Lothar Matthaus (Ballon d’Or 1990; FIFA World Player of the Year 1991) The Germany legend was the first recipient of the FIFA World player of the Year award which came into existence in 1991. The defensive midfielder, who was singled out by Diego Maradona as the toughest player he ever faced, was plying his trade at the time for Inter ...

Sir Stanley Matthews The Blackpool and Stoke City legend earned his knighthood in 1965 and became the first footballer to be knighted. He remains the only footballer to be knighted while still playing. Matthews had an incredible 33-year long professional playing career and quite remarkably, he continued playing professional football until he was 50. Known by several nicknames, including “the ...

Juventus When the Italian outfit began their football journey, they originally wore pink shirts but the colour could hardly bear the burden of repeated washing and would ultimately fade away. Juventus wanted a solution for the problem and asked one of their members, an Englishman named John Savage, to ask his contacts in England to supply shirts in colours that ...

History of the Ballon d’Or The concept of awarding the best European player each year was started by the French magazine France Football, which first came up with the idea in 1956. The idea conceived by France Football editor Gabriel Hanot intended to give the Ballon d’Or to the best European player each year. The voting rights were exclusive to ...

Zinedine Zidane was always expected to get the Real Madrid job someday. The Frenchman had retired from his playing career a club legend, having won them a ninth Champions League with a scintillating volley against Bayer Leverkusen in 2002. He later served as an assistant to Carlo Ancelotti when the Italian took reins at the Santiago Bernabeu and delivered the ...

Thiago Motta (Inter Milan vs. Barcelona, semi-final second leg, 2009/10) In one of the most infamous instances of a red card being dished out, Thiago Motta was sent off for a hand in the face of Barcelona midfield lynchpin Sergio Busquets. The Catalan went down on the turf as Motta got his marching orders. But what has stood out from ...

Chelsea 1-1 (4-3 on penalties) Bayern Munich (final, 2011/12) Heading in to the 2012 Champions League final, Bayern Munich were the overwhelming favourites. The Bavarian giants were playing at home and Chelsea had barely survived with enough first team regulars after a bruising semi-final win over Barcelona. But in the final the Blues kept doing what they did to eliminate ...

Udo Lattek is ranked amongst the greatest managers in world football, and for good reason. The German had a knack of winning trophies and he went on to collect 14 of them before retiring from football management. Lattek’s playing career wasn’t much to write about, but he achieved tremendous success as a manager. His first assignment was an assistant to ...

In the 2016 summer transfer window Borussia Dortmund acquired the services of Ousmane Dembele after signing him on a five-year contract from French club Rennes. The youngster was much in demand and was also linked with a move to the English Premier League giants Liverpool, but the Black and Yellows were able to take him away to Germany. And the ...

No other modern day footballer has been labeled the ‘best ever’ more times than the Barcelona legend Lionel Messi. The diminutive genius is certainly one of a kind and it seems highly unlikely that we will witness someone similar in our lifetime. Messi is unarguably one of those few players who can walk into any world class team in the ...