Every generation finds its own way into football through the players it tries to imitate. For children of the 1990s, those figures included Ronaldo Nazário, Zinedine Zidane, Gabriel Batistuta, Alessandro Del Piero and Raúl. The 2000s brought Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, Kaká, Francesco Totti and Wayne Rooney. The names changed because the game did too.
An idol isn’t simply the best player in the world. It can be the forward whose movement is copied in a schoolyard, the playmaker whose shirt becomes inseparable from a position or the local hero who gives one club its identity. Luka Modrić’s own list of football idols included Zidane, Ronaldo, Totti, Diego Maradona and Zvonimir Boban. Those choices crossed countries and eras, but each helped shape how he understood the game.
The leading figures of the 1990s offered sharply different models of greatness. Ronaldo attacked defenses with speed and close control. Zidane dictated matches through touch and timing. Batistuta supplied direct, violent finishing, while Del Piero and Raúl became closely identified with Juventus and Real Madrid. Ronaldo won the 1997 Ballon d’Or, then Zidane took it in 1998 after France’s first World Cup title. It was an era when the number 10 shirt still carried enormous symbolic weight.
The 2000s widened the possibilities. Henry made acceleration look elegant. Ronaldinho played with invention and disguise. Kaká carried the ball through midfield at full speed, Totti represented a club as much as a position, and Rooney brought force to nearly every attacking role. Ronaldinho’s 2005 Ballon d’Or and Kaká’s award two years later placed both at the center of the decade’s individual record.
Then Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo altered the scale. One of them won every Ballon d’Or awarded from 2008 through 2017, turning an individual prize into a decade-long contest between two careers. Andrés Iniesta, Wesley Sneijder and Zlatan Ibrahimović remained defining players in their own right, but Messi and Ronaldo established statistical standards that no contemporary could avoid.
Stardom no longer waits for a player’s prime
The years that followed restored some variety. Modrić, Neymar, Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Agüero offered different routes to influence, from midfield control to one-on-one creation and elite finishing. Modrić’s 2018 Ballon d’Or made him the first winner outside Messi and Ronaldo since Kaká in 2007.
The clearest change in the 2020s is how early the leading names have arrived. Kylian Mbappé won the World Cup at 19. Erling Haaland became the first player to reach 20 Champions League goals before turning 21. Yamal became the youngest scorer in European Championship history at 16, won the tournament at 17 and added a World Cup title at 19. Jude Bellingham won the Kopa Trophy at 20. Lamine Yamal’s first 120 Barcelona games showed how much elite football he had already absorbed before his 18th birthday.
Football has always produced young stars. Raúl entered Real Madrid’s first team at 17, Rooney became an England starter at 18 and Messi won his first Ballon d’Or at 22. What distinguishes the current era is the number of young players reaching decisive stages at once. Mbappé, Haaland, Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior and Yamal all became central figures for elite clubs or national teams before the age traditionally associated with a player’s prime.
That acceleration changes what it means to grow up with a football idol. Previous generations often watched a star’s reputation develop alongside their own understanding of the sport. Now a teenager can enter the Champions League or a major international tournament with a global profile already forming around him. The modern idol can collect international titles and Champions League records while most of his career still lies ahead.
The qualities children copy remain familiar: Ronaldo’s acceleration, Zidane’s control, Ronaldinho’s invention, Messi’s balance or Cristiano Ronaldo’s finishing. The timeline is different. Yamal and Bellingham aren’t waiting for their prime before shaping how a new generation sees the game. Football’s latest idols are growing up in public alongside the people who want to be them.
