Ruud Gullit

Gullit's 1987 Ballon d'Or arrived before the harvest: PSV's domestic double, a European Cup final with Milan still to come, and — the following summer — the Netherlands' only major trophy, the 1988 European Championship, which he captained and crowned with a header in the final. He was the largest talent of the Dutch trinity that re-made AC Milan: a midfielder with a striker's silhouette who could play, in one career, every position from sweeper to centre-forward and be world-class in all of them.

His mane made him football's most visible revolutionary, and his range made its most complete. Injuries cut the peak short — knees that should have carried a decade carried five — but the highlights that survive are all geometry and violence in balance: the Euro 88 header, the Milan cups, the 1990s' brief second act at Chelsea, player-manager at 32. The award's Dutch chapter runs Cruyff–Van Basten–Gullit, and he is the chapter's most versatile verb.