Luís Figo

Figo's 2000 Ballon d'Or was decided amid the most radioactive transfer in football history: Barcelona's captain and symbol, the world's most expensive player, walking to Real Madrid that summer with a severed-birthday-pig's-head reception waiting in his first Clásico back. The award, voted that autumn, was football's separate verdict on the player beneath the storm: the era's best right winger, a two-footed outdoor engine of dribbles and crosses who reached his peak precisely while the world was shouting about him.

The Golden Generation of Portugal, whose junior teams had conquered the 1990s, matured around him: Euro 2000's semi-final team was its first statement, and 2004's final at home its broken heart, Figo present for both. At Madrid he was a galáctico of the first order. Of the award's winners, few have been hated so loudly and respected so privately; the fury passed, and the football stayed.