Why they rank here
The sport's supreme big-game player. Zidane's résumé concentrates its weight in finals: two headed goals to beat Brazil 3-0 in the 1998 World Cup final in Paris, the player-of-the-tournament run as France added Euro 2000, and the left-footed volley against Bayer Leverkusen at Hampden Park in 2002 — arguably the greatest Champions League final goal — that delivered Real Madrid's ninth European Cup. He won the Ballon d'Or in 1998 and the FIFA World Player award three times (1998, 2000, 2003), took Serie A titles with Juventus and La Liga with Madrid, and moved between them in 2001 for a world-record fee that stood for eight years. Even his exit was monumental: at 34 he dragged an ordinary France to the 2006 final, won the tournament's Golden Ball, and ended his career with the headbutt on Materazzi — genius and combustibility inseparable to the last. His raw numbers (around 125 club goals) are the lowest here; nobody who watched him control a final's tempo considers that the measure.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.