The 20 greatest football players of all time
Video Overview & Insights
Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona, Pele… The list of legends who have defined and redefined the beautiful game is endless. But who is the greatest of them all?
Mesi <3
Introducing The Soccer 100: A celebration of the greatest players in football and their definitive ranking by Oliver Kay, James Horncastle and The Athletic’s football writers.
Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, Joe Devine was joined by Oliver Kay, Amy Lawrence, Nick Miller and Carl Anka to go through the top 20 players as ranked in The Soccer 100 and they also reveal their own rankings
Neymar not good enough to be in the top 20?
The Soccer 100 is available now wherever books are sold or in the link below:
https://bit.ly/thesoccer100
Messi = GOAT. 🐐
No love for the number 6 midfielder in this he top 20? The likes of a Pirlo, Matthaus, Rijkaard, Makelele. So important to the teams and allowed the magicians to flourish.
Read selected excerpts from The Soccer 100 on The Athletic:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/tag/soccer-100/
Where is Phil neville?😊
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Timestamps:
R9 12th??? Wtf
00:00:00 The Soccer 100 - The story of the greatest players in history
00:00:35 20. Bobby Charlton
What about Zico?
00:04:48 19. Franco Baresi
00:07:11 18. Lev Yashin
Prime Zidane can't be outside the top 7-8 IMO.
00:08:38 17. Paolo Maldini
00:11:39 16. Marco van Basten
Correction: Yes, Portugal was a dictatorship when Eusébio started playing, and a quite disgraceful one at that. However, the peoples from the colonies were obviously considered human beings. Another great (besides Eusébio), hailing from África was Mário Coluna. Hugely revered by the Portuguese at the time. So much so, that he was dubbed "The Sacred Monster".
00:16:08 15. George Best
00:18:41 14. Garrincha
Ronaldo isn't even the best Ronaldo!!
00:20:58 13. Gerd Muller
00:23:48 12. Ronaldo Nazario
Most of these guys haven't watched Pele, Maradona or Cruyff live but have placed them in top 5. Johan Cruyff in front of Ronaldo means you can just move to the next suggested video!
00:28:18 11. Eusebio
00:31:16 10. Michel Platini
Best discussion on this topic I have seen in a long time. Would have loved to see theTop 50 list
00:32:07 9. Ferenc Puskas
00:33:45 8. Zinadine Zidane
Dwight Yorke should be on this list
00:37:02 7. Franz Beckenbauer
00:38:43 6. Alfredo Di Stefano
Has to be done by position otherwise the whole list is meaningless
00:40:55 5. __________
00:47:45 4. __________
George Best and Charlton were better than Ronaldinho? Right ye are.
00:51:08 3. __________
00:54:46 2. __________
I see why the list is as is but to be honest Ronaldo should come 2nd or at worst 3rd. Being the top goal scorer including internationally and maintaining his level of output for 20+ years not to mention winning some golden balls even over Messi and the champions league performances he has shown over the years and adaptability to various leagues puts him above Pele and Maradona in my eyes but its just my opinion, I could be wrong
00:59:29 1. __________
#football #worldcup #soccer
Pirlo better be in there
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Cr7 should be 2nd.
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ranking cristiano ronaldo in 8th place is disrespectful.
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One of the worst lists I have seen - crazy English bias but what else would you expect from these "experts"
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Messi?! Better than R9 😂😂😂😂
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Hiw dare you to put pele and cruyff in second line. Cr7 is like 20th
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where's Baggio?
Video production by The Athletic and Bluefin Television
Additional footage sourced from AP Newsroom
Top 20 lists made by people who've never kicked a ball outside of FIFA Career Mode. 😂
Put a few CR7 haters in a room and you'll get the same ranking every time. The real top 5 is simple:
Lionel Messi
Diego Maradona
Cristiano Ronaldo
Pelé
Johan Cruyff
Anything else is just fan fiction pretending to be football analysis. 🤷♂⚽
Thumbnail image credits:
Mark Thompson / Staff / Getty Images Europe via Getty Images
Putting Lionel Messi at #3 all time is straight up ridiculous.
Keystone / Staff / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
STAFF / Staff / AFP via Getty Images
Career? Yes. Single game at peak witht today’s rules and you could only pick Maradonna or Messi for your team?
STAFF / Staff / AFP via Getty Images
STAFF / Staff / AFP via Getty Images
Iniesta
Francois Nel / Staff / Getty Images Europe via Getty Images
Contributor / AFP via Getty Images
I love Carl BUT he doesn't really make the list feel too credible in this vid
Getty Images / Staff / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
PHILIPPE WOJAZER / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images
Kind of ridiculous that this list is saying none of the 6-20th best players in football history were active in the last 15 years, and only 2 in the 21st century. I get respecting history but we're really saying that in the midst of the highest level football ever played besides the undeniable greatness of Messi and Ronaldo no other players from this generation have even cracked the top 20? There were really 5x more all time greats playing in the 1950's than in the 2000s or 2010s??? Just sheer disrespect to guys like Modric, Xavi, and Iniesta imo
Getty Images / Staff / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Getty Images / Staff / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Great quality, but cr7 at #5 is trying too hard. Remove Messi existence and cr7 would’ve won 8 ballon dors in a row in the toughest era of world football. The only person who went toe-to-toe with the greatest of all time and you put him below a cigarette smoking 8km a game running player from the 70’s who’s never won anything with with his national team compared to Ronaldo, won less UCL’s with his club then Ronaldo, won less la liga (1) then Ronaldo, scored less goals then Ronaldo, and only scored more then 35 goals all comps in a season once. Ronaldo has done more then cruyff for club and country as well as won more individually and collectively.
Yet, cruyff is a better player because of his career as a manager as well as the aura points he got from smoking cigarettes and Ajax fans reposting fake quotes on twitter.
I’m not a Ronaldo fan but let’s not be childish
JOHN MACDOUGALL / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images
Johnnie Izquierdo / Stringer / Getty Images North America via Getty Images
R9 soooo low
Special thanks to Bishopsgate Institute for their wonderful location.
Messi scores a hatrick first game of the world cup soon after this was made. As if we didn't need more evidence.
More User Perspectives
The fact that Ronaldinho is not in the top 20 , makes this list illegitimate through and through
@stefan24georgievNo Zico, no Ronaldinho...just incompetence
@selvanove1592My dad was peak boomer and said without hesitation that Pele was the best ever, and could do everything. There's a good video out there called something like 'Pele did it first' and it captures his universal talent. I'm glad they've mentioned how much Pele could adapt to today's game too. Don't forget the Brazilian league was far closer to the standard of the top European leagues at the time that we'd hard to imagine today.
@joevolcano6720brilliant video guys! liked and subscribed 👏
@duongnguyen911.Messi
2.Maradona
3.Cristiano
4.Pele
5.Ronaldo
Ronaldinho???????
@olofstigssonflygare4701They didn't explain why they put cr7 at 8?
@ayushop_officialHas to be from players you've seen, picking players from the 50s on hearsay is sycophantic.
Maradona/Messi (take your pick)
R9
Zidane
Ronaldo
Van Basten
Platini
Ronaldinho
Maldini
Baggio
Xavi
Romario
Gullit
Iniesta
Zico
Matthaus
Baresi
Laudrup
Socrates
Henry
(Pirlo, Rivaldo, Bergkamp, Carlos, Cafu, Buffon, Schmeichel, Gascoigne, Rooney, Zlatan)
Just a bunch of clueless people looking for Clickbait as usual.
@subtlerainsoundsTo be honest, they only got the first one right.
@raifrancaThere was a time in Messi's career where he was scoring every 9 out of 10 penalties and still I preferred him to get a freekick or a shot from just outside the box, because he was more consistent in them..
@MichaelEdwards-gc2xxMessi is not only the greatest footballer of all tine. Hes the greatest athelete/sportsman of all time
@LiquidcadmusYeah I'm Messi fan but there is no way CR7 is not no.2.
@bored78612Zidane? Not even in top 100. All time choker.
@SreyAun-sd1ebThis table know ball. Amazing job!!
@Zzzz-cm1hk"pele didn't play in a big league" ... Atrocious take. For people who know as much about football history, they should know that the skew in league strength towards European leagues is a very modern phenomenon... Brazilian and argentinian leagues had very little to envy, if not the other way around, of European leagues up until the late nineties.
@nachopuma13I'm a messi fan and its so wrong for ronaldo to not be number 2 on this ranking, what the hell are they saying? ronaldo is a better player than everyone here except messi
@Alfred_sicarius1267