George Best

A Belfast scout sent a telegram to Matt Busby in 1961: "I think I've found you a genius." Best made his Manchester United debut at 17 and spent 11 years turning that prediction into fact - 179 goals, two league titles, the European Cup, and the 1968 European Footballer of the Year award. His dark mop-top hair and playboy habits turned him into something new: the first media celebrity footballer, nicknamed "o Quinto Beatle" after tearing apart Benfica in Lisbon. But the same appetite that made him magnetic destroyed him. Alcoholism chased him through 37 caps for Northern Ireland, a team too small to reach a major tournament, and into retirement, where the money and the health both ran out. He died in 2005, three years after a liver transplant, at 59.