Michel Platini is born at Joeuf in Lorrain. His family is of Italian origin (his grandfather was a Piedmontese who went abroad to find a job). Even though in France the most popular sport is rugby and the football national selection has not got good results for many years, young Michel becomes very keen on football, he plays everywhere, also at home.

His father gives him the first football technique lessons and in 1966 the kid will start playing football at AS Joeuf, his hometown team. Here, as a footballer, he keeps improving visibly and at the age of 16 he joins a club of the French Ligue 1, AS Nancy-Lorraine, and makes his Ligue 1 debut in 1972 when he is only 17 and a half years old (in March 1973 he will score his first goal). In 1974 he suffers a serious injury and cannot help AS Nancy-Lorraine to avoid relegation, but in the following season the club will promptly get the promotion to Ligue 1, and Platini scores 17 goals. In 1976 he plays with the national selection at the Olympic Games in Montreal (Canada).

In 1977 he is already on the Ballon d'Or podium, third behind Danish Simonsen and English Keegan. Meanwhile his great talent starts attracting international attention.

In 1978 Platini plays his first World Cup with France side in Argentina. For the transalpine players it will not be a great tournament, in fact, they will be knocked out at the first round, Platini, however, proves to be one of the team's positive marks.

In 1979 Michel joins AS Saint-Étienne , that have France's best team in that moment. With them in 1981 he will win the French Ligue 1.

Then, France becomes too small for a talent like his. Internazionale FC seem to have the player in his hands, but rule him out because they do not consider him strong enough. But his destiny is in Italy. Platini plays a friendly match against the Azzurri team extremely well in February 1982, and the man who notices him, right on that occasion, is a great football connoisseur like Italian tycoon Gianni Agnelli, the owner of Fiat and Juventus FC.

1982 is the year of the World Cup in Spain, and France national selection gets there as one of the favourite teams. Platini's team, however, will stop at the semifinal, when they lose on West Germany on the penalty shoot-outs after being leading by 3 to 1 in the extra time. That was a bitter disappointment for Platini because he will never get that close to reach a World Cup final any more.

In the summer of the same year he arrives at Juventus FC, explicitly requested by Gianni Agnelli. Platini joins a team that can boast 6 world champions at Spain 82 plus another international champion like Polish Boniek. At the helm of the team there is the man that will become a legendary coach, Giovanni Trapattoni. During the first month in Turin Platini have difficulties also because of a troublesome pubalgia. He seems the shadow of the champion who was very appreciated with his national selection. In the second part of that championship, however, Platini gets over it and "Le Roi" (the King) comes out. He becomes the pivot of the team, and ends up first in the top goalscorers list (that will be the first of three consecutive successes as best striker). The season, however, ends in a bitter way: Juventus FC win the Italy Cup, but end runners-up in the championship table and lose the Champions League final against Hamburger SV after reaching it without a single defeat and as the great favourites of the tournament.

The following season, instead, is a real triumph. At the end of 1983 he gains his first Ballon d'Or, it will be the first of three consecutive successes, nobody had been able to do it before, nobody will be able to do it again afterwards. At the end of 1983/84 season Juventus FC will win the Serie A championship (Michel is the top goalscorer once again) and the Cup Winners' Cup in the final against FC Porto (2-1).

In 1984 the European championship takes place in France and Platini plays remarkably. As captain, he will lead a great French national team to the first great victory in French football history, scoring 9 goals in 5 matches, an all-time record for the European championship. France beat Spain 2-0 in the final.

In December 1984 Platini wins the Ballon d'Or again, he is undoubtedly the world's greatest player. In the following season Juventus FC gain their third European final in a row. They take their Champions League revenge against Liverpool FC, defeated few months before in the European Super Cup final. Unfortunately, that will be the night of the Heysel tragedy, one of the worst pages both in football and in Platini's history: he will, in fact, score the winning goal (1-0) but in the night in which 39 people die and the match is played only for the public order's sake and to prevent further fights between different supporters. Platini will never forget that night, he admits that after that experience he cannot consider football in the same way any more.

A win got in a situation like that had to be celebrated somehow with a success of the sport, of the joy that the football played on the pitch can give, and it will be so with the Intercontinental Cup extraordinary final won against AA Argentinos Juniors on the penalty shoot-outs. Platini plays really well and scores the crucial penalty.

In the same season Juventus undergo a generation turnover. Many champions such as Boniek, Gentile and Tardelli leave, but with Platini the team gets started again (at the end of 1985 he has gained his third Ballon d'Or). Apart from the World Cup success in Tokyo, Platini gains also his second Italian Scudetto. It is 1986, the year of the World Cup in Mexico. The French national selection is still among the favourite teams. They get easily to the semifinal, after knocking out the Italian former world champions and Zico and Careca's Brazil. But in the semifinal France face West Germany, that will win 2-0 and bar the way towards the final. Maradona's Argentina will, then, win the World Cup with a virtual exchange of role between the French king and the new Argentine king.

During the season after the World Cup Platini disappears little by little, dogged by his physical problems. That will be his career last season, he will not wear other shirts but Juventus FC's, the club that he has helped to become great for 5 years. He will retire when he is only 32. Till October 2007 (when Thierry Henry outdoes his record) he will be the all-time French selection best goalscorer with 41 goals.

After retiring he will still be a football lover working as coach of the French national selection at the 1992 European championship and later being elected UEFA president in January 2007, after convincing the jury members with an election campaign characterized by his will to protect football, that football meant to be pure passion, entertainment and social means to unite people.

Platini has been an outstanding champion who delighted the audience with his refined pieces of play and his great irony. A real champion but also a great man.

Michel Platini left his footprints on the Champions Promenade in 2004, the year of FIFA centennial, celebrated also by the Golden Foot event in Monte-Carlo in the presence of international federation president Joseph Blatter.