Sergio Ramos

Sergio Ramos has never been the kind of defender satisfied with simply holding the line. His career has been defined by something bolder: a willingness to step forward, to gamble, and to change games in ways defenders are rarely expected to.

Officially, Ramos’s tally stands at 124 goals—101 for Real Madrid, 23 for Spain. That figure matters because it corrects the folklore that places him at 146, sometimes even 150. Yet the significance is not in quibbling over a miscount. It lies in the astonishment that a central defender could carve out such a total at all.

And these were …