I guess it's one of the ways football/society has changed. What 10-15-20 years ago, you had 3-4, some teams had as many 5-6 players who could be that. Nowadays seems to be more followers than ever before.
The Chelsea team of the mid to late 00s.

Guys like Drogba, Cech, Ballack, Terry, Lampard, Makalele, Shevchenko.... Big international captain calibre players.