Nostalgia. The 2000s saw my love for football Cryuff-spin into an obsession: the stickers, the trading cards, cutting out the back pages of newspapers, every highlight show, every new football boot and that Nike ad. Yet harking back at the noughties brings an immediate struggle to recall beyond the Very Greatest: Raul and the original Galácticos, Brazil and their R’s, Argentina’s nimble midfielders, the ‘Class of ’92’, the Invincibles, the little Italian maestros (Del Piero, Zola, Cassano), Jay Jay Okocha… players who have been recognised so consistently throughout their careers you simply don’t forget them. The ones who escape the trophies, accolades, stats and highlight reels inevitably escape my memories. If the pay-per-view phenom that is Dimitar Berbatov happened a decade earlier, I do wonder how much of it would stick with me.

So here’s Chubby Alonso’s efforts at hanging on to the geniuses of yesteryear, recollecting ten of his favourites with that shiny bit of match-winning brilliance in them:

10. Sergio Conceição

In the towering shadows of Luis Figo and Rui Costa is Sergio Conceição, probably the least illustrious of Portugal’s golden trio of attacking midfielders, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. The tenacious winger was no slouch himself and earned his stripes as part of the star-studded Lazio cast of ’98-00. His monumental hat-trick against Germany in Euro 2000 cemented his place in the national side and launched the Germans into a frenzied soul-searching that cumulated in last year’s World Cup victory.

9. Ludovic Giuly

The buzzing Ludovic Giuly was at the heart of everything that has ever been good at Monaco this millennium, popping up with crucial goals as he captained the club to the Champions League final in 2004. He took a step back when he joined the support cast of Ronaldinho’s trophy fantasy, playing and scoring, without ever taking real plaudits as the baton was passed to a certain Lionel Messi in Giuly’s final year at the club. Still, his enduring genius took him on a tour around the top flight for a few more injured-hit years before he grounded himself where he feels most at home.

8. Juninho Paulista

Juninho Paulista may have been a World Cup winner in 2002 but it’s hard to remember his contributions among the headlining performances from Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho, and was subsequently eclipsed on the international stage by his sharpshooting namesake Juninho Pernambucano. Still, “The Little Fella” carried on his jinking joyous ways with Middlesbrough and became a firm favourite not just at the Riverside, but also among all admirers of the Premier League.

7. Shinji Ono

Without the celebrity of Hidetoshi Nakata or the adoration wrought from Shunsuke Nakamura’s famous free kicks, the original Shinji had to rely on good ol’ fashioned footballing genius to get by. Thankfully, that he had aplenty, becoming a fans’ favourite at Feyenoord as he became the first Japanese to win the UEFA Cup. Injuries hampered his career as he decidedly wound down in Australia, where he consistently proved to be in a class of his own.

6. Giovane Elber

In the endless galaxy of Bayern superstars it is easy to lose Elber somewhere out there. Yet this is a man who has scored 133 goals in the Bundesliga and can readily be considered as the deadliest Brazilian to have plied his trade in Germany. Since leaving the club Bayern has sought to replace the genius that is Giovane with the likes of Miroslav Klose, Roy Makaay, Luca Toni and Mario Gomez, but I simply can’t imagine any of them pulling off the sort of magic you’ll see in the video above.

5. Johan Micoud

Ceremoniously named after Johan Cryuff, Johan Micoud’s slight physique merely adds to his deceitful gift. With the technical ability to match his boundless imagination, Micoud was Gourcuff before Gourcuff himself, the natural understudy of a certain Zinedine Zidane, which also meant he was necessarily in his shadow. While this made an international breakthrough difficult, Micoud was relentless in Germany, leading Werder Bremen to the domestic double in 2004.

4. Mark Viduka 

Having properly announced himself on the scene with an unforgettable four goal performance against Liverpool, ‘The Duke’ forged a formidable partnership with the more flashy Alan Smith and Harry Kewell as they terrorised defences in his four dangerously glorious seasons at Icarus United. Strong, sharp and possessing ‘a good touch for a big man’, Viduka’s craftiness bankrolled a few more good years worth of fun against Premier League defences.

3. Sergen Yalçın

The troubled Turk was probably just a bit too good. His genius was evident and he knew it, creating the sort of complacency that plagued Paul Gascoigne’s own career. For long periods he was unmanageable and welcomed the parallels with England’s own enfant terrible (“Really? So he is the Sergen of British football, is he?”), but equally as long was he brilliant. Perhaps his legacy was truncated by his misguided decision to spend his whole career in Turkey, famously becoming the first player to have represented all of the country’s four big clubs. I, for one, would have loved to have seen more of his magical left foot.

2. Juan Carlos Valeron

Before the Xavi-Iniesta axis there was one Valeron. Slow and skinny, Valeron joined Deportivo as an equal to the tricky Djalminha but emerged as a strong fixture in club folklore, with Diego Tristan and Roy Makaay feeding off his passes to become consecutive winners of the Pichichi trophy as Deportivo ceremoniously ushered in the millenium; it was little surprise that his decline would later coincide with the Deportivo’s own. Still, his grace and skill will always be etched in memory as we eulogise what might be the last of a generation of the uncanny, unathletic playmaker.

1. Eiður Guðjohnsen

I loved this man to bits for so many reasons: his sheer Icelandic-ness, his elegant celebrations, his vision and versatility, and most of all the way he fought off the big money signings to maintain his place in a competitive Chelsea XI. A poor man’s Guti, Eiður Guðjohnsen was full of guile and full of class, never the star, but always on par. He recently marked his comeback to English football by setting up living legend Emile Heskey for a debut goal – need anything more be said?