Birgit Prinz

The three-time World Footballer of the Year can look back on an unrivalled career. She played for her country 214 times across a period of almost 17 years, competing in five World Cups and four Olympics and winning the European Championship on each of her five appearances at the tournament. Prinz featured in three World Cup finals, lifting the trophy in 2003 and 2007.

Scoring goals was her speciality. She notched 128 for Germany and over 200 (strangely enough, no one kept an exact record) in the Bundesliga. Nobody will care less about the precise tally than Prinz, however. Being in the limelight was not her thing. It upset her to see her teammates cast in her shadow. Yet the nine-time Bundesliga winner and eight-time German Footballer of the Year was inevitably the focus of attention on account of her outstanding performances. The attempt by the president of Italian top-division club AC Perugia to sign her for the men's Serie A team in 2003 only compounded that fact. For many years, Prinz was synonymous with the success of German women's football. The DFB eventually named her honorary captain of the national team alongside Bettina Wiegmann.