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Of the 100 best football players of all time, footballers from bygone eras compete with stars from the modern game, though fewer and fewer are still showcasing their talents in the glare of the European game. In fact, two of our top 10 have left the continent in recent times.

With Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo riding off into the sunset of warmer climes, it's easy to become misty-eyed about the good old days; of how we'll never see another pair quite like those again. But when they do eventually call it a day, their absence will leave no void: it's just the turning of a page. Football is cyclical: nothing is new and in a century and a half of the beautiful game, we've seen just about everything possible. The rise of dynasties, the fall of gods, the downright unexpected and scripts we all saw coming.

This is the complete compendium of characters who played the heroes and villains along the way. Every man who held GOAT status in the eye of any beholder: the definitive century of the greatest footballers to ever grace the grass. Don't agree? Of course, you don't!

The 100 best football players of all time

100. Gheorghe Hagi

With one of the odder career trajectories among modern-day greats, Hagi spent the best part of a decade as an impossibly prolific attacking midfielder in Romania’s top flight, before two hit-and-miss years at Real Madrid and later a similar spell at Barcelona.

Sandwiched between his time at the two Spanish giants was a heartwarming two years in Italy, where he was part of Mircea Lucescu’s ‘Little Romania’ contingent at Brescia. He endured relegation in his first season but stayed loyal to the club despite better offers, and fired them back into Serie A.

Aged 30 and supposedly winding down towards retirement, he joined Galatasaray, where he spent a laughably fruitful half-decade cementing living-legend status and hoovering up another 10 medals.

Career highlight: USA 94, when Romania reached the quarter-final of the World Cup (knocking out Argentina on the way), inspired by Hagi and his magical left foot.

99. Mario Kempes

Only four Argentines have been crowned as top scorer in La Liga, and Kempes is one of them. He was feared as a burly and effective striker for Valencia, scoring at will, especially in 1976/77 and 1977/78. Kempes also led the club to a European Cup Winners' Cup triumph in 1980.

However, he is best known for his explosive finishes during the 1978 World Cup on home soil. He nabbed six goals and was top scorer of the tournament. In doing so he picked up the Golden Ball, too, becoming just the third player to have lifted the trophy and both awards at a single World Cup, along with Garrincha and Paolo Rossi.

Career highlight: How about scoring two goals in a World Cup final for a highlight? Kempes netted twice against Holland, including the all-important winner in extra time.

98. Teofilo Cubillas

The greatest Peruvian player in history, Cubillas is remarkably the only non-German to have scored at least five goals at two different World Cup tournaments, in 1970 and 1978 (he scored five in both).

Blessed with outstanding vision and a powerful shot, he was a phenomenal set-piece specialist, usually striking the ball with the inside of his foot. Having scored at will for his beloved Allianza Lima, he was also successful at Porto and later played at Fort Lauderdale Strikers alongside George Best.

Career highlight: Cubillas led Peru to their second (and the last so far) Copa America triumph in 1975, where they beat the mighty Brazil in the semi-finals.

97. Jimmy Johnstone

Until Jock Stein arrived at Parkhead in 1965, both Celtic and the mercurial 'Jinky' Johnstone were struggling for consistency. Initially, Stein felt the outside-right was too much of an individual, but showed faith in the player who was at the fulcrum of his side for the next decade.

One of the Lisbon Lions (the Celtic team which beat Inter in 1967 to become the first British club to win the European Cup), Johnstone's superb performance during Alfredo Di Stefano's testimonial in Madrid in the same year prompted the supporters inside the Bernabeu to chant “Ole!” everytime he received the ball.

Career highlight: Informed by manager Stein that, if he played a blinder in the first leg of a European tie in 1968 he wouldn't have to travel to Red Star Belgrade for the return, 'Jinky' pulled out all the stops, scoring twice and setting up two more goals in a 5-1 win.

96. Javier Zanetti

If he's not the finest right-back the world has seen, he may have remained a world-class performer for longer than any other individual on this list.

During 19 years at Inter, which followed his early club career in Argentina and came amid some of the Milan side’s most volatile years, he made a club-record 858 appearances and won 16 trophies before retiring aged 40. The stamina and footballing brain that made him such an outstanding full-back were complemented by a technical ability that meant he also later excelled in midfield.

In total, the Argentine appeared in 1,115 competitive matches in his career, with his longevity bested only by a select few.

Career highlight: Captaining Inter to the Treble in 2010, which ended their 45-year wait to regain the European Cup.

95. Djalma Santos

Nominated by former team-mate and compatriot Pele in his list of the 125 greatest footballers, the two-time World Cup champion was the first Brazilian to collect 100 international caps. He started just one game in the 1958 World Cup but was still chosen as the best full-back of the tournament. So that must have been some display.

Along with left-back Nilton Santos, Djalma Santos rarely held back, starting the Brazilian tradition of attacking defenders and providing a template for the position's future.

Career highlight: In the final of the 1962 World Cup against Czechoslovakia, Santos set up the final goal scored by Vava for Brazil.

94. Philipp Lahm

One of those players whose greatness only dawns on you over time. Lahm was present and crucial to a number of era-defining sides of the modern era – Jupp Heynckes’s Bayern Munich, Joachim Low’s Germany and latterly Pep Guardiola’s Bayern – and yet his understated style meant for a long time that his majestic standards went underappreciated.

Not any more, though: Lahm retired in 2017 as a bona fide modern great, a footballer of astounding intelligence and technique who played two very different positions to absolute perfection. His medal collection (from World Cup triumph with Germany to every trophy worth winning at Bayern) provides sound evidence of a career well spent.

Career highlight: Reinventing himself as a central midfielder, with astounding ease, to captain Guardiola’s shimmering Bayern side to three consecutive Bundesliga titles.

93. Kylian Mbappe

“Do I feel under pressure heading into the World Cup? No, for me, football is all about pleasure. A World Cup comes along only once every four years. You can’t afford to let it pass you by.”

Those were Kylian Mbappe’s words to FourFourTwo at the beginning of 2018. Years later, his career will forever be inextricably linked with the tournament. Though he's still only midway through his career and way too young to normally be considered for lists like this, Mbappe could retire now and leave a legacy that will undoubtedly stand the test of time. Who knows where he’ll rank when his playing days come to an end?

No player has ever reached 12 World Cup goals at such a young age. Already, he’s matched Pele’s tally. Already, he’s only four behind record holder Miroslav Klose. He matched Geoff Hurst's World Cup final hat-trick in 2022, too. It’s quite possible that Mbappe could still have three World Cups ahead of him. If the first two have been any guide, he won’t let them pass him by.

Career highlight: Becoming the youngest player since Pele to score in a World Cup final, as he lifted the trophy with France in 2018.

92. Sandor Kocsis

Arguably the greatest header of a ball ever, Kocsis scored at incredible rate. He found the net 75 times in 68 games for his national side, winning the Olympic tournament in 1952, and averaged more than a goal-per-game in his seven seasons at Honved, winning three league championship titles.

Kocsis moved to Barcelona in 1958 and won La Liga in his first two seasons in Catalonia, although his spell there was sadly interrupted by injuries.

Career highlight: Kocsis was the top scorer with 11 goals at the 1954 World Cup, where a majestic Hungarian team should have won the trophy, but lost to West Germany in the final.

91. Giacinto Facchetti

In the 1970 World Cup Final, Brazil saw the future. He was playing at left-back for the opposition, who O Canarinho were busy beating 4-1 at the time.

Italy’s Giacinto Facchetti invented the modern full-back. Converted by Inter coach Helenio Herrera from a centre-forward into a right-footed left-back, Facchetti provided the deep-lying attacking thrust in a defence-first catenaccio system which dominated Italian football from the mid-1960s for three decades.

“Those who copied me copied me wrongly,” Herrera later said of his Inter side. “I had Picchi as a sweeper, yes, but I also had Facchetti, the first full-back to score as many goals as a forward.”

In an 18-season career comprising 629 Nerazzurri appearances and 75 goals, Facchetti won four Serie A titles, two European Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and Euro 68 with Italy. Forget Carlos Alberto, Roberto Carlos or any other buccaneering Brazilian: this is where the full-back as a weapon began.

Career highlight: Being part of the first Italian side to defend the European Cup in 1965.

90. Eric Cantona

"I am not a man," Eric Cantona claimed in the movie, Looking For Eric, in which he played a version of himself appearing in front of a Manchester United fan to offer advice. "I am Cantona."

One word that meant so much: and meant far more than simply being a mortal. The very image of that collar-popped Frenchman, of his fire and flamboyance, conjures memories of grandeur. He played football like he was the main character – and King Eric's legacy is almost unmatched.

He made the Premier League what it is today and he did so with undisputed genius. Arguably, he was also the catalyst for Manchester United to become the preeminent force in England for two decades. Not bad for a £1m fee, Fergie reckons.

Career highlight: Making the very first Premier League season his stage, to snatch Manchester United a title from former club Leeds.

89. Roberto Carlos

The diminutive Brazilian spent 11 seasons flying down the left flank at the Bernabeu, helping Real Madrid to three Champions League titles.

His attacking ability originally earned him a call-up to the national team aged 18, when he was playing for Uniao Sao Joao. He followed that by joining one of Palmeiras’s best-ever teams and then Inter, before Real Madrid came calling.

There he became a cult hero for carrying a smile almost as big as those monster thighs which allowed him to fire the ball towards goal at 105mph. No wonder goalkeepers (and fans in the stands) feared him.

Career highlight: The 2002 World Cup winner could defy the laws of physics. Striking the ball with his three outside toes, a free-kick that was apparently heading to the corner flag curved back and hit the net in a 1-1 draw against France at the 1997 Tournoi.

88. Kevin De Bruyne

On pure footballing ability alone, you'd be hard-pressed to find another player in the history of the sport who possessed such unerring accuracy when whipping the ball onto a sixpence. David Beckham, perhaps. But the argument stops there.

Kevin De Bruyne arrived at Manchester City in 2015 to great furore as a Chelsea reject - a decade on he has comfortably put those doubts to bed. Dominating in a star-studded Pep Guardiola side isn't easy, but the Belgian is usually the orchestrator behind whatever masterplan the Catalan boss has conjured up.

The centurion, treble-winning fourmidable will go down as Manchester City's greatest-ever player when he comes to leave the club, which is no mean feat considering the abundance of talent their Abu Dhabi owners have brought to the club in recent times.

Career highlight: Driving Manchester City on in the 2022/23 season as they won a Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup treble. Erling Haaland's goalscoring prowess stole the headlines, but many wouldn't have been possible without De Bruyne.

87. Dennis Bergkamp

He may have been Dutch, but Bergkamp’s biggest impact was arguably made on English football. Arriving to the Premier League as one of its first wave of foreign imports back in the unreconstructed early 1990s, Bergkamp immediately demonstrated a suaveness and detached innovation that was alien to the culture he’d come into.

The former Arsenal forward had the star quality and an icy mean streak that immediately endeared him, but also showed that a hardened winning mentality and sumptuously refined technique need not be mutually exclusive.

Career highlight: His goals against Newcastle and in the World Cup against Argentina were his masterworks, and both are well-documented. But perhaps the moment that best defines him is an assist: for Freddie Ljungberg against Juventus, in a 3-1 win at Highbury in 2001.

86. Allan Simonsen

A hard-working, fiercely committed centre-forward with a knack for important goals, Simonsen is recognised as one of the most important Danish footballers of all time and enjoyed a splendid three-year spell at Barcelona.

Yet his most impressive exploits came in Germany, where he helped Borussia Monchengladbach to three consecutive Bundesliga titles in the mid-'70s. He’s also the only footballer to have scored in the European Cup, UEFA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup finals.

Career highlight: Winning the Ballon d’Or in 1977, beating Kevin Keegan and Michel Platini in the process, and becoming the first Danish player to take the honour.

85. Luis Figo

One of the most idolised and despised players in history – even by the same set of fans at different points in his timeline.

Luis Figo was the archetype of what a Galactico should be, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Real Madrid moved heaven, Earth and the laws of nature to acquire him. Deft, delicate and graceful, while capable of unpredictability – as England found out from his long-range stunner at Euro 2000 – Figo was a player of brilliance and consistency.

Career highlight: Landing the 2002 Champions League alongside his star-studded mates against Bayern Munich. See: paying big money for your rivals' players works.

84. George Weah

So far, Africa's only Ballon d'Or recipient, George Weah spent four years as president of Liberia. He's always led from the front.

King George was a tornado of a footballer and one of the most thrilling footballers in full pelt ever to play the game. He could take on swathes of defenders and blast past them with electric pace, while his finishing, technical ability and creativity were all superb. He lit up Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan, winning titles and plaudits a plenty to become one of the most influential and beloved African footballers ever to play the game.

Career highlight: A fabulous solo goal against Verona in which Weah barely looked like he was breaking a sweat while frolicking through the entire opposition backline. It typified his class, bluster and frightening individual ability: do you know how difficult that was to do in 1990s Italy?

83. Sandro Mazzola

A one-club man with Inter, Mazzola was key to Helenio Herrera’s Grande Inter side. Renowned for their tough-nut catenaccio tactics, and their ability to score from lightning-fast counter-attacks, Mazzola’s tactical nous from midfield brought him goals aplenty, and a raft of silverware as Inter became Italy’s team of the 1960s.

Sandro won four Serie A titles, the 1964 European Cup Final and added the 1968 European Championship with Italy.

Career highlight: “I played against your father. You did him proud, and I want to give you my shirt,” Ferenc Puskas told Mazzola after Sandro scored twice in Inter’s victory over Real Madrid in the 1964 European Cup Final.

82. Zlatan Ibrahimovic

He may be a divisive figure, but Zlatan's talent is unquestionable. A prolific goalscorer, the Swede hit double figure goal tallies in 19 seasons and received 11 Ballon d'Or nominations over the course of his career, which included league title wins in four different countries.

Acrobatic pieces of skills, and even goals, became customary when watching Ibrahmovic, with his taekwondo background enabling the 6ft 5in giant to defy the realms of possibility. His constant references to himself in the third person often seem somewhat impossible, too...

Career highlight: Scoring one of the greatest goals of all time against England in 2012. Running away from goal and 35 yards out, Zlatan knew that goalkeeper Joe Hart was way out of his goal as he produced a stunning bicycle kick to win the 2013 FIFA Puskas Award.

81. Mohamed Salah

Still going strong, Mohamed Salah just seems to keep getting better and better. The Liverpool forward has shone at Anfield since moving in 2017, silencing the critics with dominant display after frightening performance.

Posting ludicrous numbers on a consistent basis, where Salah once relied on his pace and power to humilate defenders has transitioned into a more technical, skilful focus. Offer him a yard of space and he will devastate, get too tight and his strong frame will simply roll you before still finding the back of the net. Each outcome is largely unstoppable.

Career highlight: A year after being stretchered off against Real Madrid, Salah returned in the 2019 Champions League final with redemption on his mind. He duly delivered, scoring a penalty after just two minutes as the Reds went on to lift the trophy.

80. Kaka

The baby of Brazil's last World Cup-winning squad without getting onto the pitch, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite grew up in the shadows of samba superstars before emulating them on his own path. He won the final Ballon d'Or before the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly dominated football and dazzled with his unbelievable vision and typically South American dribbling skills.

Milan fans adored him. There was nothing that Kaka couldn't do with the ball at his feet, as he danced his way through defences and led this great club to summits. Injuries ravaged his time at Real Madrid but the mystique of this man is clear: he's simply one of the most talented footballers of the modern age, with iconic moments across his career.

Career highlight: An era-defining display against Manchester United in the Champions League semi-finals, with the whole world watching. Tearing apart one of the greatest-ever England sides singlehandedly was as shocking as it was captivating.

79. Hristo Stoichkov

A roving forward of glorious unpredictability, Stoichkov was a mainstay of Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ Barcelona side that won four league titles on the trot - and the club’s first European Cup – in the early 1990s.

The Bulgarian was famously improvisational and infamously hot-tempered (you can see why Cruyff took to him), and complemented his direct dribbling with a handy habit of catching goalkeepers off-guard with rocket-powered shots from unlikely distances.

Stoichkov turned in a similar level of performance for his national side, most notably at the 1994 World Cup. His six goals in the U.S. took Bulgaria to the semi-final and made him joint top-scorer of the tournament.

Career highlight: His frustratingly fleeting partnership with Romario during the 1993/94 season, the Dream Team’s fourth title campaign, which reaped 54 goals and will go down as one of the all-time great forward pairings.

78. Hugo Sanchez

Comfortably the finest Mexican player of all time and one of the leading scorers in Real Madrid and La Liga history. He played for both Madrid clubs, but it was at Real (after moving in 1985) where Sanchez and his somersaulting goal celebration became legend.

Sanchez won five consecutive league titles between 1985 and 1990, was the competition’s top scorer in four of those seasons, and decorated Spanish grounds all over the country with his spectacular range of finishes. Predatory inside the penalty box, certainly, but also extravagantly gifted outside of it, too.

Career highlight: 1989: a Liga winner’s medal, victory in the Copa del Rey final against Real Valladolid and, after a staggering 45 goals in 42 games across all competitions, the European Golden Boot.

77. Jimmy Greaves

Were it not for injury ruling him out of the World Cup final, Jimmy Greaves may have been the most famous English footballer of a generation. As it was, he just had to settle for being one of the best.

The highest goalscorer in the history of English top-flight football (357 goals), Greaves was a byword for brilliance in the 18-yard area, showing composure that few others could. The Essex-born forward still has an astounding goals-to-game ratio that holds up against modern-day forwards, 44 times for his country in just 57 matches. He still holds the record for most England hat-tricks with a whopping six – one every 10 games or fewer.

Career highlight: Two Cup Winners' Cup final strikes in a 5-1 rout of defending champions Atletico Madrid, as Tottenham became the first Brits to lift a European trophy.

76. Alan Shearer

He's still no.1 in the Premier League with 260 goals: don't let the dad jokes on Match of the Day fool you into thinking he was anything other than a complete monster in his prime.

One of the most ferocious and reliable strikers of a generation, Wor Alan was, at different points in his career, an up-and-coming future star, the most expensive player on Earth, the Euro 96 top scorer and an eternal goal-getter in English football. He could have gone anywhere in football and won even more – perhaps scored even more – but chose to return to his beloved Toon.

He may be simultaneously one of the greatest English footballers ever… and underrated.

Career highlight: Winning the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers will always be his footballing profile picture but breaking the all-time Newcastle United goal record? That'll probably rank as his favourite moment.

75. Josef Masopust

Masopust represented fair play better than anyone. When Pele was injured during the clash against Czechoslovakia at the 1962 World Cup, but had to stay on the pitch, the midfielder refused to tackle him. The Brazilian superstar was left stunned by such generosity and always admired Masopust, while Eusebio claimed that he felt inferior when playing against him.

Outrageously versatile, he was able to "play the violin and wash the dishes", winning a lot of balls, distributing them and taking on opponents with amazing ease. He won eight Czechoslovakian titles with Dukla Prague.

Career highlight: Masopust led Czechoslovakia to the World Cup final in 1962, scored the opening goal in the 3-1 defeat to Brazil and won the Ballon d'Or that year.

74. Just Fontaine

In tandem with Raymond Kopa at Stade de Reims, the diminutive Fontaine - two footed and smooth - plundered goals for fun. He carried on scoring even after Kopa departed to Real Madrid in 1958, eventually netting 121 goals in six years for Reims. Fontaine, who scored a hat-trick on his international debut against Luxembourg, is best known for his remarkable 13-goal haul at the 1958 World Cup. He remains the overall fourth-highest scorer in World Cup history, despite having scored in one tournament.

Career highlight: Fontaine's four goals in the third-place play-off match against reigning world champions West Germany meant he passed Sandor Kocsis's 11-goal record in 1954 – a moment to treasure.

73. Rivellino

The most famous moustache in Brazilian football had an unpredictable left foot and became known for his atomic kick. He was the best Seleção player in the fantastic side that devastated opponents at Mexico 1970, and debuted the elastico dribble (or flip-flap) which involved nudging the ball to one side and then flicking it back in the other direction.

Former Italy defender Mario Bertini couldn’t see what was coming and wasn’t able to stop it in Brazil’s 4-1 1970 World Cup Final win.

Career highlight: His bomba (in English, cannonball) free-kick breaking through the wall in Brazil's first 1970 World Cup match against Czechoslovakia.

72. Florian Albert

Nicknamed ‘The Emperor’, Albert was a remarkably elegant striker, who always played with confidence and was bold enough to invent unorthodox solutions on the pitch. He represented Ferencvaros, his only club, for 16 years, but was especially brilliant for his national team.

Albert was voted the best young player at the 1962 World Cup and was chosen for the team of the tournament at both Euro 1964 and the 1966 World Cup. He received a Ballon d'Or in 1967, finishing ahead of Bobby Charlton.

Career highlight: Albert led Hungary to the quarter-finals at two World Cups, in 1962 and 1966, but the earlier of these tournaments was his breakthrough as he scored four goals at the age of 20.

71. Frank Rijkaard

Few players are good enough or lucky enough to play for a single great club side in the course of their career. Rijkaard played for three. The Ajax team of the early '80s, where he cut his teeth under the stewardship of Johan Cruyff and alongside Marco van Basten, Jan Molby and Ronald Koeman. Then Arrigo Sacchi’s seminal Milan team, where he won successive European Cups in 1989 and 1990. After that he finally returned to join Ajax's now-legendary European Cup-winning side of 1995, by then an old head among a team of fresh-faced stars-in-waiting.

Aggressive, quick-witted and with a marathon runner’s endurance levels, Rijkaard was a precursor to the great box-to-box midfielders that emerged in the '90s – Keane, Vieira and Gerrard – but with abundant added silk.

Career highlight: Sauntering through the Benfica defence to slot home the only goal of the 1990 European Cup Final.

70. Cafu

No other footballer has ever played in three World Cup finals. Cafu did – and won two of them, in 1994 and 2002. His compatriots always liked to say that the right-back had a pulmao invejavel (in English, an enviable lung capacity) as he showed such staggering pace and stamina. The Brazilian also became known as Pendolino during his time in Italy, after the country’s high-speed train. Cafu spent six successful years at Roma and was later a member of the Milan side which beat Liverpool to win the Champions League in 2007.

Career highlight: His celebration after the 2002 World Cup final is popular in Brazil. He stood on the victory podium and, as he raised the trophy, shouted to his wife, "Regina, eu te amo" (“Regina, I love you").

69. Jose Andrade

Although skinny and slight, the defensive midfielder dominated with his athleticism as Uruguay impressed in the late 1920s at the Olympics and at the 1930 World Cup.

As football wasn't yet professional in his native country, Andrade also worked as a street musician and shoe-shiner while turning out for Nacional and Penarol. The ‘Black Pearl’ gained notoriety at the 1924 Olympics for daring to throw rocks back at hostile Argentina fans, who'd pelted the visitors with them before the match. Uruguay's victory in the 1930 World Cup Final over their South American rivals gave him a huge sense of pleasure.

Career highlight: In the process of winning the 1924 Olympic football gold medal, Andrade also became the first black footballer to play at the Games.

68. John Charles

In 1997, Il Buon Gigante – the Gentle Giant – pipped both Zinedine Zidane and Michel Platini to the title of Juventus fans’ greatest-ever foreign player. A world-record £65,000 signing from Leeds in 1957, Charles scored 108 goals in 155 matches for Juve. He also won two league titles in Italy, while demonstrating that big men (he was 6ft 2in and 14 stone) could indeed possess a sublime touch.

Danny Blanchflower reckoned Charles, who also represented Wales at the 1958 World Cup, was the “most instinctive player I ever saw”.

Career highlight: Charles served notice of his extraordinary versatility at Leeds when, after being converted from an outstanding centre-half into a centre-forward during the 1952/53 season, he went on to score 42 goals in 1953/54.

67. Jose Manuel Moreno

A striker of incredible talent, Moreno was the lynchpin of the so-called La Maquina (The Machine), the great River Plate team of the 1940s that was hugely important to the tactical development of South American and world football. The team were the first to frequently exchange positions in attack.

Moreno seemingly had no weaknesses as a player, showing sublime technical skills, physical strength and vision to lead his team to six championship titles. Later on, he won league titles in Mexico, Chile and Colombia as well – becoming the first ever footballer to do so in four countries.

Career highlight: Moreno represented Argentina at four Copa America tournaments, leading them to two titles in 1941 and 1947.

66. Gordon banks

Creator of the most watched goalkeeping highlight in history, Banks’s top-flight career was spent between Leicester and Stoke. England secured his legacy, though. A World Cup winner in 1966, he made arguably the most acclaimed save in the game’s history from Pele in 1970 and, ironically, would have his worth emphasised in absentia later in the same tournament.

Banks was taken ill before England’s quarter-final with West Germany; Peter Bonetti deputised and inadvertently assisted the loss of a 2-0 lead by making one of the most notorious errors in the national team’s history.

Career highlight: The save. The World Cup win secured his legacy, but the final itself has always been defined by Geoff Hurst’s goals, the images of the Bobby Moore and Kenneth Wolstenholme’s commentary. His denial of Pele, though, is Banks’s signature moment alone.

65. Denis Law

There wasn't a more thrilling sight in the 1960s and early '70s than the vision of 'The Lawman' triumphantly punching his right fist into the air after plundering one of his 237 goals in 404 Manchester United appearances.

Law netted United's first goal in the 1963 FA Cup Final, won two league titles with Matt Busby's men, and dovetailed perfectly with the other two members of the 'Holy Trinity' - George Best and Bobby Charlton. Having unluckily missed out on the European Cup final triumph in 1968 with injury, Law nonetheless played on into the technicolor '70s, before enjoying a second spell at rivals Manchester City.

Career highlight: Law was United's top scorer during their title-winning 1964/65 campaign, winning the Ballon d'Or in the process.

64. Johan Neeskens

A tireless midfielder, equally able to score goals, provide assists and close gaps in defence, Neeskens was perfect for the Total Football ideas of Ajax and the national team. Nicknamed the Second Johan, he was the best possible partner for Johan Cruyff, covering ground for the maestro and feeding him with countless balls.

Unsurprisingly, Neeskens moved to Barcelona in 1974, a year after his friend and having won three European Cups in a row at Ajax. He also followed Cruyff to the NASL, starring for New York Cosmos.

Career highlight: Neeskens is best remembered for scoring a second-minute penalty in the 1974 World Cup final against West Germany, which sadly for the Dutch wasn't enough in the end.

63. Gunnar Nordahl

With 210 Serie A goals, Nordahl is the greatest Milan scorer of all time, and nobody – not even Andriy Shevchenko – could ever come close to his achievement. The powerfully built Swede was the top scorer in Italy five times during the six-year period between 1950 and 1955 – also an unprecedented feat.

Such was his initial success that Milan signed two of his compatriots, Nils Liedholm and Gunnar Gren. Together they formed the famous Gre-No-Li partnership, one of the best footballing trios ever. Nordahl won the championship title twice with Milan and remains the top-scoring foreign player in the history of Italian football.

Career highlight: Nordahl was brilliant for his national team as well, with 43 goals in 33 games. His contribution was crucial when Sweden won gold at the 1948 Olympics.

62. Ronald Koeman

There is no modern equivalent to Ronald Koeman. Think of Sergio Ramos in his prime with the mind of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Still the top-scoring defender in the history of the game, Koeman was integral to Johan Cruyff's Dream Team and the man who scored Barcelona's first-ever European Cup winner. Sure, the headlines were all about his rocketing free-kicks and blasts from distance – but he was a brilliant sweeper too whose reading of the game was sublime. It's ridiculous to think a player in his position could manage over 250 career goals.

Career highlight: That goal against Sampdoria in the final European Cup final before the rebrand. It changed the trajectory of an entire football club.

61. Neymar

While Neymar hasn't quite lived up to the potential he promised when first breaking through at Santos, he's still done quite well for himself. Not just a flamboyant showman looking to produce the best Samba tricks possible, Neymar also had great, underrated effiency: in just four seasons at Barcelona he struck over 100 goals, forming part of that formidable MSN forward line alongside Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi to win the La Liga, Champions League and Copa del Rey treble in just their first season playing together.

Career highlight: For all of the trophies he has won, becoming Brazil's all-time top goalscorer in 2023, surpassing Pele at the top of the list, is a remarkable feat considering the nation's rich attacking history.

60. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge

An excellent dribbler who could crash in shots with virtually no backlift, the powerfully built Rummenigge was arguably the most effective forward in Europe during the late 1970s and early '80s.

His fruitful partnership with midfielder Paul Breitner (Bayern Munich were nicknamed ‘FC Breitnigge’) helped bring shedloads of silverware to Bavaria, including three European Cups in succession. Rummenigge starred on the international stage as well, winning the European Championship in 1980.

Career highlight: In the World Cup's first ever penalty shootout, Rummenigge stayed typically calm, netting his spot kick against France in an infamous semi-final to help send eventual runners-up West Germany into the final.

59. Gianni Rivera

When asked to name Italy's four best players for the forthcoming 1970 World Cup, the normally taciturn England manager Alf Ramsey joked: "Rivera, Rivera, Rivera, Rivera."

Ramsey's response spoke volumes for the almost evangelical aura that surrounded the Milan star, who racked up an astonishing 501 appearances between 1960 and 1979. Not that he was universally loved in Italy; controversial writer Gianni Brera labelled him abatino (young priest), implying that he was a luxury player with an aversion to physical battles. That didn't prevent a string of Milan managers from building their teams around the luminary talents of 'Golden Boy', however.

Career highlight: "It was as easy for him as if he were serving me tea," gushed Milan striker Jose Altafini, after Rivera had provided him with assists in Milan's triumphant 1963 European Cup Final against Benfica.

58. Daniel Passarella

Widely considered one of the best centre-backs of all time, Passarella is remembered for his range of qualities. The Argentine was a ferocious defender, strong in the tackle and extremely good positionally. His heading abilities were absolutely extraordinary given the fact that he was just 5ft 8in tall.

His attacking contribution was incredible, with 175 goals scored in all competitions. Passarella was also known for building the attacks from behind with his immaculate passing. His leadership qualities were second to none, and he was nicknamed the Great Captain. He won titles, too – six of them with River Plate before moving to play for Fiorentina and Inter in Serie A.

Career highlight: Captaining Argentina to the World Cup triumph in 1978 was the greatest feat, and it’s hugely unfortunate that Passarella missed the 1986 tournament through illness – but was still in the squad and got a second winner’s medal.

57. Fritz Walter

Walter mostly played in midfield yet managed to average almost a goal per game during his 20 years at Kaiserslautern, the beloved club he led to two German championship titles and refused to leave despite receiving very tempting offers from abroad.

Starring alongside younger brother Ottmar, a centre-forward, he was the leader not only for the club, but also for the West German team that won the World Cup in 1954 against all odds. Walter scored three goals during the tournament, but his overall contribution was much more significant. These days he has an award named after him (the Fritz Walter Medal), given to Germany's brightest youth prospects every season.

Career highlight: Walter was magnificent in West Germany's sensational 3-2 win over Hungary in the 1954 World Cup Final, and had a hand in two goals.

56. Juan Alberto Schiaffino

Tall and slender, Schiaffino possessed a deft touch and sublime technical skills which made him frustratingly unpredictable for opponents. He was one of the most dominant attacking players of his era, winning four championship titles in Uruguay with Penarol, then moving to Italy and helping Milan to win three titles in five years.

His greatest achievement was undoubtedly at the 1950 World Cup – the tournament won by Uruguay against all odds.

Career highlight: In what was technically the World Cup final, Schiaffino scored the equaliser against Brazil in 1950, helping lead Uruguay to one of the greatest sensations of all time.

55. Dino Zoff

The only Italy international to win both the European Championship (in 1968) and the World Cup (in 1982), goalkeeper Zoff joined Juventus at the comparatively late age of 32 – then won six Scudettos and made 330 consecutive appearances.

Known for his incredible reflexes and positional sense, Zoff played on well into his 40s. Italy manager Enzo Bearzot described the normally level-headed keeper planting a kiss on his cheek following his team's 3-2 win over Brazil in 1982 as "a fleeting moment which was the most intense of that World Cup".

Career highlight: Aged 40, Zoff became the oldest player to feature in a World Cup final, as he captained Italy to victory against West Germany in 1982.

54. Gaetano Scirea

A pacy and clever defender, Scirea's elegance and cerebral attitude to the game was in marked contrast to the spikier approach of Italy and Juventus team-mate Claudio Gentile.

Playing sweeper for most of his career, Scirea - whose death in a car accident at just 36 was mourned by all Italian supporters - claimed his conversion from a midfielder "helped me see the game in a way others didn't”. That was no idle boast and was borne out by the fact he won trophies by the bucketload, and remains one of only five European players to have won all international club trophies recognised by UEFA and FIFA.

Career highlight: His team-mates Dino Zoff and Paolo Rossi may have been more feted, but Scirea's impeccable performances as Italy won the 1982 World Cup were a masterclass in the art of defending.

53. Jairzinho

His devastating bursts of speed and lethal shooting secured him a place in history after the 1970 World Cup. That Brazil side inspired a generation of footballers and had in Jairzinho one of their biggest stars, despite him being relegated to the outside positions by Pele and Tostao.

He’s still the only player to have won the World Cup while scoring in every game in the tournament. If it wasn’t enough, the former winger would later show an eye for talentspotting, taking a then-skinny Ronaldo to Cruzeiro and recommending him to the Brazil youth team.

Career highlight: His winner against reigning champions England was one of the 1970 World Cup’s most memorable goals.

52. Kevin Keegan

‘Mighty Mouse’ became the first British sportsman to successfully embrace commercial opportunities. On the pitch, KK’s swashbuckling displays helped garner trophies for Bill Shankly’s Liverpool side in the early 1970s, including a league title and the UEFA Cup.

Under Shanks’ replacement Bob Paisley, Keegan – by now an England star - took his game to another level, helping Liverpool to their first European Cup in 1977. He moved to Hamburg to “expand my horizons” that summer, winning a Bundesliga title, plus two Ballon d’Or awards in a three-year spell.

Career highlight: “Goals pay the rent, and Keegan does his share,” enthused BBC commentator David Coleman after Keegan smashed home his first goal in the 1974 FA Cup Final against Newcastle. He added the third in a comprehensive 3-0 win.

51. Rivaldo

Possessing one of the deadliest left feet in football history, the Brazilian won the Ballon d’Or after guiding Barcelona to a second successive title, then helped his country to glory in 2002. “Ronaldo was our most talented player, but Rivaldo was even better at that World Cup,” Edmilson said.

Impressively agile considering his height, Rivaldo saw defenders bounce off him thanks to his strength, while also fall over when failing to come to grips with his quick feet and close control.

Career highlight: The overhead kick against Valencia that completed a hat-trick and rescued Barcelona’s Champions League qualification in 2001.

50. Wayne Rooney

It was never a debate between Ronaldo and Messi in the early days: Wayne Rooney was far more highly-rated than his Manchester United colleague. And considering that he would smash goalscoring records for both club and country, it's somewhat strange that his career paled in comparison to those two since, with his retirement at 35 a crying shame considering the longevity of a modern player.

The Merseyside lad was equal parts power and precision across a career that began as a 16-year-old netting on his debut against Arsenal. Rooney was physically supreme, pacy and aggressive but could caress the ball like few other Englishmen have ever have.

Career highlight: His astounding Euro 2004 tournament in which he top-scored and announced himself as the most exciting wonderkid on the continent.

49. Didi

“I’m nothing compared to Didi. I’ll never be anywhere near as good as he is,” Pele once said. Dubbed the Ethiopian Prince because of his elegant style, the midfielder won the World Cup with Brazil in 1958 and 1962, and even had a stint with Real Madrid.

Didi is also attributed with first using the 'knuckleball' free-kick that has become so common. The pioneer would make dead balls swerve unexpectedly, helping him score plenty of career goals.

Career highlight: Beating Pele and 13-goal Just Fontaine to player of the tournament in 1958.

48. Gianluigi Buffon

Most footballers begin to wane at 30 - Buffon balanced quality and longevity like a 1970s Coppola movie, winning eight more Serie A titles with Juventus, to take his tally to 10. He’s the only goalkeeper to make the Ballon d’Or top two since Dino Zoff in 1973. He only retired in 2023, aged 45, after returning to boyhood side Parma in Serie B.

Career highlight: World Cup glory with Italy in 2006, just as Juventus side were being relegated to Serie B because of Calciopoli.

47. Gunter Netzer

An elegant playmaker, Netzer was one of the game’s best ever passers, able to put the ball on a spot from any distance. The leader of a Monchengladbach team that won two Bundesliga titles, he left for Real Madrid and won two more championships.

Career highlight: Star of the show as West Germany were crowned European champions in 1972.

46. Paolo Rossi

Little Paolo, that most slightly built of strikers, also possessed a ruthless and predatory edge. Rossi scored for fun at Vicenza and Perugia, before really making his mark with Juventus and Italy at the 1982 World Cup, winning both the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball.

Career highlight: His legendary hat-trick against favourites Brazil in 1982 - his autobiography was entitled I Made Brazil Cry.

45. Robert Lewandowski

But for a pesky ash cloud stopping the Pole from flying to England, Sam Allardyce hoped to lure Lewandowski to Blackburn in 2010 - instead he signed for Borussia Dortmund, spearheaded them to two Bundesliga titles, then scored 344 goals in 375 games for Bayern Munich.

After conquering Europe with Bayern in 2020 - the year in which the Ballon d’Or was his, if France Football hadn’t cancelled it - Lewandowski opted for a new challenge with Barcelona. He continues to smash goals in at a rate of knots. Still pines for Ewood Park, though.

Career highlight: Though he scored five goals in just nine minutes in 2015, Lewandowski will always look back at the 2020/21 season fondly. Overtaking Gerd Muller's 50-year Bundesliga goalscoring record, the Pole struck 41 times in a single campaign - and he made just 29 appearances, too.

44. Kenny Dalglish

As well as scoring a joint-record 30 Scotland goals in a record 102 Scotland caps, he became the first player to net 100 goals in both the Scottish and English leagues, and formed a formidable partnership with the emerging Ian Rush at Liverpool, often as the provider. “I had no preference between scoring and creating - it didn’t matter as long as it ended in a goal,” he explained.

Dalglish would win eight league titles at Anfield, and two more European Cups, finishing second only to Michel Platini in the 1983 Ballon d’Or. “When Kenny shines, the whole team is illuminated,” Paisley said. No Liverpool player has ever shone brighter than Sir Kenneth Dalglish.

Career highlight: Equally adept as a provider and a scorer of goals, Dalglish’s calm chipped effort to win the 1978 European Cup Final against Bruges demonstrated there was no more composed finisher in the game.

43. Michael Laudrup

A playmaker of seamless silkiness, Laudrup remains the greatest Danish player of all time. A stalwart of Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team that won four successive league titles for Barcelona, he then went full Luis Figo, joining Real Madrid and immediately halting that run. Andres Iniesta called him “the best player in history” - no wonder Swansea hired him.

Career highlight: Lifting Barcelona’s first European Cup, at Wembley in 1992.

42. Carlos Alberto

Brazil’s captain led the way for a new generation of more attacking full backs, paving the way for Cafu, Roberto Carlos and more. His leadership was pivotal at the World Cup in 1970, and he also enjoyed success alongside Pele at Santos.

Career highlight: His stunning finish in the World Cup final against Italy, rounding off a stellar team move, is rated by many as the greatest ever scored.

41. Francisco 'Paco' Gento

Lightning quick, the outside left joined Real Madrid in 1953 - by the time he retired in 1971, he’d amassed 12 La Liga titles, and become the only player in history to win six European Cups. Yes, one more than you, Cristiano…

Career highlight: As a veteran, captaining Madrid to victory against Partizan Belgrade in the 1966 European Cup Final, six years after his previous triumph.

40. Luis Suarez

No, not him. This Luis Suarez never bit anyone, although he did play for Barcelona. Nicknamed ‘the Architect’, he was a midfielder of rare vision and remains the only Spaniard to have won the Ballon d’Or. Then he joined Inter for a world record fee in 1961 and won back-to-back European Cups.

Career highlight: The summer of 1964, when Suarez followed the European Cup by winning the Euros with Spain.

39. Romario

The king of the toe poke, the Brazilian had dazzling close control and nerveless finishing abilities - when he was through on goal, the keeper was basically doomed. Prolific for Vasco da Gama, PSV and Flamengo, he was the first player to net 100 goals for three different clubs.

Career highlight: Player of the tournament at the 1994 World Cup, as Romario led Brazil to glory.

38. Mattias Sindelar

Nicknamed the Mozart of Football, Sindelar was one of the world’s greatest stars in the 1930s, leading the magnificent Austrian national Wunderteam. The forward made his political views known too, wildly celebrating a goal against Germany in 1938, right after Austria had been annexed. He died mysteriously a year later.

Career highlight: Sindelar captained Austria as they reached the 1934 World Cup semi-finals, where they were controversially beaten by the hosts Italy.

37. Valentino Mazzola

The 1949 Superga air crash wiped out the legendary Grande Torino side, of which Mazzola was the finest. In seven years, he helped them win five championships and set a record for the most goals scored in a Serie A season, which still stands today.

Career highlight: Using his prodigious heading ability, he netted 29 goals from central midfield in 1946-47, eight more than the league’s next highest scorer.

36. Stanley Matthews

‘The Wizard of the Dribble’ is arguably the most entertaining player England has ever produced. At Blackpool, he won the inaugural Ballon d’Or in 1956 - at Stoke, he played in the top flight at 50, still a record.

Career highlight: So incredible was his display in the 1953 FA Cup final, that it became known as The Matthews Final - even though team-mate Stan Mortensen scored a hat-trick.

35. Bobby Moore

A footballing centre-half long before the concept was fashionable, to this day he remains the yardstick against which all England defenders are measured. After serenely bringing football home in 1966, he finished second in the 1970 Ballon d’Or after THAT tackle on Pele.

Career highlight: Collecting the World Cup from Her Majesty the Queen (having wiped his hands first on the velvet tablecloth, naturally).

34. Raymond Kopa

Born as Raymond Kopaszewski, the son of Polish immigrants became a French hero at Reims, but lost the European Cup final to Real Madrid. If you can’t beat them, join them - the playmaker headed to the Bernabeu and won the trophy three times, one of them against Reims.

Career highlight: The first Frenchman to win the European Cup, Little Napoleon then won the Ballon d’Or in 1958.

33. Sergio Busquets

Initially seeming a rather high inclusion, Busquets is probably the most complete defensive midfielder of all time and the standard to which the bar was raised.

Sergio Busquets became a by-word for Pep Guardiola's vision of the game in the late noughties, combining a combative nature in transition with the will to break lines vertically and be his team's first playmaker building from the back. All contemporaries have been judged against him; everyone who's followed has been influenced by him.

Career highlight: A World Cup trophy alongside Xabi Alonso in Vicente Del Bosque's 2010 Spain midfield. The world title was sandwiched between Champions League wins in 2009 and 2011.

32. Socrates

Perhaps the ultimate bohemian icon in football history, a deep thinker in all areas of life and a formidable midfielder of one of the greatest sides Brazil has ever produced. He made the no-look backheel pass his own signature - surely the finest footballer ever to play for Garforth Town.

Career highlight: Dazzling the world with his performances at the 1982 World Cup.

31. Giuseppe Meazza

When young Giuseppe was seven years old, he was sent to the 'open-air school’ in Milan – complete with football pitches, swimming pools and a zoo – in order to strengthen his weak lungs. The treatment worked spectacularly well. His mazy dribbling and clinical finishing were evident at youth level, so much so that La Gazetta were confident enough to write after his debut for Inter in 1910: "A star is born."

By the time he retired in 1947, he'd won two World Cups and a pair of league titles, while a popular song claimed that the graceful Meazza "scored to the rhythm of the foxtrot". Yet as with many Italian legends, he was a magnet for controversy.

Short, stocky and good-looking, Meazza was often compared in Italy with screen heart-throb Rudolf Valentino, and his hectic social life was an endless source of fascination for the Italian media. Meazza, who advertised both toothpaste and brilliantine, became stupendously rich both from the game and off-field endorsements. His name will forever be linked with the 1930s, when the Italian national team dominated world football. In 1980 the San Siro was post-humously named in his honour.

Career highlight: Starring in the Italy team that won back-to-back World Cups in 1934 and 1938.

30. Ruud Gullit

A footballer of impossible elegance, Gullit’s actual position was hard to define. At Feyenoord, he began as a sweeper before moving into a midfield playmaking role. At Milan, he played on the right of a front three and in the hole. Even before he became European champion for club and country, he won the Ballon d’Or in 1987.

Career highlight: Netting the crucial first goal in the Euro 88 final, then the 1989 European Cup final. Sexy football.

29. Luka Modric

Once an actual goat herder in his youth, Modric’s supreme passing skills were pivotal to herding Cristiano Ronaldo and Co to Champions League glory at Real Madrid. He’s now bagged the trophy six times, a joint record for the post European Cup era.

Career highlight: Breaking the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly on the Ballon d’Or, after guiding Croatia to a first World Cup final in 2018.

28. Roberto Baggio

A No.10 who scored and created with equal glee. One of the biggest stars of not one but two World Cups, the Divine Ponytail bagged a solo goal for the ages against Czechoslovakia in 1990, then spearheaded Italy’s run to the final in 1994. Admittedly, that didn’t end well.

Career highlight: Winning the 1993 Ballon d’Or, during his days with Juventus.

27. Thierry Henry

Untouchable for the half-decade he spent at his peak, Henry guided Arsenal through the most glittering period of their modern history, scoring incredible goal after incredible goal. Our choice as the greatest-ever Premier League player in 2021, Henry also won the World Cup and the Euros with France. Va va voom indeed.

Career highlight: His 30-goal 2003/04 for Arsenal, making the Gunners the Invincibles.

26. Lev Yashin

Yashin saved more than 150 penalties during his career, keeping 270 clean sheets and at the 1966 World Cup, he helped the USSR to fourth place, their best-ever performance. When a Ballon d’Or all-time dream team was selected in 2020, it was Yashin who was chosen between the sticks, ahead of Manuel Neuer, Gigi Buffon and a host of other legends. With the year’s best goalkeeper now awarded the Yashin Trophy, he remains the gold standard for all aspiring shot-stoppers.

Career highlight: Becoming the only goalkeeper to have ever won the Ballon d'Or, back in 1963.

25. Franco Baresi

The Milan team that won the European Cup in 1989 and 1990 had arguably the finest defence there has ever been - Baresi was its leader and, as libero, its central asset. Having helped the club out of Serie B in 1983, he won six Serie A six times.

Career highlight: In the 1989 Milan derby, Baresi played on with a broken arm, in a 3-0 victory.

24. Manuel Neuer

The modern, ball-playing goalkeeper who convinced Pep Guardiola to abandon building with midfielders and leave it all to the gloves-man and his backline. His shot-stopping isn’t bad either, helping Bayern Munich win 10 Bundesliga titles and two Champions Leagues. His skiing isn’t quite so good.

Career highlight: An extraordinary sweeper-keeper performance against Algeria, en route to lifting the 2014 World Cup with Germany.

23. Xavi

Often seemingly joined at the hip to Iniesta, Xavi was the heartbeat of arguably the greatest club team of all time, and a Spain side that lifted three successive trophies. This century, only three players have made the Ballon d’Or top three on at least three occasions - he’s one of them.

Career highlight: Signing off as a Barcelona player with his fourth Champions League triumph in 2015.

22. Ronaldinho

His buck-tooth smile made him one of the most recognisable faces in football. Ronaldinho was a rare case of a man who could make the unpredictable seem commonplace on the field. He was twice voted FIFA World Player of the Year, and was indeed the best player on the planet in the mid-2000s.

If greatness was measured in joy, Ronaldinho would leave the others by some distance during his five seasons at Barcelona, which delivered two league titles and a Champions League crown. He would later emulate his best days at Atletico Mineiro in their victorious Copa Libertadores campaign.

Career highlight: Winning the 2002 World Cup as part a formidable trio with Ronaldo and Rivaldo dubbed by Brazilian commentator Galvao Bueno as ‘the three Rs’.

21. Bobby Charlton

Charlton’s aura was palpable. The ‘Busby Babe’ was thrown 40 yards clear of the wreckage in the 1958 Munich air crash, then learned the devastating news that many of his team-mates had perished. The trauma he suffered meant it took him several years to recover his confidence.

The tears he shed when United won the European Cup at Wembley in 1968 were of joy, but also of sadness for the memory of those friends and team-mates who would surely have won the trophy a decade or so before, were it not for the tragedy of Munich.

Charlton was also a key member of the 1966 England World Cup squad. His thunderous finish during a tense group stage defeat of Mexico was described by manager Alf Ramsey as “a wonderful sight for all Englishmen”, and his two crisp finishes in the semi-final against Portugal put England into the World Cup final. Although he and Franz Beckenbauer effectively cancelled each other out in the final, Charlton richly deserved the glory which came his way in ’66.

Bobby, who suffered such loss as a young man, will forever be remembered – perhaps more than anything – for those two defining matches at Wembley Stadium which created English football history.

Career highlight: His pivotal role in the 1968 European Cup final - heading United in front, then scoring again in extra time.

20. Paolo Maldini

Very few players reach the vaunted 1,000-game mark. Even fewer do so as a mainstay at one of European football’s gilded heavyweights. Maldini did both, winning seven league championships and a frankly staggering five European Cup/Champions League titles in the process. All the while he embodied the Milanese notion of grinta – ‘grit’ – but without sacrificing more typically Italian qualities of suave, refinement and immeasurable handsomeness.

His only relative disappointments came with Italy, who finished runners-up at the 1994 World Cup and at Euro 2000 (although his own displays were impeccable in both tournaments). If his retirement in 2009, at the age of 40, was proof of the inevitable effects of time, then the previous 25 years were equally good evidence for the very opposite: a player for whom age only served to sharpen his exquisite talents.

Career highlight: Helping Milan go unbeaten to win Serie A in 1991/92, while reinventing himself multiple times during his career.

19. Zico

He’s the greatest Brazilian to never win a World Cup. Pele once said: “The one player that came closest to me in playing style was Zico.” He scored 333 goals at the famous Maracana stadium alone and guided Flamengo to four league titles, one Copa Libertadores and another Club World Cup in the '80s.

While Brazil's memorable World Cup campaign in 1982 ended in disappointment, Zico scored four times in his five appearances and was named in the team of the tournament. He also played in the 1986 World Cup, but was far from fully fit as Brazil lost to France in the quarter-finals.

Despite this, Brazilian fans would wish each other Happy Christmas to celebrate his birthday every March 3. You definitely don't get that for nothing, either.

Career highlight: The midfielder’s four goals in five appearances at the 1982 World Cup, even if it didn’t end with the trophy.

18. Lothar Matthaus

An all-action midfielder who combined ferocity and finesse without compromising on either, Matthaus was a rampaging engine-room presence who was described by Diego Maradona as his toughest opponent.

His heyday was as the poster-boy of the Germanic domination of European football in the late 1980s and early '90s, during which time he helped himself to 13 major club trophies, World Cup and European Championship medals, plus – to cap it all off – the Ballon d’Or in 1990.

Career Highlight: Captaining an impossibly suave West Germany side to victory in the 1990 World Cup, getting the ball rolling himself with two sumptuous individual goals against Yugoslavia in the opening game.

17. Garrincha

“In the entire history of football no one made more people happy,” said Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. He was speaking about an angel. Not an ordinary one, but an angel with bent legs (in Portuguese, um anjo de pernas tortas).

Garrincha had several birth defects. His spine was crooked. His right leg bent inwards. His left leg was six centimeters (more than two inches) longer than the right, and curved outwards following childhood surgery. And yet, the Brazilian thrived on the football pitch.

Garrincha’s favorite trick was to run off, leaving the ball behind but taking his marker with him. He would return and do it again and again, before eventually going forward with the ball, leaving the duped defender stood still.

Struggling with his knees at the end of his career, his drinking caught up with him. He died at the age of just 49, leaving three ex-wives and 14 different children – one of them in Sweden – behind. Yet in Brazil, the angel is best remembered by his other nickname: Alegria do Povo. The Joy of the People.

Career highlight: After the Selecao lost Pele to injury early in the 1962 World Cup, Garrincha took hold of the team himself, ending as the tournament’s undoubted star man.

16. Eusebio

A goalscorer before his time, but also an athlete ahead of the curve. Eusebio was known as a near-perfect blend of speed and ability. Unanimously regarded as the first great footballer of African birth, he left his native Mozambique in the late 1950s to join Benfica. Between 1960 and 1975 he won 11 Primeira Liga championships, a European Cup and averaged more than a goal per game over six different seasons.

Although Portugal were ultimately knocked out in the semi-finals of the 1966 World Cup, he also won the Golden Boot and, until Cristiano Ronaldo's ascension, was inarguably the greatest Portugal international of all time.

Career highlight: For all of Cristiano Ronaldo’s achievements, only one Portuguese player has won the World Cup Golden Boot - Eusebio in 1966.

15. Andres Iniesta

Football’s modern age has given us more exciting players, but few as gorgeously watchable. There was no way Iniesta would ever surrender possession – not just through the precision of his passing, but the meandering runs into the final third.

Deft touches with the outside of his foot became Iniesta's trademark, with sharp movements and minimal touches allowing him to escape any situation. He had an eye for a goal, too, scoring crucial goals throughout his career.

Career highlight: Guiding home the goal that won the 2010 World Cup, a strike whose chaotic build-up was punctuated momentarily by a cigar-puffing backheel from the man himself.

14. Michel Platini

One of the most elegant midfielders in history, Michel Platini was deadly in front of goal, and possessed the mentality of a winner. That enabled him to excel everywhere he went, and to produce what was arguably the greatest-ever individual performance at an international tournament when he led France to Euro 84 triumph on home soil with nine goals in five matches.

Platini’s best games were saved for his national team, however, with whom he fronted of one of the best midfield trios ever alongside Alain Giresse and Jean Tigana. They came close at the 1982 World Cup, before dramatically losing to West Germany on penalties in the semi-final. Two years later, Platini was absolutely unstoppable during the Euros, scoring two hat-tricks against Belgium and Yugoslavia in the group stage, and eventually deciding the final against Spain with a free-kick.

Platini was the brightest star in the world back then, winning three Ballons d'Or consecutively in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Football lovers cried with him when France lost in the World Cup semi-finals again in 1986. A year later, he retired at the age of 32. It seemed a premature, cruel decision to the millions who got joy from watching him play.

Career highlight: Scoring the dramatic extra-time winner in France’s semi-final victory over Portugal at the Euros.

12. Ferenc Puskas

Puskas started playing for the national team aged 18, and found the net on his debut. Naturally: Puskas always scored. He averaged more than a goal per game throughout his illustrious career, including 87 goals in 85 caps for Hungary.

Four of them came at the 1954 World Cup, when Puskas proudly wore the captain's armband and opened the scoring in the final against West Germany after only six minutes. But sadly he wasn’t fully fit for that match, after sustaining a hairline fracture against the same opponents in the group stage. Hungary lost the final 3-2 in a notable upset.

After the revolution of 1956, he chose not to stay in Hungary and sought to continue his career abroad. Unfortunately for him, a subsequent UEFA ban meant it was a further two years before he was able to represent Real Madrid. He finally joined at the age of 31 in 1958, but still became one of their most prolific scorers in history with 242 goals in 262 appearances. His partnership with Alfredo Di Stefano was truly breathtaking, but he outlasted the great Argentine, staying until 1966.

Spain became his second country, and Puskas even represented them at the 1962 World Cup, albeit without success. His legacy is cherished in both Budapest and Madrid, and his unique style, scoring record and longevity confirm his place as one of the greatest players in history.

Career highlight: Taking England apart in Hungary’s 6-3 win at Wembley in 1953.

12. Gerd Muller

Quite simply, Gerd Muller was the greatest ever pure striker the world had ever seen. His technical skills were not sublime, and he was neither fast nor physically imposing, but the phenomenal German had the remarkable talent of being in the right place at the right time to put balls into nets. Nobody was capable of doing that like him.

His scoring record is astonishing. Muller netted 365 times in 427 Bundesliga matches for Bayern Munich, winning the title four times. He scored 40 goals in a single season in 1971/72. He then hit 67 goals in 49 games in all competitions in 1972/73. He scored in two of the three European Cup finals the Bavarians won between 1974 and 1976.

Muller was the top scorer at the 1970 World Cup with 10 goals in six matches. At Euro 72, he scored twice in the semi-finals against Belgium and twice more in the final against the Soviet Union as West Germany triumphed. Then he got the precious winner in the 1974 World Cup Final.

In short, he was unstoppable. Muller rarely scored brilliant goals and even looked a bit clumsy at times, but that didn't matter. His ability to react faster than anyone else around him, and to leap higher despite being under 5ft 10in tall, was breathtaking. Fans and team-mates alike adored his unique skills, which led to his nickname Der Bomber. There will never be another one like him.

Career highlight: After netting twice in the final of Euro 72, Der Bomber helped West Germany win the 1974 World Cup too, bagging the winner in Munich.

11. George Best

Best’s extraordinary natural talent not only made him one of the most iconic and entertaining players there has been, but the finest from the British Isles.

“If I’d been ugly,” he once said, “You’d never have heard of Pele.” Although that may be a stretch, it was an acknowledgement that, for all of his ability, his womanising stopped him from achieving even more.

It was in 1968 that, aged 22 – his pace, belief, technical ability, balance and creativity in perfect symmetry – Best deservedly followed the other two of United's ‘Holy Trinity’ (Bobby Charlton and Denis Law) in winning the Ballon d’Or.

Best had made his debut for United in 1963 - a boyhood Wolves fan, the Belfast boy was rejected by local club Glentoran for being too small. That didn’t look like a great decision, as the wide man soon began to take British football by storm.

“My best performance was for Northern Ireland against Scotland,” he once told FFT. “We were expected to get slaughtered, but we won 1-0. Everything I tried came off - I would have had about four goals, but for the keeper. For United, it was our win against Benfica in 1966 - I scored twice in 12 minutes.”

That European Cup performance in Lisbon prompted the Portuguese media to label him ‘The Fifth Beatle’ - two years later, he bagged the winner in the semi final first leg at home to Real Madrid, then laid on the assist for Bill Foulkes to clinch the tie at the Bernabeu.

In the final, against Benfica once more, it was Best who brilliantly rounded the goalkeeper to put United on course for victory. Not only did he win the Ballon d’Or, he also became the youngest ever recipient of the Football Writers’ Association’s Footballer of the Year award, after a season in which he’d scored 32 goals in 53 games.

United’s top scorer in the league for five successive campaigns, he netted a record double hat-trick at Northampton in the FA Cup in 1970, but the team declined around him, as off-field distractions began to take their toll on Best himself.

His last appearance for the club came at the age of 27, before he turned out for a random assortment of clubs - among them Dunstable, South African club Jewish Guild, Stockport, Cork Celtic, Los Angeles Aztecs, Fulham, Hibernian, Hong Kong club Sea Bee, Bournemouth, and Brisbane Lions.

“I was the one who took football off the back pages and put it on to page one,” was how he reflected on his career. Best had enough star quality to dominate both.

Career highlight: His performance in the 1968 European Cup Final against Benfica inspired the 4-1 victory that made United the first English winners of the competition.

10. Marco van Basten

At once one of the most glorious footballers of the last half-century and one of the sport’s great what-if stories. In purely statistical terms, Van Basten’s career was fruitful by anyone’s standards.

He scored 301 goals and won two European Cups, 14 domestic trophies and three Ballon d’Ors. But these numbers are rendered doubly impressive due to how tragically truncated his time as a footballer was – he played his last game at the age of 28.

In the spirit of the Dutch footballing culture that he sprung from, Van Basten was staggeringly multi-talented, perhaps the most complete striker in history. Unlike many of his Dutch contemporaries, however, his position was very much unambiguous – he was an out-an-out centre-forward, a pure goalscorer. The ways by which he fulfilled his remit were many and varied.

Career highlight: There’s no debate. The greatest volley in his history, to confirm the Netherlands’ only major trophy, in the final of Euro 88.

9. Alfredo Di Stefano

“Who is this man? Wherever he is on the field he is in a position to take the ball. You can see his influence on everything that’s happening,” wrote Bobby Charlton after seeing Di Stefano play for Real Madrid in 1957.

The Blond Arrow may not have boasted the natural gifts of players like George Best or Diego Maradona, but Charlton and Franz Beckenbauer, among others, have both stated that Di Stefano was probably the best all-round player to grace football.

Real Madrid fought tooth and nail with bitter rivals Barcelona for his signature. In the midst of an acrimonious battle between the giants, the Spanish Football Federation suggested both clubs share the player, but controversially awarded Madrid the first bite at him. Barcelona officials claimed that Francoist influence was the root cause of the federation’s decision, but were later persuaded to sell their rights to the player anyway.

Throughout the next 11 campaigns, Di Stefano won eight Spanish titles, plundered 218 goals in 282 matches and won five consecutive European Cups. Naturally, he scored in all five finals. On the final day of the league season in 1958/59, with both players level on goals scored, Ferenc Puskas passed to his team-mate rather than score himself. Nonetheless, the Hungarian said of him: “Di Stefano is the best there has been, or is ever likely to be.”

Career highlight: Di Stefano netted a breathtaking hat-trick in Real Madrid’s astonishing 7-3 annihilation of Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park in the 1960 European Cup Final.

8. Franz Beckenbauer

ike many great players, Beckenbauer was adept at playing in several positions. Originally a centre-forward, he actually made his Bayern debut in the Regionalliga Sud as a left winger, and in his first full season, Bayern won promotion to the recently formed Bundesliga. As Bayern’s youth team products blossomed, Bayern gradually became the dominant force in West German football.

There are two versions of the story about how Beckenbauer was given the 'Kaiser' moniker. Beckenbauer claims it was because, in 1968, he posed alongside a bust of former Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, and the media referred to him as Fussball Kaiser afterwards. Alternatively, it was because in the 1969 German Cup Final he fouled Schalke’s Reinhard Libuda, often known as Konig von Westfalen (King of Westphalia), and the press believed that Beckenbauer had now trumped him.

Either way, the exalted moniker was entirely befitting: Bayern won a hat-trick of Bundesliga titles between 1972 and 1974, and did likewise in the European Cup between 1974 and 1976. On the international stage, Beckenbauer captained West Germany to triumph in the 1972 European Championship and 1974 World Cup.

Like Bayern, Beckenbauer wasn’t universally loved, and often expressed shock at the aggression displayed towards his team at Bundesliga away games. Aged 18, he was banned from the West German youth team for refusing to marry his pregnant girlfriend, and – controversially - he was no longer selected for international matches after joining the New York Cosmos in 1977 for a hugely successful four-year spell.

Der Kaiser returned to the Bundesliga in the early 1980s, when he led Hamburg to the league title. Naturally. He was a born winner.

Career highlight: At Hampden Park in 1976, Beckenbauer captained Bayern on the night they completed a hat-trick of European Cup victories, defeating Saint-Etienne. “I still have a huge feeling of pride about that one,” he later recalled.

7. Zinedine Zidane

There's a common conception in football that the most creative talents also tend to be the least efficient; that style comes at the expense of steel. It’s what constitutes the idea of the luxury player. Zidane was the most luxurious player possible and yet combined it with towering levels of competitive resolve: a heady cocktail of technique, grace, competitiveness and the uncanny ability to pick his moments with aplomb.

For a player whose basic function was to facilitate and create, and who was far from a prolific scorer, he was remarkably decisive – as evidenced by goals in two separate World Cup finals and an astonishing winner in a Champions League final for Real Madrid in 2002.

But as productive as he may have been, the sense was always that you were watching an artist at work.

Most sportspeople gear their game around what is most likely to bring them success, sacrificing aesthetics and extravagance at the altar of shiny medals. For Zidane, such a compromise was heresy: success was simply the inevitable result of his on-pitch beauty.

Career highlight: It takes a lot to top the Leverkusen volley - two goals in the 1998 World Cup final, as France conquered the globe for the first time, might just do it.

6. Ronaldo

The bald-headed, gap-toothed kid’s place in the pantheon of modern greats is now secure. He won his first FIFA World Player of the Year award at the tender age of 20 in 1996, went on to become the second footballer to be honoured three times, claimed the Ballon d'Or twice and became the World Cup’s greatest scorer in 2006 with his 15th strike (since surpassed by Miroslav Klose in 2014).

Has there ever been a more impressive debut season for a club anywhere in the world than R9 managed in Barcelona? The Brazilian scored 47 goals in 51 matches as the Catalans won the Copa del Rey and UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, and narrowly missed out on La Liga – but Barça couldn't hang on to him for long, as the forward signed for Inter in 1997 and was the star attraction at the 1998 World Cup, where he won the Golden Ball and finished with four goals.

Yet the last chapter infamously didn't go as planned: he suffered a fit before the final against France and failed to perform after he was eventually named in the starting line-up, as Brazil lost 3-0 to the hosts. He later signed for Real Madrid and showed tantalising glimpses of his best form as one of the galacticos. Yet Ronaldo was never quite the same again and retired in 2011 – still scoring goals, but with his game necessarily reinvented thanks to his loose lifestyle and dodgy knees.

Career highlight: Back from injury woes, his brace in the final won the 2002 World Cup for Brazil, and clinched the Golden Boot.

5. Johan Cruyff

Two months after making his first-team debut, Cruyff met former PE teacher Rinus Michels. Together, the pair invented Total Football. Wingers and overlapping full-backs kept the pitch wide, defenders were encouraged to bring the ball out from the back (if a midfielder dropped to cover the space) and the centre-forward – usually Cruyff – could roam free as Michels’ on-field conductor.

It worked. Cruyff won 20 major honours – including three successive European Cups from 1971 to 1973 – before a player revolt had him banished to Barcelona. Not content with revolutionising one club, El Salvador (the saviour) did so again, winning the Catalans’ first Liga title for 14 years. Nobody could match his speed, vision or eye for goal.

Part of arguably the best team never to win the World Cup in 1974 – the Netherlands lost 2-1 to West Germany in the final, having gone 1-0 up without the hosts touching the ball – Cruyff may not have reached his peak with his national team, but that only adds to his allure.

He retired in 1978, aged 31, and refused to go that summer’s World Cup. The following year, however, he was back, having lost the vast majority of his fortune in a pig farm venture in Catalonia. Spells in America for the Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats followed, as did a trophy-laden return to Ajax and even a season at their bitter rivals Feyenoord.

“Cruyff always seemed to be in control. He made things happen,” said Rudi van Dantzig, a long-time collaborator of the great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, himself a close friend of Cruyff’s. “There was something very dramatic about him, like a Greek drama – life or death, almost, even when they played ordinary Dutch League games.”

Career highlight: Getting a turn named after him, after confusing the hell out of Jan Olsson against Sweden at the 1974 World Cup.

4. Cristiano Ronaldo

When Ronaldo became the first player ever to score in five World Cups, two days after Argentina opened their 2022 campaign with a shock defeat to Saudi Arabia, he hoped it would be the start of his bid to stand above Lionel Messi forever. Instead, things unravelled irreparably in just a few weeks.

While Messi went on to win the World Cup, Ronaldo found himself dropped by Portugal, eliminated by Morocco, then seemingly unwanted by Europe’s top clubs after not so much burning his bridges at Manchester United, as blowing them to pieces with a barrage of Piers Morgan-loaded HIMARS missiles.

“It’s not the end of my career to come to South Africa,” CR7 insisted upon his arrival at, er, Saudi Arabian side Al Nassr, with a classic Robinho gaffe that probably gave away he wasn’t entirely thrilled to be at his new club, with average gates of just 8,000 last season. “In Europe, my work is done,” he continued, flexing as a self-defence mechanism. It was hard to escape the suspicion that Europe had decided it was done with him, rather than the other way around.

All careers come to a close eventually, and not all of them have the perfect ending - Zinedine Zidane literally bowed out with a red card; Diego Maradona had drugs bans in his final years. At 37, Ronaldo has done an extraordinary job of holding back the ageing process, scoring 66 goals for Portugal after his 30th birthday to set a new international goalscoring record, and taking his Champions League tally to a record 140.

Recent times have seen a man whose mobility no longer matched his monumental motivation, frustrated that things weren’t what they used to be, and never could be again. When you’ve been so great for so long, letting go of the dream of recapturing old glories was never going to be easy.

This is a player who’s won both the Ballon d’Or and the Champions League five times, captained Portugal to their only international trophy, won four European Golden Shoes and become Real Madrid’s record scorer, netting at least 50 goals in six successive seasons - not even Messi did that at Barcelona.

Right now, it’s hard not to view Ronaldo through the prism of Qatar - that long tearful walk back to the dressing room, while his greatest rival lifted the trophy and secured supremacy forevermore. But for more than half of his life, Ronaldo has been a superstar, one of the very finest footballers of all time. No player has ever spent so long at the top.

Career highlight: In 2008, a towering Ronaldo header helped Manchester United to the Champions League title, leading him to his life-long goal of being voted the best player in the world. He had reached the pinnacle at 23 - and yet it was just the start.

3. Diego Maradona

How do you separate the three greatest footballers of all time? Any of them would have been worthy winners, but we can only pick one.

Longevity, goals and trophies are where Lionel Messi and Pele arguably have the slight edge but, boy, Maradona was exciting. The Argentine was the rebel who produced possibly the most iconic individual goal ever scored, on the way to maybe the greatest World Cup triumph of all in 1986. A man who’s been deified in both his homeland and the Italian city of Naples.

Just 5ft 5in tall, El Pibe de Oro’s dribbling skills enthralled a generation, from the moment he made his Argentinos Juniors debut as a 15-year-old, and nutmegged an opponent with his first touch. He scored 116 goals in 166 games then joined Boca, winning the league title after a solo goal against rivals River Plate.

Barcelona paid £5m a year later - within months, he’d taken Real Madrid apart at the Bernabeu, before injury and illness struck him down. He moved to Napoli for £6.9m in 1984, the first player transferred for a world record fee on two separate occasions. There came his finest days - inspiring his new club to the only two league titles of their history, after World Cup glory in Mexico. He captained Argentina to another final in 1990.

Yes, he never won the European Cup, or progressed beyond even the last 16, but Maradona was about so much more than mere trophies.

Career highlight: Dominating the 1986 World Cup with five goals and five assists, scoring the Goal of the Century against England. The one he scored with his foot…

2. Pele

At the age of 17, in 1958, Pele became the youngest player to feature in a World Cup final. He scored six times in Sweden, including a semi-final hat-trick and two more in the final. It was to be the first of three World Cup trophies he brought back home as an answer to those tears he saw running down his dad’s face.

His contribution in 1962 was minimised by injury, while the persistent fouling of him in 1966 made him swear that it would be his last World Cup. He didn’t stick to it. He was convinced into returning for a fourth tournament in 1970 and became part of one of the best attacks ever compiled – alongside Tostao, Jairzinho, Rivellino, Clodoaldo and Gerson. While Jairzinho top-scored, Pele added four more to his World Cup tally.

In the 1960s and '70s, Pele travelled the world with his club team Santos. In Nigeria, a two-day truce was declared in the war with Biafra as a way for both sides to watch him play. His impact on the Nigerian football psyche is so huge that when he predicted an African nation would win the World Cup before the noughties, local fans already saw it coming.

“In some countries they wanted to touch him, in some they wanted to kiss him. In others they even kissed the ground he walked on,” said his former team-mate Clodoaldo.

The Brazilian played his last game for Santos in 1974 and postponed his retirement plans to sign for the New York Cosmos. He was in debt and desperate to recover his finances, so chose to move to the North American Soccer League. After leading the Cosmos to the NASL title in 1977, he played his farewell game on a rainy New York day. But how many days he'd brightened before that.

Career highlight: On November 19, 1969, Pele scored his 1,000th goal from a penalty in a match against Vasco da Gama at the Maracana stadium.

1. Lionel Messi

The history books will laud Messi, and yet their limitations will do him a disservice. In 20 years, young football fans will read about a messianic figure whose brilliance stunned the world, shattered a litany of records and started an era of dominance… but not until they watch the videos will they get an idea of what they have missed.

The quantity of his goals pale in comparison with their beauty. The goal of the month may not even make his top 20, be it a solo run, a bending free-kick, a cheeky lob, a golf putt finish or a thunderous missile.

By now most know his story: how expensive medicine for a growth hormone deficiency led him from his home town Rosario to Barcelona, where his 2004 debut started an era of brilliance. He has been voted into the world's top three players for 10 years, and in the top two for nine.

It’s one thing to reach the top, quite another to stay there. There are fans well into their 20s who have never known a world in which Messi is not spellbinding us on a weekly basis.

Only by evolution has Messi managed to maintain his level. The livewire dribbler has become a mature playmaker who now dictates play while still proving decisive in the final third. Never has Messi, now in his 30s, better balanced playmaking, dribbling and goalscoring.

As Javier Mascherano has said, he is three players in one. You could argue that one of the greatest goalscorers of all time is also the best passer, and you would not lack evidence to support your claim.

In the meantime, pundits, fans and writers will try to express his greatness with words and metaphors. They will all fail, as will the article you are reading now. The best we can do is listen to Pep Guardiola, who said: “Don’t write about him, don’t try to describe him. Just watch him.”

Career highlight: Completing the set in Qatar and winning the World Cup with Argentina.