Park Ji-sung

Park Ji-sung was the midfielder managers picked when a big game had to be won without the ball as much as with it. He could play centrally, on either wing or behind the striker, and his endurance was so famous that he became known as "Three-Lung" Park. Oddly, he started out as a small, sickly boy whose slight frame put off university coaches, and Myongji had to admit him through a spare place set aside for its tennis programme. His breakthrough came at the 2002 World Cup, where Guus Hiddink used him on the right of a front three to combine forward runs with hard defensive work. Against Portugal he took Lee Young-pyo's cross on his chest, went past Sérgio Conceição and slipped a left-footed shot through Vítor Baía's legs, sending South Korea into the knockout rounds for the first time. Hiddink's PSV then signed him, and parts of the home crowd jeered him early on. He got his confidence back by giving himself credit for completing simple passes. By 2005 he was scoring in a Champions League semi-final against AC Milan, and UEFA's match report called him the "beating heart" of PSV's stadium. Alex Ferguson spotted him while scouting Lyon's Michael Essien, drawn by the way Park moved and found space. At Manchester United he was rarely the star, and he said so himself: he lacked the one elite weapon of Ronaldo, Rooney or Giggs, so he made extra runs to open room for them. Shooting was not his strength, though he worked at it and credited Ole Gunnar Solskjær's advice. Rio Ferdinand rated him among the world's best movers off the ball. Ferguson often handed him one job against one opponent. In 2010 Park shadowed Andrea Pirlo over two legs, covering more ground than anyone at San Siro and scoring in the return; Ferguson praised his "sacrifice, intelligence and discipline", and Pirlo later singled him out as an opponent he never got the better of. Jonathan Wilson called him a "defensive winger" after he largely shut down Inter's Maicon. No Asian player had started a Champions League final before he did in 2009, and he returned to start the 2011 final, which he played in full. The painful exception was 2008, when he was left out of the final squad entirely, a call Ferguson later described as the hardest of his managerial life. The limits matter as well. His right knee needed a complicated cartilage operation and kept swelling after long journeys, and late in his career he moved inside, where reading the game counted for more than running the flank. As South Korea captain he led quietly, collecting teammates' views and passing their concerns to the coaches rather than imposing himself. He also scored at three World Cups in a row, something no Asian player had done before.