Sócrates

The Doctor — Sócrates was a practising medical doctor who played football at the highest level and whose intellectual engagement with politics, philosophy and democracy transformed the sport's relationship with broader Brazilian society. The Corinthians Democracy — a club governance structure he helped create in the early 1980s that gave players and staff equal voting rights — was a radical experiment that predated modern ideas of athlete empowerment. On the pitch, his tall, elegant style, first touch and vision made him one of the most aesthetically pleasing players of his era, and the 1982 Brazil side he was part of remains perhaps the most celebrated World Cup non-winner in history

Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira was born in Belém, Pará in 1954 and became the most intellectually remarkable figure in football history — a practising physician who graduated from medicine while playing professional football at the highest level, a committed Marxist, philosopher and writer who ran Corinthians on a workers' cooperative model during the early 1980s. On the pitch he was a player of exceptional vision, passing range and the ability to control and redirect the ball with both feet while standing virtually stationary — a languid style that belied extraordinary technical quality. He won four São Paulo State Championships with Corinthians and captained Brazil at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups, participating in arguably the finest Brazilian side never to win the tournament — the 1982 team of Zico, Falcão, Junior and Sócrates that played perhaps the most attacking football in World Cup history. He scored 22 goals in 60 international appearances. He played in the Italian Serie A for Fiorentina in 1984-85. Beyond football, he wrote a regular column in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo and was active in politics. He died of complications from septic shock in December 2011 at 57. His name remains synonymous with the concept of footballer-as-intellectual.

• Campeonato Brasileiro (Corinthians)
• 60 Brazil caps, 22 goals