Roberto Baggio

This Italian forward made his mark across the world during the 1994 World Cup in the US. His admirers grew as the campaign went on, and in the finals, he was one of the favorites, in Italy vs. Brazil. But in this one game, the number of fans that loved him in such a short time dropped just as fast. The first time there were penalty kicks in the World Cup finals, and Roberto Baggio had to make the penalty kick to keep his team alive in sudden death penalties. Unfortunately for him, his kick was not on the mark and flew above the bar.

Born in 1967, Baggio joined Vicenza but it was under his second manager there, Bruno Giorgi, that he was noticed. After helping Vicenzia climb the league ladder to Serie B, he joined Fiorentina in Serie A.

A slow start, and an early injury kept him on the sidelines, but Baggio soon made his mark as a class forward in the club, helping them reach the UEFA Cup finals, but losing to Juventus.

Juventus saw his talent and quickly took the player for 7.5 million pounds, which created riots in the city.

The World Cup in '94 saw Baggio rise to fame, but also his career went downhill for a while right after the finals. Juventus saw him as a surplus, supporting Del Piero as the main striker, and asked Baggio to take a pay cut or find another club.

Baggio went to AC Milan, where he played the role of a substitute, and though he had very good goals, he did not get the recognition he deserved from his manager, Capello.

To prove his critics right, he moved to Bologna, an average club in Serie A, and scored 22 goals for them.

A positive show in his limited role during France '98 and an excellent career in Bologna saw Baggio's career come back, and he was bought by Inter Milan.

An all star cast at Inter Milan was mired with injuries to Baggio and his teammates, which kept this team from achieving their potential.

He lost his place in the starting lineup but even then, he didn't lose his form and was called up for the Euro 2000 squad and reached the finals to play against France.

In a similar motive that led Baggio to join Bologna, he joined Brescia who was just promoted to the Serie A. There he kept Brescia in the league for three seasons, scoring 33 goals in 70 appearances. This would be Baggio's last club, as he has announced his retirement from football after the 2003/04 season.

Diego Maradona

It was the pinnacle of his football career. At Mexico's Azteca Stadium, Diego Maradona lifted the World Cup, having led Argentina to victory over West Germany in the 1986 final. More than that, his breathtaking performances during the tournament had seen him acclaimed the best player in the world. Reason enough for satisfaction, one might think.

But for Maradona, it was also a vindication, a slap in the face for all those who had criticised the team, for the referees who failed to protect him, for the organisers who had scheduled matches in the heat of Mexico's midday sun, for the British because of the Falklands War ... the list was long.

'Once we had the cup in our hands, we went back into the changing room and started singing the rudest chants from the terraces,' he wrote in his autobiography. 'We were directing them at everybody, absolutely everybody ... we were all standing on the benches, screaming like madmen: "And this one is for all you motherfuckers out there!"'

In the moment of triumph, Maradona was as he had always been: the coarse, chippy, exuberant voice of the man in the crowd, elevated by his sublime left foot to a place in the spotlight. To his legion of fans in Argentina, he is at the same time one of them and something akin to a demigod.

Last week, Maradona was again leading the chanting, although this time its target was more focused. President George W Bush was in Argentina for a Latin American summit on Friday, and at the head of thousands of anti-Bush protesters was the man voted, in a poll organised by football's world governing body, the greatest ever to kick a ball, in his new guise of political activist.

Maradona had announced he would lead the protests during his own mini-summit with his friend, Fidel Castro, on his hugely popular television chat show. Castro, who is excluded from this weekend's meeting in the resort town of Mar del Plata, denounced the plans for an American free trade area and applauded Maradona's plans to take that message to the US President. 'You deserve a statue,' he said. 'We're very happy that you'll be there.'

To seal the compact, Maradona showed a surprised Castro the portrait of him he had had tattooed on his leg.

Away from the barricades, Maradona has become Argentina's most popular TV personality with his show La Noche del 10 (The Night of the Number 10 - after his football shirt). The Cuban President is just the latest, though the most illustrious, in a parade of celebrities who have appeared on it since its first broadcast in August.

The previous week, Maradona had interviewed Robbie Williams by satellite. In the mutual admiration style of the show, they agreed that Argentinian women were the world's sexiest, that Bush is 'an idiot and a murderer' and compared notes about their former cocaine habits.

The runaway success of the show represents the latest dramatic turnaround in a life which has seen many, but which 18 months earlier looked as if it might have run its course. Maradona may look a picture of health now, but in April last year, he spent 12 days in intensive care with heart and lung problems exacerbated by years of cocaine addiction and the obesity which made him a grotesque parody of his former self. Hundreds of Argentinians held vigils outside the hospital. His doctor, Alfredo Cahe, said it was a miracle that he survived.

Lying in a psychiatric hospital while his family fought a legal battle with his associates about where he should be treated, Maradona was at his lowest ebb. 'They were all crazy in there. One said he was Napoleon and they didn't believe him. I said I was Maradona and they didn't believe me either!'

He ended up returning to Cuba where he had spent much of the previous four years having treatment for his addiction, as a guest of Castro. This time, the treatment seemed to work and Maradona took drastic action to tackle his weight problem, undergoing a stomach-stapling operation in Colombia in April. The procedure proved an astounding success, cutting his weight from nearly 20 stone to around 12 stone.

The third of six children, Diego Armando Maradona grew up in the Villa Fiorito shanty town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. His first toy at the age of three was a football which he took to bed with him. He was always small, never growing above 5ft 5in. Confused by his stocky frame, big head and outstanding skills, the coach at his first trial initially demanded to see his ID card, suspecting the eight-year-old Maradona was a midget lying about his age.

At 16, Maradona made his professional debut for Argentinos Juniors, later moving on to the country's most popular club, Boca Juniors. He was an instant hit with the descamisados, the shirtless ones, who make up the club's core support. In 1978, despite a popular clamour, the 17-year-old prodigy was not included in the Argentina team which won the World Cup on home soil. It was a bitter disappointment for Maradona, but his star was nevertheless on the rise.

He moved to Barcelona in Spain for a record $7m fee, later to Napoli, again setting a transfer record and helping his hitherto unheralded Italian club to two league titles and European success.

As at Boca, the supporters of the southern club, viewed with undisguised contempt by their northern counterparts, took Maradona, the rebellious, volatile outsider, to their hearts: 80,000 turned out just to see him wave hello.

At the 1986 World Cup, he scored what was subsequently declared the greatest goal in the competition's history, in the quarter-final against England. Picking up the ball in his own half, he slalomed through the English defence before rounding Peter Shilton and slotting the ball home. But just as famous was his first goal in the game, in which he craftily punched the ball into the net, famously attributing his strike to 'the hand of God'. It caused outrage in England but in Argentina, Maradona's cheek was celebrated as if he were South America's Artful Dodger.

The drug problems which have dogged his career were about to become public knowledge. As a boy, he had been given steroids to build him up and as a player he regularly received cortisone shots to play while injured, but it was in Barcelona that he discovered the recreational use of cocaine, a habit that grew in Naples. Finally, in 1991, he tested positive for the drug, effectively ending his stay in Italy. The Naples years had also brought allegations of consorting with the Neapolitan mafia while one of numerous kiss-and-tell infidelities led to a paternity suit in which an Italian judge ruled that he was the father of a son by Cristiana Sinagra, named Diego Jr, Although the boy shares his looks and his football skills, Maradona still refuses to have any contact with him.

What looked like a triumphant return at the 1994 World Cup in the United States turned into another debacle when he tested positive for a cocktail of five banned stimulants. Despite his protests that he was being persecuted, Maradona was banned for 15 months.

After a series of abortive comebacks, he finally retired from playing in 1997. An international players' union launched by him came to nothing, as did his attempts at coaching. Lacking what he called the 'unique peace' of the football field, his cocaine addiction spiralled out of control. His weight ballooned and in 2000 an overdose nearly killed him.

It was at this point that Fidel Castro stepped in with his offer of treatment. The footballer and the Cuban leader had first met at the peak of Maradona's fame in 1987 and struck up a warm rapport. 'For me, the Comandante is a god,' he said recently. Maradona's essentially populist pantheon also includes the late Argentinian strongman Juan Peron, President Carlos Menem,and Che Guevara who, like Castro, is commemorated in a tattoo. ('He was a rebel. So am I.')

The Cuban President will again feature on Maradona's show tomorrow night as he continues his transformation into television personality, a logical progression, perhaps, for a life lived in the eye of the lens.

As a boy, his ball-juggling tricks would be broadcast at half-time during matches. Cameras recorded his every moment on the pitch and when he was busted in Buenos Aires for cocaine possession in 1990, they were there to capture his drug-befuddled shame. Sometimes, the attention would get too much for him; he once took potshots with an air-rifle at journalists camped outside his house. His lavish 1989 wedding to childhood sweetheart Claudia Villafane was broadcast live, although their divorce last year was not.

His ex-wife is now back in his life, and can be seen seated prominently with his parents and teenage daughters on his show, although his viewers do know, because he told them, that conjugal rights have not yet been restored.

Maradona gives every indication of making a fresh start. Back in the bosom of his family, he has severed ties with his friend and business manager of long standing, Guillermo Coppola. In addition to his TV role, he is a sporting director at his beloved Boca and the president of the Argentinian FA is trying to find a role for him with the national team. The Maradona soap opera is a remarkable tale of personal redemption, almost resurrection. But it would be surprising if this were the last twist in his turbulent story.

Zinedine Zidane
Zinedine Zidane was born June 23, 1972, in Marseille, France. Zidane got his start in football (known as soccer in North America) at an early age, when he joined the US Saint-Henri club.

He moved on to Septemes Sports Olympiques after the coach convinced the director of the club to sign him. After leaving Septemes at the age of 14, Zidane participated in the first year junior selection for the league championship, the same year he was discovered.

Off to Cannes

He was called in for 3 days at the sport regional centre in Aix-en-Provence, where Jean Varraud, Cannes' recruiter, noticed the French/Algerian player. He ventured off to Cannes for what was intended to be a six-week stay, but remained even longer. Playing with professionals at the age of 16, it would only be a matter of time when he too would turn pro, and he knew he was on his way to realizing his dreams.

Showing the determination of an athlete who wants to exceed expectations, Zidane had played his first game in First Division at the age of 17, and it was from then that football went from an ambition to a passion. The Cannes midfielder scored his first goal on February 8th, 1991 (he received a Clio as a promise from the Cannes President, who promised him a car when he scored his first goal as a professional), and his first season with the club was marked by a qualification for the UEFA Cup.

Zidane's second season with Cannes wasn't as promising, but on the non-professional front he met his future wife Veronique, a Spanish dancer. After a lukewarm 91-92 season, Zidane felt it was time for a change and switched to Bordeaux after he was asked to sign a four-year contract. Marseille also wanted Zidane, but Bordeaux proved to want him more.

Kicking and soaring

His beginning with Bordeaux was hard on 24-year-old Zidane, as it forced him to adapt, but once he did, he did so with flying colours. Not only did Bordeaux qualify every year that Zidane played with the team, but Bordeaux also qualified for the UEFA Cup through Intertoto and went to the final in 95-96, Zidane's last year with the team.

At the same time, Juventus sought out Zidane, and after his four crucial seasons with Bordeaux, he moved to Torino. Again, Zidane was forced to adapt to the Italian way of playing as well as to the lifestyle, but after his first year, he was a bona fide star.

It was with Juventus that Zidane won titles, as Winner of the 1996 European Super Cup, the 1996 European/South American Cup, Winner of the 1997 League Super Cup, named 1997 and 1998 Italy Champion, and Finalist of the 1997 and 1998 Champions League.

His individual awards include the Golden Ball in 1998, and he was named Best Player of the Year by the FIFA in 1998 and 2000.

Most expensive football player

In 2001, Zizou became the most expensive player in football history when Real Madrid acquired him for 46 million pounds (roughly $66 million US Dollars). Even if he does have to adapt to the Spanish way of life, he certainly won't have to adapt to being the star player, nor the award winner.

Zinedine and Veronique have two sons, Enzo (named after Enzo Francescoli) and Luca. In addition to promoting a slew of sports products, Zidane is also Christian Dior's first male model.