Lilian Thuram

Lilian Thuram (born Ruddy Lilian Thuram-Ulien, January 1, 1972, in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, FWI) is a retired French professional football defender and is the most capped player in the history of the France national team. He has played at the top flight in France, Italy and Spain for over 15 seasons, including ten in the Serie A. With France, Thuram won the 1998 World Cup and the Euro 2000. Thuram holds the record for most appearances at the European Championship, with 16. He was expected to join Paris Saint-Germain on the June 27, 2008, having agreed a year contract. However, at the press conference he instead announced the discovery of a cardiac malformation, similar to the one that cost his brother's life. A month later Thuram announced his full retirement from football due to the cardiac condition.



In Juventus, along with former Parma teammate Buffon, they won the Scudetto twice with Juventus (it was originally four times, but the club was stripped of the 2004/05 and 2005/06 titles due to the Calciopoli)

During 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, Thuram, along with former Parma teammates, Gianlugi Buffon and Fabio Cannavaro formed one of the most expensive, but also most feared defences in world football.

Honours

* AS Monaco (1991–1996)
o Coupe de France: 1990/91
* Parma (1996–2001)
o UEFA Cup: 1998/99
o Coppa Italia: 1998/99
o Italian Super Cup: 1999
* Juventus (2001–2006)
o Serie A: 2001/02 2002/03 (2004/05 & 2005/06 titles stripped)
o Italian Super Cup: 2002, 2003
* FC Barcelona (2006–2008)
o Spanish Super Cup: 2006
* French national team (1994-2008 )
o FIFA World Cup: winner 1998, runner-up 2006
o European Championship: winner 2000, semi-finalist 1996

Thuram was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.

In 2006, he was named a member of the FIFPro World XI team.

Following the 1998 World Cup, he was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1998

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Michel Platini

Platini at Juventus (1982-1987)


At Juventus, in a team featuring numerous members of Italy's victorious World Cup squad, Platini had a difficult introduction to Italian football. He was a target in the demanding Italian sports media, and even came close to leaving Italy in the winter of his first season. Platini and team-mate Zbigniew Boniek successfully called for a change in tactics, and in the second half of the season Juventus saw an upturn in their fortunes. They reached the European Cup final, losing to Hamburg, and won the Italian Cup, the first of many club honours to follow for Platini in the coming seasons. He won the Italian championship with Juventus in 1984 and 1986, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1984, the 1984 European Super Cup, the European Cup in 1985 (in a controversial game against Liverpool), and the 1985 World Club Championship. He finished top scorer in Serie A for three consecutive seasons (1982-83, 1983-84 and 1984-85), and won a hat-trick of European Footballer of the Year awards (1983 through 1985). Platini was also voted Player of the Year by World Soccer magazine in 1984 and 1985.

The 1985 European Cup final against Liverpool at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels should have been the crowning moment of Platini's Juventus career. The stadium was not fit to stage a match of such importance, and before the teams had kicked off, a wall collapsed under the weight of Juventus fans rushing to avoid a group of Liverpool fans who had made their way into section Z of the ground. 39 people died, and 600 more were injured. It was decided to proceed with the match in order to avoid inciting any further trouble, and after both captains had appealed for calm, the match began just under an hour and a half beyond schedule, with riot police still engaged in a pitched battle with Juventus fans enraged by the lack of organization that had led to the bloodshed in the stadium. (See Heysel Stadium disaster.) Platini scored the only goal of the match from a penalty kick awarded for a foul on Zbigniew Boniek. In the days following the final, Platini was criticised in some quarters for his lack of restraint in celebrating Juventus' win. In his own defence, Platini maintained that like every other player on the field, he had not been made fully aware of the scale of the disaster.

Following the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Platini spent another season at Juventus before retiring from football in June 1987.

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Zinedine Zidane

* Nicknamed "Zizou"
* Born in Marseilles, France, of Algerian parents
* Scored his first goal professionally in 1991; the president of the Cannes football club gifted him with a car.
* In his first international game (playing for France against the Czech Republic) in 1994, he scored two goals in 17 minutes
* Won Golden Ball — European MVP award for leading France to victory in 1998 World Cup

* FIFA Player of the Year in 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006
* Became football's most expensive player in 2001, when Real Madrid acquired him for £46 million (roughly $66 million)
* Christian Dior's first male model
* After being sidelined several times with injuries, he announced he would retire after 2006 World Cup games in Germany
* Captained the French team in World Cup 2006 games; they lost to Italy
* Headbutted opponent Marco Materazzi after a brief altercation in the 100th minute of the World Cup Final game. Zidane was red-carded, banished from the field.
* Still won 2006 FIFA Golden Ball
* Is featured as a LEGO minifigure, included in some of the soccer playsets

In the meantime, I wrote up a profile on Zizou, who I personally believe to be the greatest player of all time. Not Maradona, not Pele, who certainly were tremendous players, but Zinedine Yazid Zidane. He’s mostly known for his days with Les Bleus and the Galacticos at Madrid, but I believe his greatest years were at La Vecchia Signora. Among the silverware he picked up in Turin were two Scudetti, an International Cup, and unfortunately, two Uefa Champion’s League runners-up medals. Personally, he earned Uefa’s Club Best Midfielder, FIFA World Player of the Year (twice), and of course, the Ballon d’Or. He also was in the top 3 shortlist for the Ballon d’Or twice, aside from his victory in 1998. Interesting fact about his European Footballer of the Year award, his landslide victory is the most lopsided of the last 17 years.

Zinedine Zidane was born in Marseille, France in 1972. He started playing for AS Cannes in the French league after which at age 20 he transferred to Bordeaux, where he lead the team to an Intertoto cup win as well as finishing runners-up in the Uefa cup. According to a bio over at a Blackburn Rovers fan page, team owner Jack Walker declined to sign Zidane, saying “Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?” (I have never heard of Sherwood. That either speaks massively of Walker’s error or just of my sheer ignorance of the Premiership) In the end, Juventus signed him for £3 million at the age of 24.

In the all-conquering Lippi side of the late-90s, Zidane was without a doubt the most outstanding member of the midfield, which is impressive when you consider he played alongside Di Livio, Deschamps, Conte, Tacchinardi, and Davids, who are all terrific footballers in their own right. Del Piero had started out originally as a left-winger with Juventus and progressively moved to a playmaker, eventually striker. It was Zidane’s arrival that cemented Del Piero’s status as a forward. Our attack usually consisted of Del Piero+Inzaghi playing ahead of Zidane for the years he was here at Juventus.

What can you say about Zizou’s technical quality? He’s probably the best all-around footballer in history. His dribbling and tricks were second-to-no-one, his first touch is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen, Zidane had fantastic vision in threading passes around the field. He also had a keen eye for goal, banging in 42 goals out of 249 total appearances for La Vecchia Signora. The absolute essence of a #10, it’s perhaps a bit ironic that he never wore #10 for club, but only for country. At Juventus he wore #21, Madrid he would later wear #5. Zidane was the ultimate playmaker, able to do absolutely anything. In his second year at Juventus, he finished 3rd in the voting for the Ballon d’Or while collecting Serie A Foreigner of the Year, (he would collect this again in 2001 as well as Serie A Footballer of the Year) an impressive feat considering how little time he had been at Juventus. He won it in 1998, following a terrific season with Juventus as well as a World Cup win for France.

The next year would not be so great for Zidane or Juventus, as a catastrophic injury to Del Piero ruled him out for the season. Injuries and suspensions accumulated and we slumped to a 6th place finish. Lippi left for Inter, and the superstar team began to fall apart. Ancelotti took the helm and did mediocre with Juventus, finishing behind Lazio and Roma for the Scudetto successively as well as crashing out early in our European seasons. Zidane clearly started to become unsettled as Juve was falling short of silverware on all fronts. He made it quite vocal his desire to win the Champion’s League, having finished runners-up twice with the Bianconeri. (we won it one year before he arrived) Real Madrid was in their Galacticos era, having signed Luis Figo for a record fee in 2000. The Blancos began to court Zidane as early as 2000.

The summer of 2001 was a tumultous one for Juventus. Two mediocre seasons saw the city of Turin and all Juventini in outright hostility towards Ancelotti; everyone knew the sack was looming. There were widespread calls throughout the media for a revamped squad. Zidane made his intentions to leave clear, though the club refused to sell him. Real Madrid continued courting him, and while Moggi continued to insist that Zizou would finish out his contract, in typical Moggi-style he was already scouting out replacements. A week before he signed with Madrid, Juventus acknowledged that they were in negotiations with los Blancos. He signed for a still-world record fee of £47m. Zidane went on to have a very successful 5 years with Real Madrid. He won the Champion’s League the year of his transfer, scoring what ITV named the best goal ever in the Champion’s League.

Zizou wasn’t exactly a legend for Juventus, only spending a (relatively) short 5 years at the club, but I thought he deserved a spot on this list because as a Juventino, he also happened to be my pick for the best football player ever. Oh, and with his sale, we bought Buffon, Nedved, and Thuram. ‘Nuff said. With Real Madrid he picked up a few Liga titles and the trophy with the big ears. He was without a doubt the essence of France’s 1998 World Cup win, he led them to the European Championship 2 years later. His absence in the initial rounds due to injury in FIFA World Cup 2002 was primarily the reason for France’s woeful early departure. But a few years later, in Germany, he captained the team back to the final. Despite losing and of course, as everyone knows, headbutting Materazzi, he picked up the Adidas Golden Ball for best player of the tournament.

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