Football is a team game, but when it comes to the World Cup, there’s something about individual grit and glory that seems to push itself out of the crowd, raise itself on the shoulders of others, and lift a fist in the air — to say, I am here, this is mine.
Anyone who has seen even a few clips from the 1986 World Cup knows that it was a oneman show, the divine reign of Diego Maradona. West Germany may have won the 1974 World Cup, but in football history, that edition belonged to the Netherlands’ Johan Cruyff, and the mesmeric form of play he invented — ‘total football’ — which, more than 40 years later, remains the bedrock of modern football philosophy.
1998 gave us Zinedine Zidane, a dancer gliding across a grass floor, making France great again. 2002 was the year of El Phenomeno, the OG Ronaldo, as he is referred to today, with his blistering runs, strange hair, and legs like rocket launchers. 2022 was all about Lionel Messi, finally doing what the whole world knew he would do someday, and earn his crown of being Maradona’s true successor.
