Jean-Pierre Papin

Papin's 1991 award crowned the most spectacular club scoring run of the era's end: five consecutive seasons as Ligue 1's top scorer with Marseille, the team Tapie built to shake Europe, which reached two European Cup finals around him (lost both — the era's hardest luck). His signature was the volley, preferably overhead and preferably from passes no one else would have shot from: the papinade entered French as a noun while he was still playing, a rare lexical honour.

He joined Milan's great Dutch-built side in 1992 and found the bench crowded with Ballon d'Or winners, the era's excess condensed into one substitution chart, and won everything but personal air. A head injury cut the peak short at Milan and Bayern. His award stands as the classic era's French full stop — Platini's France, then Papin's, then silence until Zidane.