Back in 2004, FIFA celebrated it’s 100th anniversary with the fairly alright and a little embarrassing “FIFA 100” list of the greatest living footballers (which actually comprised of 125 names, go figure) as nominated by Brazilian icon Pele.
El Hadji Diouf was on there, as was Javier Saviola, while the likes of Jairzinho and Geoff Hurst failed to make the cut.
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As you’d expect, many of the players who were active at the time have since retired. In fact, there’s only two players out of the 125 that are still knocking about.
Fancy guessing who they are?
Well, one of them is the seemingly immortal Gianluigi Buffon, who is still Juventus’ undisputed No 1 at the age of 40.
There’s even a few murmurs that he might go back on his decision to retire for Italy’s national team. Simply a legend of the game.
And the other guy?
Newcastle fans might remember him; Turkish midfielder Emre Belozoglu.
At the time, Emre played for Inter Milan and had won the club’s player of the year award that season, having helped them reach the semi-finals of the Champions League.
But after that, persistent injuries hampered his time in Italy, and he eventually moved to Newcastle in 2005, going onto play for Fenerbahce (twice) and Atletico Madrid, and he currently turns out for Istanbul Basaksehir at the age of 37.
Fair play.
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