Karl-Heinz Rummenigge

Where Gerd Müller had been the penalty-area explosion, Rummenigge was its successor as finesse: a forward of gliding runs and low centre of gravity, arriving as Müller declined and rebuilding Bayern's attack in his own image. Back-to-back Ballons d'Or in 1980 and 1981 bracketed a European Championship with West Germany in 1980 — the award's recognition that the machine had evolved a ballet dancer's gearbox.

He captained West Germany to the 1982 World Cup final (lost to Rossi's Italy) and the 1986 final (lost to Maradona's Argentina) — two last acts of the decade that were not his fault. Later he ran Bayern as an executive for three decades, building the empire he had once merely played for. In the award's German chapter he is the hinge between the industrial age and the age of movement.