4. Casemiro
It would be a grave injustice to overlook the role of Casemiro in Madrid’s world-conquering midfield of the mid-2010s. While Toni Kroos and Luka Modric were in charge of the flashy stuff, Casemiro owed up to the dirty work. He sat at the base of Madrid’s midfield trinity and put out fires everywhere on the pitch.
Brought to the center stage by Zinedine Zidane, Casemiro had far more quality on the ball than what he gets credit for. A hard-tackling number 6, Casemiro possessed the ball-striking abilities of a perfect number 8. He even coupled that up with killer passes like a classic number 10. Though he was perfect for the 6 role, he took pages out of the notebooks made for other positions and adapted himself to be an instrumental player regardless of position.
A crucial cog in the Champions League three-peat, Casemiro decorated his trophy cabinet with five UCLs and three LaLigas among 18 major titles in white. While he was the first among the KCM trio to leave Madrid, he remained the perfect complement to his two partners in crime. A true jack-of-all-trades defensive midfielder, Casemiro made everyone around him better.