ThreeMatchBan
Only twelve nations had reached a World Cup final by the summer of 2014, across twenty tournaments since Uruguay won the first one on home soil in 1930. Croatia made it thirteen in 2018. The players who appeared on that last afternoon of each tournament have their names fixed in the record books and their faces fixed in the memories of supporters all over the world.
Strip away the faces, the medals and the famous goals, though, and leave only the clubs they played for, and something odd happens. Those idols start to blend in. A World Cup winner's career can look surprisingly modest, confusingly scattered or so simple it seems like a trick.
Teasers before you start
A few questions to warm up. Which World Cup winner had a spell at St Andrews with Birmingham City? Who had four separate spells at Vasco da Gama? And which finalist turned up, late in his career, in the Indian Super League with FC Pune City?
Some of the histories are one line long. One is a single club. Others run past a dozen moves and take in three continents, which is its own kind of clue.
Keep an eye on West Ham United. The club appears in more of these careers than might be expected, which will make perfect sense to anyone who knows what happened at Wembley in July 1966. The story of the club's crest, with its castle and crossed hammers, is told in the West Ham badge history.
How a World Cup final shapes a career
For some players, the final was the peak of a long career at the very top: years at Milan, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or Barcelona, followed by a gentle wind-down somewhere warm. Those histories are full of famous names, and the challenge is choosing between several obvious candidates.
For others, a World Cup final was the moment their careers caught fire. A strong tournament has always been the best shop window in the sport. Plenty of players arrived at the finals with a club in their home league and left with offers from across Europe, and their transfer lists show a sudden jump in the year after.
Then there are the players from eras when moving abroad was rare. Before the 1970s most World Cup finalists spent their whole careers in their own country, sometimes at one club. A history with a single entry belongs either to a one-club legend or to someone from a very different age of football.
The North American Soccer League deserves a special mention. In the late 1970s and early 1980s it attracted a remarkable number of World Cup winners to cities such as New York, Fort Lauderdale and Seattle, and those detours stand out immediately in a transfer history. If a career suddenly lands in the United States around 1977, think hard about who was there.
The 2014 final is the easiest starting point. Germany beat Argentina 1–0 after extra time in Rio de Janeiro in July 2014, and several players from both squads were still adding clubs to their histories long after.
How to play
Each numbered clue lists one player's clubs in order, with loans marked. Type the player's name in the answer box below it. When it is right, the box turns green and the score counter rises by one. There is no sign-up and no prize, just the satisfaction of a full house.
Use full names, first name and surname, spelled as they usually appear in English.
Done with the finalists? The original transfer history quiz has fifty more careers, and guess the player by their transfer history adds another set. Beat a friend's score and let them know about it: Tweet the result.
Anyone who fails to get a single answer has to sit through Pudsey: The Movie, sober, from start to finish.