Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona was a classic number 10, a playmaker usually given a free role, either just behind the strikers or as a second forward. He was short and compact, and his strong legs and low centre of gravity let him ride challenges at full speed and switch direction before a defender could adjust. Michel Platini put it best: "The things I could do with a football, he could do with an orange." Napoli were fighting relegation when he arrived in 1984, and no mainland club from the south had ever won the league. He soon took the captaincy, and the side won Serie A in 1986–87 and again in 1989–90, plus the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup. He was also the league's top scorer in 1987–88. Asked for his hardest opponent, Franco Baresi named Maradona, and Paolo Maldini agreed. As captain at the 1986 World Cup he played every minute, scored five, set up five more and drew 53 fouls, a record for one World Cup. In the quarter-final against England he showed both sides of himself inside four minutes. First he knocked the ball in with his hand and the referee let it stand, the "Hand of God" goal he later admitted was deliberate. Then he collected the ball in his own half and ran past one England player after another, goalkeeper Peter Shilton included, without once using his right foot, a run later voted the Goal of the Century. In the final West Germany put two men on him, yet he still set up Jorge Burruchaga for the late winner, and he took the Golden Ball by a unanimous vote. He was more than a solo runner. He read space well, often drew several defenders towards him and then either burst clear or slipped the ball to the teammate they had left free. He was also one of the finest dead-ball strikers ever, raising his knee high to lift free kicks over the wall from surprisingly close range. Napoli's former president called him "a coach on the pitch", and Jorge Valdano said teammates slept soundly before games partly because Diego would carry more blame than any of them if they lost. The flaws were real too. He leaned so heavily on his left foot that he used it even when the ball sat better for his right. Opponents kicked him constantly, and his temper sometimes snapped: he was sent off for a retaliatory foul against Brazil in 1982 and was at the centre of a mass brawl in his last game for Barcelona. He did little work without the ball in training and missed Napoli sessions, though Ottavio Bianchi said he would stay out for hours inventing free kicks. A 15-month ban for cocaine ended his Napoli years, and in 1994 he was expelled from the World Cup after failing a test for ephedrine.