Zinedine Yazid Zidane, popularly known as Zizou, is a French professional football manager and former player who played as an attacking midfielder. He most recently coached La Liga club Real Madrid and is one of the most successful coaches in the world. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Zidane was a playmaker renowned for his elegance, vision, passing, and ball control. He received many individual accolades as a player, including being named FIFA World Player of the Year in 1998, 2000 and 2003, and winning the 1998 Ballon d'Or.
Paolo Cesare Maldini is an Italian football executive and former professional footballer who played as a left-back or as a centre-back for AC Milan and the Italy national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest defenders of all time. As the Milan and Italy captain for many years, he was nicknamed "Il Capitano". Maldini held the record for appearances in Serie A (647), until he was surpassed by Gianluigi Buffon in 2020. He also holds the joint-record for most European Cup/UEFA Champions League final appearances (8) alongside Paco Gento. From 2018 to 2023 he worked at AC Milan as sporting director and is a co-owner of USL Championship club Miami FC.
Franz Anton Beckenbauer was a German professional football player, manager, and official. Nicknamed der Kaiser, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, and is one of nine players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Champions Cup, and the Ballon d'Or. Beckenbauer was a versatile player who started out as a midfielder, but made his name as a central defender. He is often credited as having invented the role of the modern sweeper.
Michel François Platini is a French football administrator and former player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, Platini won the Ballon d'Or three times in a row, in 1983, 1984 and 1985, and came seventh in the FIFA Player of the Century vote. In recognition of his achievements, he was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 1985 and became an Officier in 1998. As the president of UEFA in 2015 he was banned from involvement in football under FIFA's organisation, over ethics violations. The ban lasted until 2023.
Thierry Daniel Henry is a French professional football coach, pundit, sports broadcaster and former player. He is considered one of the greatest strikers of all time, and one of the greatest players in Premier League history. He has been named by Arsenal as the club's greatest ever player. Henry was runner-up for both the Ballon d'Or in 2003 and the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2003 and 2004. He was named the FWA Footballer of the Year a record three times, the PFA Players' Player of the Year a joint-record two times, and was named in the PFA Team of the Year six consecutive times. He was also included in the FIFA FIFPro World XI once and the UEFA Team of the Year five times. In 2004, Henry was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.
The FIFA World Player of the Year was an association football award presented annually by the sport's governing body, FIFA, between 1991 and 2015 at the FIFA World Player Gala. Coaches and captains of international teams and media representatives selected the player they deem to have performed the best in the previous calendar year.
The 1999 FIFA World Player of the Year award was won by Rivaldo. The gala was hosted at the Palais de Congress Brussels, on January 24, 2000. 132 national team coaches, based on the current FIFA Men's World Ranking were chosen to vote. It was organised by European Sports Media, Adidas, International Football Hall of Champions, FIFA and the Voetbal International Magazine of Belgium.
The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French magazine France Football since 1956 to honour the player deemed to have performed the best over the previous season.
Davor Šuker is a Croatian football administrator and former professional player who played as a striker. He served as the president of the Croatian Football Federation from 2012 to 2021. As Croatia's all-time top scorer with 45 goals, Šuker is generally regarded as the greatest Croatian striker of all time, and as one of the greatest strikers of all time.
Franklin Edmundo "Frank" Rijkaard is a Dutch former footballer and former manager who played as a defensive midfielder. Regarded as one of the best midfielders in footballing history, Rijkaard was described by British broadsheet The Daily Telegraph as having been "a stylish player of faultless pedigree".
George Tawlon Manneh Oppong Ousman Weah is a Liberian politician and former professional footballer who served as the 25th president of Liberia from 2018 to 2024. Before his election for the presidency, Weah served as senator from Montserrado County. He played as a striker in his prolific 18-year professional football career which ended in 2003. Weah is the first African former professional footballer to become a head of state, and the only African Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year winner in history, winning both awards in 1995. He won the African Footballer of the Year 3 times and is considered one of the greatest strikers ever.
The Belgium national football team has represented Belgium in men's international football since their maiden match in 1904. The squad is under the global jurisdiction of FIFA and is governed in Europe by UEFA—both of which were co-founded by the Belgian team's supervising body, the Royal Belgian Football Association. Periods of regular Belgian representation at the highest international level, from 1920 to 1938, from 1980 to 2002 and again from 2014 onwards, have alternated with mostly unsuccessful qualification rounds. Most of Belgium's home matches are played at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
The FIFA Club World Cup is an international men's association football competition organised by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The competition was first contested in 2000 as the FIFA Club World Championship. It was not held from 2001 to 2004 due to a combination of factors in the cancelled 2001 tournament, most importantly the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner International Sport and Leisure (ISL), but in 2005 it changed to an annual competition through 2023. Following the 2023 edition, the tournament was revamped to a quadrennial competition starting in 2025. Views differ as to the cup's prestige: it struggles to attract interest in most of Europe, and is the object of heated debate in South America.
France Football is a French monthly magazine containing football news from all over the world. It is considered to be one of the most reputable sports publications in Europe, mostly because of its photographic reports, in-depth and exclusive interviews and accurate statistics of the UEFA Champions League matches, and extensive coverage of the European leagues. The magazine was first published in 1946 and is headquartered in Paris. For more than six decades it has presented the Ballon d'Or award to the best football player of the year.
Michel Georges Jean Ghislain Preud'homme is a Belgian retired footballer and manager who played as a goalkeeper. Currently, he is vice-president and sports director at Standard Liège.
The FIFA Futsal World Cup is an international futsal competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. Since the first edition that took place in 1989 in the Netherlands, the tournament has been held every four years since 1992 in the even year between two 11-a-side World Cups.
The FIFA Ballon d'Or was an annual association football award presented to the world's best men's player from 2010 to 2015. Awarded jointly by FIFA and France Football, the prize was a merger of the FIFA World Player of the Year award and the Ballon d'Or, the two most prestigious individual honours in world football. Unlike the Ballon d'Or awarded by France Football, the FIFA Ballon d'Or, was not awarded solely based on votes from international journalists, but votes from national team coaches and captains also, who selected the players they deemed to have performed the best in the previous calendar year.
Hristo Stoichkov Stoichkov is a Bulgarian former professional footballer and current football commentator for TUDN. A prolific forward, he is widely regarded as the greatest Bulgarian footballer of all time. He was the runner-up for the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 1992 and 1994 and received the Ballon d'Or in 1994. In 2004, Stoichkov was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.
FIFA Female Player of the Century was a one-off award created by the global governing body FIFA to decide the greatest football female player of the 20th century, announced at the annual FIFA World gala, held in Rome on 11 December 2000. American player Michelle Akers and Chinese player Sun Wen were joint winners of the award. Michelle Akers won the award based on votes from FIFA officials, journalists and coaches, while Sun Wen won the award based on the Internet poll.
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