Pierre Littbarski

Equally dangerous as an attacking midfielder or as a winger, Littbarski was a joy to watch - a fantastic dribbler, slipping passed defenders with the socks rolled down on his bow legs. He first came to prominence at the 1982 World Cup, where he was one of the tournament's standout players, certainly West Germany's most creative player, and ended up with more assists than any other player at the tournament.

Apart from a brief sojourn in France with the Racing Club Paris project, and an end-of-career adventure in Japan, Littbarski played his entire Bundesliga career at 1. FC Köln. Whilst he was widely loved in Germany for his playing style and his humour, when it came to winning trophies the cupboard was pretty much bare in comparison to some of the other great Germans in the 1980s who'd played for rival clubs or gone abroad. As he reached his 30th birthday in April 1990 he'd only won a single trophy, the DFB-Pokal (German Cup), so it was fitting that by the end of that summer he was rewarded with the biggest honour of them all - a World Cup winners medal.