Matthias Sammer

Sammer's 1996 completed the award's most exclusive dynasty: the sweeper's Ballon d'Or, won by Beckenbauer twice and then by no one for twenty years, until the East German son of a Leipzig football family lifted Euro 96 with Germany and the award with it. That summer he was the tournament's best player from the back — the libero reborn as its own offside trap's archaeologist, reading attacks two passes early and starting his own from inside his own box.

Borussia Dortmund's 1997 Champions League followed — the club's first, with Sammer injured for the final but present in its every molecule. His knees ended the career at 31; his reading of the game continued, from coaching to the DFB's corridors. The modern era flattened the libero position out of professional football, and no one has won the award from defence since Cannavaro's separate miracle — Sammer is the position's final monument.