas with him. The forward played for…
- 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…
- Oleg SalenkoOleg Anatolyevich Salenko entered the world on the 25th of October 1969 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR. His father was Ukrainian and his mother was Russian. This dual heritage would later define his complex international career choices. He…
- VaváVavá scored in two consecutive World Cup finals, a feat no other footballer managed for sixty years. Born Edvaldo Izidio Neto on the 12th of November 1934, he grew up to become one of the most feared strikers of his generation. He carried…
- Jesús FerreiraJesús Ferreira came off the bench in the 71st minute for FC Dallas on the 3rd of June 2017, against Real Salt Lake. Eighteen minutes later, in the 89th minute of that 6-2 win, he scored his first professional goal. He had left Colombia…