Gianluigi Buffon
Gianluigi Buffon
With well over 170 senior caps for Italy, Gianluigi Buffon has come to represent all that is good and proper about football. The veteran shot-stopper has been keeping strikers at bay since 1995 and so few have done as much with such grace and humility as the man many of his peers and countrymen consider the greatest goalkeeper of all time. The nine-time Serie A winner was the FIFA Ballon d'Or runner up in 2006 – the year he and his country conquered the world with victory at the FIFA World Cup. It was his third of five trips to the fêted competition, making him one of just a handful of players to have been to the tournament as many times.