Josef Masopust

Masopust was the engine of the great Czechoslovakia side of 1962, a team that arrived in Chile unheralded and reached the final by running further than everyone else, a quality embodied by its captain. In the final itself he scored first against Brazil — a lead that lasted moments before Garrincha's team ended the fairy tale, but the goal, and the tournament, put Masopust's name on the Ballon d'Or. He is the only Czechoslovak winner in the award's history.

A one-club heart inside a state system, he gave Dukla Prague his best years and was rewarded with eight league titles — yet his legend is international: the complete box-to-box midfielder two decades before the term existed. Later he coached the national team and then, in exile from the regime's favour, coached in Belgium. The Czechs still measure their midfielders against the man they called the marathon man; none has finished the race yet.