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 Spanish 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, ball control, and technique. 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 former professional footballer who played primarily as a left back and centre back for AC Milan and the Italy national team. He is widely 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 most appearances in Serie A, with 647, until 2020, when he was overtaken by Gianluigi Buffon. He most recently served as technical director for Milan, as well as being co-owner of USL Championship club Miami FC.
Franz Anton Beckenbauer is a German former professional football player and manager. In his playing career he was nicknamed Der Kaiser because of his elegant style, dominance and leadership on the field, and also as his first name "Franz" is reminiscent of the Austrian emperors. He is widely regarded to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. A versatile player who started out as a midfielder, Beckenbauer made his name as a central defender. He is often credited as having invented the role of the modern sweeper. With success at club and international level, he is one of nine players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Champions Cup and the Ballon d'Or.
Thierry Daniel Henry is a French professional football coach, pundit, sports broadcaster and former player. He is currently the manager of the France national under-21 team. 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 Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's international governing body. The competition has been held every four years and one year after the men's FIFA World Cup since 1991, when the inaugural tournament, then called the FIFA Women's World Championship, was held in China. Under the tournament's current format, national teams vie for 31 slots in a three-year qualification phase. The host nation's team is automatically entered as the 32nd slot. The tournament, called the World Cup Finals, is contested at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about one month.
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 news magazine France Football since 1956. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. That partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men's Player. The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d'Or are considered as winners by both award organisations. The Ballon d’Or is generally regarded as football’s most prestigious and valuable individual award.
Lothar Herbert Matthäus is a German football pundit, former professional football player and manager. After captaining West Germany to victory in the 1990 FIFA World Cup where he lifted the World Cup trophy, he was awarded the Ballon d'Or. In 1991, he was named the first FIFA World Player of the Year, and remains the only German to have received the award. He was also included in the Ballon d'Or Dream Team in 2020.
Paolo Rossi was an Italian professional footballer who played as a forward. He led Italy to the 1982 FIFA World Cup title, scoring six goals to win the Golden Boot as top goalscorer, and the Golden Ball for the player of the tournament. Rossi is one of only three players, and the only European, to have won all three awards at a World Cup, along with Garrincha in 1962 and Mario Kempes in 1978. Rossi was also awarded the 1982 Ballon d'Or as the European Footballer of the Year for his performances. Along with Roberto Baggio and Christian Vieri, he is Italy's top scorer in World Cup history, with nine goals overall.
George Tawlon Manneh Oppong Ousman Weah is a Liberian politician and former professional footballer who is the incumbent president of Liberia, serving in office since 2018. Prior to his election to 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.
The Belgium men's national football team officially represents 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 1982 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 since 2005 it has been held every year, and has been hosted by Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Qatar. 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 weekly 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.
The Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels, generally referred to as FIFPRO, is the worldwide representative organisation for 65,000 professional footballers. FIFPRO, with its global headquarters in Hoofddorp, Netherlands, is made up of 66 national players' associations. In addition, there are four candidate members. Lionel Messi has the most ever appearances in the FIFPRO World 11 with 16 overall, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo with 15.
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 based on votes from international journalists, but votes from national team coaches and captains, 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 who is a football commentator for TUDN. A prolific forward, he is regarded as one of the best players of his generation and one of the best in Barcelona's history. He is also regarded as the greatest Bulgarian footballer of all time. He was 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.
The FIFA World Coach of the Year was an association football award given annually to the football coach who is considered to have performed the best in the previous 12 months. It was awarded based on votes from coaches and captains of international teams, as well as journalists from around the world.
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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