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In tribute to legendary AC Milan and Italy defender Franco Baresi, who has died at the age of 66, here is an XI featuring some of the greatest one-club men in football history.

Would Steven Gerrard have found a place in this side had he finished his career at Liverpool?

Admired even by generations who never watched him play, Lev Yashin is still regarded by many as the finest goalkeeper in football history and remains the only keeper ever to win the Ballon d'Or.

Yashin spent his entire playing career at Dynamo Moscow, and he is far from the only notable goalkeeper to stay loyal to a single club.

Italy’s 1934 World Cup-winning captain Gianpiero Combi never left Juventus, while Germany great Sepp Maier stayed with Bayern Munich from their very first Bundesliga season right through to a hat-trick of European Cup triumphs in the 1970s.

With his steely expression and thick moustache, Giuseppe Bergomi already looked like a man who had spent 20 years at Inter Milan when he won the World Cup with Italy as a teenager in 1982. By 1999, he genuinely had completed two decades with the Nerazzurri.

Berti Vogts also qualifies after spending his whole career at Borussia Monchengladbach, and there are several English contenders too: Fulham’s World Cup winner George Cohen, Blackpool’s Jimmy Armfield, and pundit, businessman, podcast host and future Mayor of Manchester Gary Neville.

As Barcelona captain during the era of Catalan supremacy, when the Lionel Messi-inspired side became arguably the greatest club team the game has seen, there was little reason for Carles Puyol to ever leave the Nou Camp. England also offers plenty of alternatives, among them iconic Arsenal skipper Tony Adams, Wolves legend Billy Wright, Everton hero Brian Labone, Leeds United great Jack Charlton, Tottenham Hotspur stalwart Ledley King, Liverpool local favourite Jamie Carragher and Manchester United’s 1968 European Cup winner Bill Foulkes.

As AC Milan captain during the Rossoneri’s transformative spell in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the club lifted three European Cups, Franco Baresi will forever be remembered as one of the greatest centre-backs ever to play the game. Calm but authoritative, Baresi marshalled a famous back line at San Siro that has served as a benchmark for defensive systems ever since.

So dominant was that Milan side that the club’s players occupied the top three places in the Ballon d'Or standings in two successive years, with Baresi finishing second behind the deadly Dutch striker Marco van Basten in 1989. He carried on playing until the age of 37, retiring 20 years after making his debut.

The captaincy after Baresi’s farewell passed to Paolo Maldini, who followed the same path by spending his entire career at San Siro and adding two more European Cups to the club’s long honours list before retiring at 40.

Inter have their own legendary one-club figure at left-back in Giacinto Facchetti, while Brazil’s two-time World Cup winner Nilton Santos never moved away from his home-town club Botafogo.

If Baresi and Maldini represent the soul of AC Milan, then Giampiero Boniperti and Alessandro Del Piero are the Juventus equivalents. Unlike Del Piero, Boniperti both began and ended his career in Turin, winning five league titles with the club during the 1950s and early 1960s. Alongside Welsh legend John Charles and Argentina star Omar Sivori, Boniperti formed part of the Bianconeri’s 'Trio Magico' and bowed out on top after lifting the 1961 Serie A title. He remained the club’s leading scorer until Del Piero surpassed him in 2006, the same year Boniperti was appointed honorary president of the 'Old Lady'.

A central figure in Hungary’s extraordinary team of the 1950s, widely considered the best in the world, Jozsef Bozsik chose to remain in his homeland unlike several of the other leading lights of the 'Mighty Magyars'. Zoltan Czibor and Sandor Kocsis both eventually joined Barcelona, while star forward Ferenc Puskas left Bozsik’s beloved Budapest Honved to help Real Madrid dominate the early years of the European Cup.

Soviet mainstay Valery Voronin is another candidate after spending his entire career with Torpedo Moscow, as is Germany and Koln hero Wolfgang Overath.

Completing a San Siro deadlock with two heroes from each of the Milan clubs in this XI is Sandro Mazzola. His father Valentino was the star of the magnificent Torino side of the 1940s that won five league titles before tragedy struck in the Superga air disaster of 1949. Sandro was only six when his father died, but he went on to follow in his footsteps by winning Serie A multiple times with the Nerazzurri and also claiming back-to-back European Cups, scoring twice in the 3-1 victory over Real Madrid in 1964.

Ryan Giggs burst onto the scene as a teenager just as Manchester United started to dominate English football in the early years of the Premier League, and he won virtually everything before retiring at the age of 40. Apart from the 1990 FA Cup and the subsequent European Cup Winners’ Cup triumph, every trophy the Red Devils collected under Alex Ferguson came with Giggs in the side. Liverpool legend Billy Liddell must make do with a place on the bench, as must Ajax great Piet Keizer.

Paul Scholes’ brief spell with Royton Town in 2018 and Bobby Charlton’s stint as player-manager of Preston North End prevent another Manchester United legend from joining Giggs in this team, so the focus returns to Italy, with Roma joining Juventus and the two Milan clubs in supplying one-club heroes. Unlike some of his fellow countrymen in this XI, Francesco Totti was not part of an era-defining side, finishing with only one Serie A title and two Coppa Italia trophies across his 25 seasons at the Stadio Olimpico. Remaining loyal to his roots rather than moving to Spain in pursuit of more silverware makes him an eternal icon of the Eternal City.

Confident, fearless and deadly in front of goal, Florian Albert spending his entire career with Ferencvaros is comparable to Erling Haaland never leaving Molde. Albert was so brilliant that the Hungarian striker denied Bobby Charlton a second Ballon d'Or by winning the 1967 award ahead of England’s World Cup winner as well as the likes of Beckenbauer, Eusebio, Muller and Best.

Fritz Walter, Germany’s victorious captain in 1954, is another option in attack after staying with Kaiserslautern despite lucrative offers from overseas.