Two Croatians on 50 coolest footballers of all-time list
- by croatiaweek
- in Sport
10 JUNE 2020 – Leading football magazine FourFourTwo has compiled a list of whom they consider the 50 coolest footballers of all time.
“Footballers today are often criticised for being bland, uninformed, media-trained robots, but it would be unfair to tar a whole profession with one brush. Indeed, there have been plenty of personalities in the game down the years,” FourFourTwo writes.
Two Croatians were included on the list.
In 48th place was ex Barcelona and Real Madrid player Robert Prosinecki.
Robert Prosinecki named Bosnia and Herzegovina manager (Photo: Media Centar)
Prosinecki played for the big three during his career: Real Madrid, Barcelona and Portsmouth. A technically gifted attacking midfielder, the Croatian wasn’t shy in admitting that he had a weakness for tobacco and tracking back.
“He’d smoke before the game, at half-time in the showers and after the game as well. Red Marlboros, too. The real heavy stuff,” Peter Crouch, a team-mate at Pompey, revealed in 2017, FourFourTwo wrote.
In 30th place on the list was former Croatia captain and AC Milan ace Zvonimir Boban.
Boban (Photo credit: Christophe95/CC license)
Boban played for Milan for more than 10 years, won Serie A four times and was a member of the legendary side that demolished Barcelona 4-0 in the 1994 Champions League Final. Four years later he was the captain of the Croatian side that came third at the World Cup in France. And yet the first thing everyone remembers about Boban is that he kicked a cop.
When Boban’s Dinamo Zagreb faced bitter rivals Red Star Belgrade in 1990, Yugoslavia was already a dying state, cracking under ethnic tensions. Police stormed the field when fans spilled onto the pitch after an eruption of violence in the stands; when Boban saw an officer hitting a Dinamo fan, he jumped up and kicked him in the chest, writes FourFourTwo.
The top five coolest players according to FourFourTwo were Jay-Jay Okocha, George Best, Johan Cruyff, David Beckham, and Andrea Pirlo.
You can see the full list here.
