MEET 10 DISTINGUISHED FOOTBALLERS PAST AND PRESENT.

SPORT GIST
By:Aremu Olawale- Adigun
Over the years we have seen or heard about some great footballers who have done wonders using the round leather game to make the world a better place. Here is the list some of those men some are dead while some are still alive. As their names differs so also is their achievement . Take a look and please kindly drop a comment . Happy reading.

1. 

Edson Arantes do Nascimento Known around the world as Pele was born on October 23, 1940, in  Três Corações, Brazil, in his time probably the most famous and possibly the best-paid athlete in the world. He was part of the Brazilian national teams that won three World cup championships (1958, 1962, and 1970).

After playing for a minor league club at Bauru Sao Paulo State Pelé (whose nickname apparently is without significance) was rejected by major club teams in the city of São Paulo. In 1956, however, he joined the Santos Football Club, which, with Pelé at inside left forward, won nine São Paulo league championships and, in 1962 and 1963, both the Libertadores Cup and the Intercontinental Club Cup. 

Sometimes called “Pérola Negra” (“Black Pearl”), he became a Brazilian national hero. He combined kicking power and accuracy with a remarkable ability to anticipate other players’ moves. After the 1958 World Cup, Pelé was declared a national treasure by the Brazilian government in order to ward off large offers from European clubs and ensure that he would remain in Brazil. On November 20, 1969, in his 909th first-class match, he scored his 1,000th goal. Photo by:www.stuff.com.nz

2. Diego Armando Maradona was born on October 30, 1960, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maradona led club teams to championships in Argentina, Italy and Spain, and famously starred for the Argentinean team that won the 1986 World Cup. However, the soccer legend's career was marred by a pair of high-profile suspensions for drug use, and he has often battled health problems in retirement.

At 10, Maradona joined Los Cebollitas, a youth team of Argentinos Juniors, one of the biggest clubs in Argentina. Showing his prodigious ability at an early age, Maradona led Los Cebollitas to an incredible 136-game unbeaten streak. He made his professional debut for the senior team shortly before his 16th birthday. He led Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup, though his accomplishments were later overshadowed by his battles with drug abuse.Altogether, Maradona played in four World Cups, and scored an impressive 34 goals in 91 international appearances for Argentina.

Despite the public disappointments, Maradona remains beloved in Argentina as a native son who rose from humble beginnings to reach the apex of stardom on an international stage. Photo by:pintrest.com

3. Alfredo Di Stéfano an Argentine soccer star .He built a legendary career when he moved to Europe in the 1950s and led Real Madrid to five straight Continental club championships, died on Monday in Madrid. He was 88.

Real Madrid confirmed his death. He was widely reported to have had a heart attack on Friday, his birthday.

Di Stéfano, an agile, tireless and versatile player nicknamed the Blond Arrow, personified total soccer — a style of play that encourages players with assigned positions to redefine them as the game demands — having embraced it years before the great Dutch teams of the early 1970s made it popular.

Playing with Paco Gento, and later with the Hungarian star Ferenc Puskas, Di Stéfano and Real Madrid won the European Cup the first five years of the competition’s existence, from 1956 to 1960. (It is now called the European Champions League.) He was voted European footballer of the year in 1957 and 1959.

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In 1960, Di Stéfano scored three goals in a 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt of Germany in the European Cup final at Hampden Park in Glasgow, a game still considered among the greatest in soccer history. Di Stéfano scored a record 49 goals in 59 European Cup games.He finished his career at Real Madrid with 216 goals in 282 league games from 1953 to 1964 and remains one of Real’s leading career scorers. He helped the club to eight league titles.

Di Stéfano won the scoring title five times and is the No. 5 career goal scorer in the history of the Spanish league. He retired at 40 in 1966 after a 22-year career in South America and Europe. Photo by:google.com

4. Johan Cruyff  was regarded as one of the game’s greatest players. He led Ajax to three consecutive European Cups from 1971 to 1973 .As a player Cruyff scored 392 times in 520 games over a 19-year career but his influence reached far beyond creating goals, thanks to his qualities as a leader, thinker and speaker. As a coach he had 242 victories in 387 matches, with 75 draws and 70 losses.

He joined Barcelona for a world record fee. He went on to become a huge favourite at the Camp Nou, eventually coached the club to a first European Victory in 1992  as well as winning four successive La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994, having managed Ajax from 1985 to 1988. 

The Holland football legend has died of cancer at the age of 68, on three occasions he was voted the world player of the year, guided Holland to the World Cup final in 1974 and as a manager he spent eight years in charge of Barcelona. Photo by:pinterest.com

 5. 
Matthias Sindelar was an Austrian footballer. He played as a centre-forward for the celebrated Austria national team of the early 1930s known as the Wunderteam, which he captained at the 1934 World Cup. 

Perhaps his finest moment was the team's 5-0 victory over Scotland - until then unbeaten on the continent - in May 1931. But the Wunderteam also hammered Germany 6-0 and 5-0, France 4-0, Hungary 8-2, etcetera. Their reign ended with a 1-2 home defeat against Czechoslovakia in April 1933,he was voted Austrian footballer of the twentieth century.

At the age of 15, the youngster caught the attention of ASV Hertha Vienna, who quickly snapped him up for their youth team. While the club weren’t among the best sides in Austria, they provided him a way into the sport. Within four years Sindelar had risen through the ranks into the Hertha Vienna first-team. He would spend two years playing at the highest level with his first club, before receiving an irresistible offer from FK Austria Wien, then known as Wiener Amateur-SV. Sindelar’s phenomenal potential was beginning to show, but Hertha Vienna found themselves in a difficult financial position. They had just suffered relegation from the top flight and were unable to turn down the offer that they received. Likewise, for Sindelar, switching clubs also provided him with the opportunity to compete for major honours.He died at the age of 35. Photo by:Wikipedia.com

6. Arthur Antunes Coimbra  born 3 March 1953 in Rio, better known as Zico or "White Pele" a Brazilian coach and former footballer , he played as an attacking midfielder, in his days as a player  he was a creative playmaker, with excellent technical skills, vision, and en eye for goal, who is considered one of the most clinical finishers and best passers ever, as well as one of the greatest players of all time. 

Arguably the world's best player of the late 1970s and early 80s, he is regarded as one of the best playmaker  and Free kick specialists in history, able to bend  the ball in all directions. In 1999, Zico came eighth in the FIFA Player of the century  grand jury vote, and in 2004 was named in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.  

According to Pelé, generally considered the best player ever, "throughout the years, the one player that came closest to me was Zico".With 48 goals in 71 official appearances for Brazil, Zico is Fifth highest goalscorer for his national team. He represented them in the1978,1982 and 1986 World Cups.Photo by:Youtube.com

7. Franz Beckenbauer is the only man to have won the World Cup both as a player and as a manager. His roll of honour is unique. He was the captain of West Germany when they won the World Cup and the European Championship, he also led his club, Bayern Munich, to three successive European Cups and also to the European Cup Winners' Cup.

But it is not just for the medals and trophies that Beckenbauer is remembered. Rather it is for the style and the genius. Every movement he made on the pitch bristled with elegance. Otherwise known as - "Emperor Franz" and "The Kaiser" they called him. But more than that, he was a great thinker about the game and brought about a revolution in the way it is played by inventing the role of the attacking sweeper.

Those powerful long runs out of central defence had never been seen before. Up to then, no one had thought that a sweeper had any job being in his opponents' half of the field, let alone scoring. Beckenbauer both created and bequeathed this tactic to the modern game. It contained the element of surprise and it became his trademark. 

He was voted European Footballer of the Year for the second time after a hat-trick of European Cups in 1976, even though West Germany lost that year's European Championship Final to Czechoslovakia in a penalty shoot-out. Photo By:pintrest.com

8.Marcel "Marco" van Basten is a Dutch football manager and former football player, who played for Ajax and Milan, as well as the Netherlands national team, in the 1980s and early '90s as a forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and has scored 300 goals in a high-profile career, but played his last game in 1993 at the age of 28 due to an injury that forced his retirement two years later. 

He was later the head coach of Ajax and the Netherlands national team.He was named the Ballon d'Or winner in 1989 and 1990 and twice topped the league in scoring, his play sparking the Italian club to multiple domestic league titles and Cup victories. In November 1992, he became the first player to score four goals in a European Cup match. Shortly afterward, he became just the third player to win three Ballon d'Or Awards.Photo by:pintrest.com

9. Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team. Often considered the best player in the world and regarded by many as the greatest of all time, Messi is the only player in history to win five FIFA Ballon d'Or awards, four of which he won consecutively, and the first to win three European Golden Shoes. With Barcelona he has won eight La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League titles, and four Copas del Rey, among other trophies.
  
His goals stats stand at 452 goals in 575 competitive matches, he is Barcelona’s all time leading goal scorer with 407 goals to his name he is also all time leading goalscorer of Spanish league having scored 283 goals. Messi just recently overtook Ronaldo as the top goal scorer in Champions League history with 77 strikes to his name. Goals are just one side of his impact on the team, when he is not scoring he is making and assisting goals with pinpoint though balls and lobs for his team mates

His international career with Argentina hit its peak in 2014 World Cup when he single handedly guided Argentina to World cup 2014 final but failed to win the trophy as Germany beat Argentina by 1-0 in extra time. But Messi ended up with Golden Ball (the best player in the tournament). Messi has also won 4 ballon dor awards, Messi has won 4 champions league top scorer awards, 4 times La Liga top scorer, three times European golden boot.Photo by:miconn.com

10.Cristiano Ronaldo  a Portuguese by birth is a professional footballer for Spanish club Real Madrid and the Portugal national team. He primarily plays as a forward, but has also been deployed as a winger and serves as captain for Portugal. In 2008, he won his first Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards. Ronaldo then won the FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2013 and 2014. In 2016, he received his fourth Ballon d'Or, the most for a European player in the history of the award, and the inaugural Best FIFA Men's Player. In 2015, Ronaldo scored his 500th senior career goal for club and country. 

Currently 30 year old and still going strong at the top of his powers. Ronaldo is one fit athlete who started his career in Portugese team Sporting Lisbon playing as forward who had pace and wide range of skills to bamboozle defenders. Manchester United saw the talent and signed him up at first opportunity. Ronaldo graced the premier league in 2003 and showcased his talent with outrageous fast step overs and other skill (often frustrating his team mates). But with in a couple of years he was matured and putting up top notch performances for United.

He was part of a very successful era in United history where they won three back to back premier league titles and won 2008 Champions League final against Chelsea and won Fifa best player of the year award (Ballon Dor). In 2009 he moved to Real Madrid for a record-breaking fee $100 million. In Real Madrid his career really took off and he scored goals for fun.Photo by:dailymail.com

Credit \\\Additional information:wikipedia.com and totalsportz.com.