Marco van Basten ruled football before Messi and Cristiano

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Transcript

00:00Only five players in history know what it's like to win the Ballon d'Or at least three times.

00:07The last to achieve this before Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo began their golden era

00:12was Marco Van Basten. Nicknamed the Swan of Utrecht for his elegance,

00:17Van Basten won the first of his three Ballon d'Or awards in 1988.

00:22Just five years later, he would play his last match at the age of 28.

00:27His recurrent ankle injuries made his life a nightmare, filled with surgeries, injections and unbearable pain.

00:34In those five years, he became one of the greatest forwards of all time.

00:39His performance with the Dutch national team in the 1988 European Championship,

00:44which earned him his first Ballon d'Or, is unforgettable.

00:48It was his first national team tournament, and although he wasn't a starter in the first match,

00:53he ended up being the great hero of the Klugwerk Orange's first title.

00:57He scored a hat-trick against England, the winning goal against Germany in the semi-finals,

01:02and this masterpiece in the final against the Soviet Union.

01:06It remains one of the best goals in football history.

01:09At the club level, he thrived in the Eredivisie with Ajax before moving to Milan,

01:14where he won three Serbia titles and, more importantly, reached the pinnacle with two consecutive European Cups.

01:21These were his best years, but neither the injuries nor the pain in his right ankle never left him.

01:27In 1993, his ankle gave out.

01:30After several unsuccessful surgeries, Marco Van Basten bid farewell to football on August 18, 1995, having become a legend.

01:51For more UN videos visit www.un.org