The World Cup competition is highly considered as the pinnacle of all football competitions. Hence, presenting an incredible performance and achieving the ultimate victory is a goal of many participants of the prestigious international tournament.
In this article, we listed down the players who landed the Hall of Fame of the FIFA World Cup.
Bobby Charlton
For the past forty years, fans have had high expectations for English players, however, they have had a hard time meeting those expectations recently.
Back then, England had Bobby Charlton, who scored an impressive goal against Mexico and guaranteed the team to reach in the later rounds of the competition. He also made a huge contribution in the victory of England against West Germany in the finals.
Johan Cruyff
Even though Cruyff only made a single appearance in the FIFA World Cup, he still deserves to be on this list because of his one stunning performance at the 1974 World Cup. During the finals against West Germany, he played incredibly and presented to the world his skills. After the performance, fans voted for him as the best player in the tournament.
Paul Rossi
Paul Rossi is highly regarded as one of the best players that the Italian national team has ever had. During the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, he was responsible for bringing the Azzuri to the semifinals with his three goals.
Garrincha
Garrincha is another prolific Brazilian player of all time other than Pele. He provided two significant goals in the 1958 finals and gave Brazil its very first World Cup victory.
Gerd Muller
Before Lionel Messi was granted the best goalscorer of all time, Gerd Muller held the title for years. During the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he landed 10 goals and as a result, he was nicknamed “The Bomber.”
Franz Beckenbauer
Beckenbauer played for Germany in the World Cup 2022 three times, and has received a gold, a bronze, and a silver medal.
Zinedine Zidane
The 1998 World Cup in France became a platform in which Zidane showed his true talent in front of the world audience. Zidane scored two goals in the final match against Brazil and prevented them from keeping their USA 1994 World Cup title.
Ronaldo Nazario
Ronaldo Nazario has participated in three World Cups and managed to score 15 goals. Many experts agree that his best performance was at the 2002 World Cup, when he led Brazil to its fifth victory and received a Golden Boot award.
Pele
Pele was considered as Brazil’s national pride especially when he was responsible for providing the country its first FIFA World Cup trophy along with fellow teammate, Garrincha. Pele was considered as the best football player of all time; his performance during the 1970 World Cup was the highlight of his career.
Diego Maradona
Pele has the opportunity to be a part of a squad filled with incredible talents, meanwhile, Maradona didn’t have that privilege. Despite being the sole source of strength of the team, he managed to provide them with inspiration and uplift the team.
Maradona was notoriously known as the perpetrator of the “Hand of God” goal during the 1986 World Cup against England. This goal became controversial and it is still the subject for analysis to many football experts. Nevertheless, the popular handling goal led to the victory of Argentina against England in the finals.
Conclusion
The FIFA World Cup 2022 has been filled with iconic performances ever since it was established in Uruguay in 1930. However, the individuals we included on this list made performances that stood out above the rest which made them the World Cup heroes of all time.
