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By the end of the 1970s, St. Etienne midfielder Michel Platini, the son of an Italian immigrant steel worker, had yet earned the reputation of being the "next big thing" in European Football after Best, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Keegan and Blochin; but Platini`s career only took off when he joined Italian giants Juventus Turin in the World Cup summer of 1982 where he was to play alongside six Italian World Champions and Polish Superstar attacker Zbigniev Boniek. Platini`s arrival in Turin marked the beginning of a new era in International Football when most world class footballers from all over the world played for Italian clubs and the Serie A soon became the world`s most glamorous and most exciting Football League.
Platini managed to win the ballon d`or three times in a row (1983, 1984, 1985). In 1984 when the French national Team won the European Championship at home 29 year old Platini scored 9 goals in 5 games. One year later, Platini led Juventus Turin to their first ever Triumph in the European Champions Cup, beating Liverpool 1-0 in a lacklustre final at Brussels` Heysel Stadium.