The Athletic is delighted to announce the discharge of The Soccer 100, the definitive rating of the best male gamers to have graced the gorgeous sport, published by William Morrow.
Our fastidiously chosen panel of consultants, that includes award-winning journalists with a long time of expertise overlaying soccer everywhere in the world, have voted for and chosen the best soccer gamers of all time.
From these whose methods and flicks have lit up competitions from the World Cup to the Premier League, or embellished the Copa America and Serie A with their targets or defensive prowess, the ebook tells the tales of the perfect to have crossed the white line.
We take a look at those that have left a legacy, whether or not they’re identified for a definite trademark flash of talent — similar to Johan’s Cruyff celebrated flip — or if they’ve reinvented techniques and even a complete place. We mirror on nationwide icons from Pele to Paolo Maldini, Cristiano Ronaldo to Diego Maradona and, by way of their tales, revisit a number of the sport’s most wonderful matches and incidents.
Right here, lead author Oliver Kay units the scene along with his introduction for the ebook.
In the summertime of 1981, six years outdated and bitten arduous by the soccer bug, I used my pocket cash to purchase a ebook from a rummage sale.
I by no means knew the ebook’s title. By the point I obtained my palms on it, it had misplaced its cowl.
However turning its dog-eared pages, inflicting its backbone to creak horribly, felt like coming into one other world. Apart from a chronicle of each World Cup from 1930 to 1974, it contained a listing of the best gamers of all time. It was dominated by British gamers, a few of them acquainted, however sprinkled amongst them had been unique names I had by no means seen earlier than, legendary gamers from far-off lands.
Some had evocative nicknames: Lev Yashin, an acrobatic Soviet goalkeeper wearing black from head to toe, was the “Black Spider”; Ferenc Puskas, the scourge of goalkeepers and defenses throughout Europe, was the “Galloping Main”; the identify Garrincha, a mesmerizingly gifted Brazilian who had been born with a faulty backbone and crooked legs, meant “Little Chicken”.
Best of all, the ebook mentioned, was one other Brazilian: Edson Arantes do Nascimento, identified universally as Pele, who had began out kicking a grapefruit across the streets of Sao Paulo. He had received the World Cup thrice, the primary of them as a 17-year-old, and ended up scoring greater than 1,000 targets in his profession. His nickname? “The King”.
Pele. The King (Alessandro Sabattini / Getty Pictures)
That treasured ebook fell aside ultimately. My outdated soccer magazines and sticker albums often went the identical approach, having been learn from cowl to cowl many times and once more. I used to be determined to cram my younger mind with data about soccer and footballers. And… what else was there to do? Soccer was rarely on tv.
Greater than 4 a long time later, the world could be very totally different for sports activities followers. The alternatives to immerse your self in sport appear boundless. There are TV sports activities stations providing wall-to-wall protection. There are devoted sports activities web sites like The Athletic. There are social media shops the place athletes can talk with their followers on the push of a button. Video-streaming platforms provide prompt entry to simply about any objective of the lots of that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have scored of their careers.
However has one thing been misplaced? With a lot consideration and power targeted on the right here and now, are we dropping a reference to these tales and people nice names whose contributions have reverberated by the sport’s historical past?
That’s what The Soccer 100 is about. It’s a celebration of 100 of the best gamers within the sport’s historical past.
In a perfect world, that final half would learn “the 100 biggest gamers within the sport’s historical past” — and maybe it will likely be marketed as such — however deep down, we all know it can’t probably be that.
Soccer has been performed professionally for a century and a half. It’s performed and adopted in each nook of the world. Evaluating gamers in several positions, throughout totally different eras, is fraught with problem. How do you even start to rank gamers whose careers and talent units are as various as Giacinto Facchetti, Gordon Banks, Gerd Muller, Zinedine Zidane, and Neymar?
Maradona sailed by England (Employees / AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Knowledge was not our pal right here. Evaluating eras is made a lot more durable by adjustments in tactical traits, competitors codecs, and even the world map. The proliferation of fixtures, many in opposition to small nations, has seen so many long-standing worldwide look and objective data toppled over latest years. Puskas, Eusebio, Muller, and the remaining by no means obtained the chance to rack up targets in opposition to Lithuania, Andorra, San Marino, and the like.
There is perhaps an algorithm that might take appearances, targets, and trophies received under consideration, however any such appraisal can be as flawed because it was uninteresting. On paper, Diego Maradona’s goalscoring file doesn’t look spectacular, however anybody who watched him in his prime — certainly, anybody who has taken 5 minutes to observe a few of these targets on YouTube — is aware of he scaled heights not often, if ever, reached earlier than or since.
We determined to place it all the way down to a vote amongst 10 of our most skilled soccer writers and editors. We began by proposing each nice participant we might consider, even when that meant trawling the historical past books and former lists of this nature. We then solid a vote during which every of us proposed our prime 100, so as, with factors awarded for every rating place. We put the outcomes right into a spreadsheet, checked out them… and gasped: “How is he beneath him?” Seconds later, one other gasp: “How is he not within the prime 100?”
We debated whether or not it would, on reflection, be value deciding the rankings by committee as a substitute. However no, we caught with the unique vote, placing our varied gripes to 1 aspect, and went off to write down the tales of 100 males who’ve left an indelible impression on the sport.
And sure, they’re all males. Girls’s soccer is booming, its recognition rising by the yr, and it’s hoped that in time we’ll produce a ebook about Mia Hamm, Marta, Aitana Bonmati, and the best gamers within the ladies’s sport. However this one is in regards to the males’s sport, a companion to The Baseball 100, The Soccer 100, and The Basketball 100.
Equally, the choice very a lot focused on what these gamers delivered on the pitch. Some of their quantity have courted controversy off it — wealth and fame have introduced their very own pitfalls — however this was by no means designed to be an evaluation of their characters.
Quite, it’s an appreciation of their high quality as footballers and the brilliance they supplied on the most important stage.
Messi celebrates scoring in opposition to Arsenal within the 2010 Champions League quarter-final (Josep Lago / AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
All of this brings us to our prime 100 and the necessity for us to apologize to some great gamers who didn’t make the minimize. The lengthy listing prolonged to lots of of gamers, any one in every of whom would have been a worthy inclusion on this ebook. However we might have turned this into The Soccer 200 — and left the rankings out of it, within the pursuits of diplomacy — and it could nonetheless have upset folks.
The problem was outlined by John Hollinger in The Basketball 100 when he identified that “if we’re overlaying greater than 75 years’ value of gamers, kind of, and solely naming 100, that’s mainly one participant a yr”.
Take into account soccer’s longer historical past, its world attain, and the depth and richness of the sport’s tradition in so many nations internationally — and the duty turns into even more durable.
There was discomfort after we realized solely three gamers from Africa, one from North America, and none in any respect from Asia or Oceania had made our prime 100. We briefly questioned whether or not there was a case for placing the voting course of to 1 aspect in pursuit of a wider geographical unfold. Landon Donovan (USA), Abedi Pele (Ghana), Harry Kewell (Australia), and Son Heung-min (South Korea) are gamers of world renown, however choosing gamers on geographical grounds would have been in opposition to the spirit of the train, and there have been extra contentious omissions than theirs.
A number of the sport’s first actual stars, such because the Argentinian ahead Jose Manuel Moreno and the prolific Austrian-Czechoslovakian striker Josef Bican, fell by the wayside. It’s gratifying that Dixie Dean, Giuseppe Meazza, and Matthias Sindelar made it since their tales, written by Michael Walker, James Horncastle, and Mark Critchley, respectively, are among the many most compelling within the ebook.
Inevitably, there’s a slant towards the trendy period, but it surely doesn’t appear to increase to the trendy day. Two of our prime 5 are nonetheless enjoying on the time of writing (albeit within the twilight of their wonderful careers… sure, you already know the 2), however just one different present participant made our prime 30. It most likely says one thing in regards to the problem of evaluating up to date gamers that he, Kylian Mbappe, might need been ranked decrease had our poll been held a couple of months later after a troublesome begin to his Actual Madrid profession.
The one different present gamers who made The Soccer 100 are effectively into their 30s. In time, the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Rodri would possibly earn the form of reverence that has been bestowed on Luka Modric and Karim Benzema towards the top of their careers. So would possibly, for instance, Erling Haaland, Vinicius Junior, or Lamine Yamal in years to come back, however you by no means can inform.
As for English soccer’s “golden technology” of the 2000s, solely one in every of them makes The Soccer 100. David Beckham is without doubt one of the most well-known athletes on the planet. However among the many prime 100 footballers of all time? Sorry, Becks.
There are 15 Brazilians amongst our choice, greater than some other nation, however arguably, there might have been not less than one other 5. There was no place for Sergio Ramos, the defensive linchpin of the Actual Madrid workforce that dominated the Champions League within the 2010s. We couldn’t discover room for both Spain’s celebrated Luis Suarez or his Uruguayan namesake; there was an argument for together with each.
Alfredo Di Stefano in 1956 (Employees / AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
There’s something significantly enduring about that technology of athletes who lit up a world rising from the darkness of world battle: Wilt Chamberlain in basketball, Willie Mays in baseball, Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson in boxing. The identical is true of soccer: Alfredo Di Stefano, Puskas, Yashin, names that cropped up within the sports activities press after which, very often, appeared in grainy footage on tv screens as worldwide competitions started to realize prominence.
Their greatness is about in stone. The Federation Internationale de Soccer Affiliation (FIFA), the sport’s world governing physique, has named annual awards in honor of Yashin (finest male goalkeeper) and Puskas (finest objective). EA Sports activities’ long-running soccer franchise permits players to play with an “Final Workforce” that includes the likes of Yashin, Puskas, Eusebio, and Pele (although not Maradona, for licensing causes).
Such tributes carry a level of identify recognition which may in any other case be misplaced, however with them comes a hazard that they’re lowered to a mere reference level. Tim Spiers’s chapter on Yashin brings the goalkeeper’s story to life in a approach that, frankly, an “Final Workforce” animation of him can’t start to.
Quite than a sequence of profiles, we needed to inform the gamers’ tales in a extra diverse approach. Jack Lang wrote about Garrincha’s signature transfer; Phil Hay explored Johan Cruyff’s genius by the eyes of Swedish defender Jan Olsson, the person on the mistaken finish of the Cruyff Flip; Sarah Shephard targeted on the “otherness” of Socrates, the chain-smoking Brazilian medic; Michael Cox microanalyzed Maradona’s brilliance by the prism of a career-defining efficiency in opposition to England on the 1986 World Cup; Daniel Taylor went to the Portuguese island of Madeira to be taught extra about its favourite son, Cristiano Ronaldo; Nick Miller wrote in regards to the objective for Santos in opposition to Flamengo in 2011 that introduced Neymar as Brazil’s latest fenomeno.
The imperious Cruyff (Werner Baum/image alliance by way of Getty Pictures)
We had been fortunate sufficient to interview a few of our topics. I spoke with Kenny Dalglish. Greg O’Keeffe went to Denmark to satisfy Michael Laudrup. Felipe Cardenas had an viewers with Mario Kempes, the Argentinian goalscoring hero of the 1978 World Cup. Adam Crafton recalled a riotous afternoon within the firm of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. George Caulkin wrote from the center about Alan Shearer, as soon as his idol, now an in depth pal.
It’s not all sweetness and lightweight. I wrote about how the Munich air tragedy hung over Sir Bobby Charlton all through his illustrious profession; Jacob Whitehead explored the trauma that overshadowed Marco van Basten’s goalscoring exploits in his personal thoughts, if no one else’s; Mark Critchley dug deep looking for the reality about Sindelar, whose loss of life in 1939, as an emblem of the Austrian resistance motion, has been a supply of intrigue for many years.
That’s the factor. This ebook is in regards to the tales. The rankings? Not a lot, we hope. To cite Joe Posnanski in The Baseball 100, “I don’t care in regards to the rankings. Each one in every of these gamers has an interesting story — about persistence, about confidence, about pure expertise, about wonderful moments, in regards to the lengths folks will go to to turn into quote-unquote ‘nice’.”
Can there ever be a definitive verdict on the best footballer of all of them? Even throughout Pele’s prime, some would argue for Di Stefano, Puskas, Garrincha, or, later, Franz Beckenbauer or Cruyff. Maradona scaled breathtaking heights with Argentina and Napoli within the Nineteen Eighties, however his profession was pockmarked by controversies and in the end curtailed by a self-destructive nature. It’s sophisticated.
For all of the fluctuations and contentious omissions from this listing, although, the picks greater up had been extra settled. There was a transparent prime 20, a transparent prime 12, and a transparent prime six of (and let’s preserve them in chronological order to keep away from any spoilers): Di Stefano, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Messi. To return to an earlier level, these names are set in stone.
It was by no means going to be a unanimous alternative, however for The Soccer 100, we settled on a No 1, a alternative that displays not simply greatness however sustained greatness: era-defining greatness, jaw-dropping greatness, the kind of greatness that may depart you feeling like you’re watching soccer from one other dimension.
Cristiano Ronaldo at Actual Madrid (Javier Soriano/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Once more, it comes again to one thing Posnanski wrote in The Baseball 100, this time about his No 1, Mays. “To observe him play, to learn the tales about how he performed, to have a look at his wonderful statistics, to listen to what folks say about him is to be reminded why we love this odd and historic sport within the first place,” he wrote. “Willie Mays has all the time made youngsters really feel like grown-ups and grown-ups really feel like youngsters. In the long run, isn’t that the entire level of baseball?”
Posnanski might simply be writing about soccer there. He might actually be writing about Messi, Ronaldo (both model), Maradona, Cruyff, Pele, or so many others featured on this ebook.
And sure, that’s the complete level of sport. It may possibly really feel like such a critical enterprise nowadays, compromised by political and industrial pursuits, however at its coronary heart, it’s nonetheless the identical outdated sport we fell in love with, illuminated by comic-book heroes, extraordinary folks with the ability to do extraordinary issues. This ebook is about them.
Excerpted from The Soccer 100 by Oliver Kay & James Horncastle with The Athletic soccer workers, revealed by William Morrow and obtainable now in the United States and for pre-order in the United Kingdom.
Copyright © 2025 by The Athletic Media Firm. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins publishers.
