RONALDO

Few players carried as much before and after the ball as Ronaldo did at his peak — the late-1990s version was, by most honest accounts, the most frightening forward the game has produced. The archive remembers two distinct stories told under one name: the prodigy undone by his knees and by that night in Paris, and the man who came back from being written off to win the thing outright in 2002. His fifteen finals goals stood as the record until Klose passed him, and the manner of them — the gallop, the swerve, the finish struck almost casually — has aged better than the highlight reel of anyone who came after. He did not need a long career. He needed only the years he had.

• His fifteen World Cup finals goals were the all-time record from 2006 until Miroslav Klose overtook him in 2014.
• He is one of the few players to leave a World Cup a champion without playing a single minute — Brazil's title-winning squad of 1994.
• He won the World Cup's Golden Ball in 1998 and its Golden Boot in 2002, the rare double across separate tournaments.