Roberto Baggio
Channel Four’s foresight in buying the rights to Italian football in 1992 was, for young nerds like me, a wonderful innovation. Saturation coverage of many European leagues now have encouraged a sense of complacency and near boredom about the opportunity to see the world’s best players week in, week out, but at the time it was superbly exciting given that an air of mystery still hung around players you would only ever see in international tournaments. As a result of this revolution though, a generation of kids grew up extolling the virtues of Ruben Sosa, Beppe Signori, Giuseppe Giannini and countless other glamorous players who appeared miles removed from the crash, bang, wallop nature of grey English football (the only Italian imported around this time was Andrea Silenzi, their equivalent of Kevin Kyle). Better kits, sunshine, ace hair and James Richardson with pink newspapers and ice creams – it had it all. Everyone had a favourite player. For me, it was Baggio all the way.
Having come to attention with a big money move from Fiorentina and a memorable goal in the 1990 World Cup, he was clearly gifted and, as with other number 10s of this Serie A era, strolled around with a style and finesse that screamed confidence. But there was also an appealing fragility that suggested disappointment was around the corner, sadly borne out by the 1994 World Cup. Half fit and labouring, he almost single-handedly dragged an average Italy side through to the final before enduring a spectacular Al-Pacino-in-Scarface-type climax by spectacularly blazing over the deciding spot kick in the shoot out. Even Diana Ross thought it was a shit pen. When the tournament is recalled it is Roberto, hands on hips and utterly alone, staring fixedly at the spot, who provides the enduring image, rather than the celebrating Brazilians. Unlike his successor at Juventus, Alessandro Del Piero, who atoned for misses in the 2000 European Championship final by helping to win the World Cup in 2006, Baggio never achieved redemption. But he was still ace and my eventual realisation that we would never sign him, despite a cruel, vague tabloid link around the time he played for Brescia, was a disappointment.
Istvan Kozma
A real nostalgia selection. Half of my family being Scottish, trips were frequently made to Fife in the late eighties and early nineties to see my grandparents. My grandfather was a keen Dunfermline fan and while my dad often took my brother to Edinburgh to watch Hearts, I would walk the short distance through the park with my granddad to East End Park and watch a side shuttling between the top two divisions that for a while featured agricultural centre back David Moyes. The standout attraction for me at that time was Kozma, a lovely, graceful footballer at times seeming out of place when compared with the style of many of the teams he came up against. My one vivid recollection of him was being sat with my granddad, with my dad and brother suffering in the away end, watching him torture Hearts in a comfortable Premier League victory. His performances against Rangers convinced Graeme Souness to make him part of his glorious Anfield revolution, but he made no impact, often featuring in Liverpool worst buy lists. Which makes me like him more.
Josimar
In all honesty, his selection is probably as much a reflection of the tournament in which he came to prominence as for the man himself. I think it’s a truism that your favourite World Cup is your first. That is certainly the case for me, nearly seven and half years old in 1986. Looking back, my memories are fragmented – the time difference to Mexico meant that on many occasions my mum would come up the stairs and find that my efforts to defy orders and watch the 9pm matches on the little TV in my room had ended with me fast asleep with my head on my desk. But I was essentially a blank canvas, my love for Everton and football in general only properly having come to fruition through my desperation at Everton’s Cup Final defeat a month earlier. Such was the fickleness of being that age that domestic football concerns were almost instantly buried by wallcharts and the most important playground currency of them all: stickers. Once the tournament began it became a blur of goals, colour, exotic names and countries; Vasily Rats, Morocco, Preben Elkjær, Iraq, Joel Bats, Bulgaria, Steve Hodge, the list just went on. Until Diego grabbed my attention later on in the month, it was Josimar I became fixated with. A rampaging right back in a Brazilian side characteristically unconcerned by the boring art of defending, his standout moment was beating Pat Jennings from about 70 yards, the ball dropping beautifully into the great, yawning net. As if that wasn’t good enough, he scored another stunning goal a few days later against Poland, both goals being greeted with Tardelli-esque celebrations. He only made 16 appearances for Brazil but for me epitomises the glory of discovering the World Cup.
Matt Le Tissier
Workshy? Not ambitious enough? Maybe. But in an era where every player stringing together a few reasonable performances suddenly feels they ‘need’ Champions League football to achieve their ‘aims’ and ‘progress’ as players, there is something to admire in the attitude shown by Le Tissier. Undeniably capable of playing for better teams than Southampton but loved his environment and the club and felt no need to risk that for the sake of a bit more money. He had faults; he probably needed to have a team built round him, didn’t like tackling back and was not quick. But with the ball at his feet in the opposition’s half? Superb. I can’t help but enjoy the languid, lazy majesty of his goals, even if half the time his caressing of the ball into the net is probably because he couldn’t be arsed putting his foot through it.
Xavi
The only contemporary player on the list, and a player now considered among the most important midfielders in Europe. The man who completed more passes in the home game against Arsenal last season than Arsenal’s whole team managed. The man that even the Daily Mail, who initially inexplicably rubbished him, has come round to admire. But I first noticed him when he was by no means the first name on the team sheet, back in 2003. Over in Barcelona for a midweek trip, we had tickets for their dead rubber Champions League group game against Bayer Leverkusen. Settling in a bar near the ground before the game, over exposure to the six or seven draught beers on offer resulted in my remembering only two things about the match. The first was how bright the floodlights were for some reason. The second was how artfully the little midfielder, who barely seemed to move out of the centre circle, effortlessly controlled and moved the ball without anyone getting within twenty yards of him, in a manner I’ve only seen done live since by Juan Roman Riquelme at Goodison.
