I recently completed a blog which included the Greatest Players of All-Time in every position ( iconicfootball.weebly.com if interested ) , so I thought I would share some lists here and see what people think.
It goes without saying, the assessment of the players I use will never be as accurate as seeing them play live. I have however put a few years of research into this and refined it as well as I can with the data and opinions available.
I’ve used a range of factors, which culminates in an assessment of players that I believe works well. Maybe most importantly, it has an accurate correlation to my opinion of players when using it to evaluate players from the modern era, so I trust my research methods.
The evaluation of players is generally based on a players peak over a 4-5 year period. In my opinion, this period is long enough to assess a player’s standard, and exhibits a certain level of consistency. However, a long (or short) peak can add to how highly I would rate a player, if they show themselves to be adaptable (or not) to different tactical systems, opponents, levels of pressure, their own physical changes, etc.
Some of the main factors of assessing players (some which play into each other) :
- Historical match ratings from the eras, from all sources possible (usually newspapers pre-internet)
- Historical statistical based rankings (eg. IFFHS)
- All reputable/respected opinionated lists/data I could find (eg. World Soccer)
- All reputable nominations I could find (eg. FIFPRO)
- Watching footage
- Trophies won
- World XI’s/Individual Award Rankings (many different forms/sources)
- Other fan opinion from the era (eg. Forums, articles, ex-players)
- Special consultants and researchers
- My own opinion
- Many other smaller factors
These factors can all be weighted differently depending on the standard of competition, which I evaluated as accurately as I could. Of course, there’s some controversy comparing players from different eras, some may favour modern players who are much faster, stronger, fitter; while some may favour older players who dealt with two-footed tackles, terrible pitches, & innovated aspects of the game. The idea of throwing players into different eras wouldn’t work well, so I found it best to judge them on what they are/were relevant to the time.
There’s an explanation of the rating system at the bottom.
…
The Top 100 Strikers of All-Time:
(Platinum II)
1 Pele BRA
(Platinum III)
2 Ronaldo Nazario BRA
(Platinum IV)
3 Alfredo Di Stefano ARG
4 Ferenc Puskas HUN
5 Eusebio POR
6 Marco Van Basten NET
(Platinum V)
7 Gerd Muller GER
8 Giuseppe Meazza ITA
9 Arsenio Erico PAR
10 Romario BRA
11 Laszlo Kubala HUN
12 Thierry Henry FRA
(Gold I)
13 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge GER
14 Luis Suarez URU
15 Robert Lewandowski POL
16 Matthias Sindelar AUT
17 Sandor Kocsis HUN
18 Uwe Seeler GER
19 Gyorgy Sarosi HUN
20 Wayne Rooney ENG
(Gold II)
21 John Charles WAL
22 Oleg Blokhin UKR
23 Gunnar Nordahl SWE
24 Karim Benzema FRA
25 Hristo Stoichkov BUL
26 Kenny Dalglish SCO
27 Dixie Dean ENG
28 Gigi Riva ITA
29 Gabriel Batistuta ARG
30 Sergio Aguero ARG
31 Dennis Bergkamp NET
32 Jimmy Greaves ENG
33 Ademir De Menezes BRA
34 Zlatan Ibrahimovic SWE
35 Kevin Keegan ENG
36 Hugo Sanchez MEX
37 Silvio Piola ITA
38 Denis Law SCO
39 Josef Bican AUT
40 Just Fontaine FRA
(Gold III)
41 Raul SPA
42 Andriy Shevchenko UKR
43 Paolo Rossi ITA
44 George Weah LIB
45 Erling Haaland NOR
46 Alberto Spencer ECU
47 Angel Labruna ARG
48 Samuel Eto’o CAM
49 Eduard Streltsov RUS
50 Tostao BRA
51 Mario Kempes ARG
52 Jean-Pierre Papin FRA
53 Florian Albert HUN
54 Didier Drogba IVO
55 Eric Cantona FRA
56 Ruud Van Nistlerooy NET
57 Alan Shearer ENG
58 Leonidas Da Silva BRA
59 Antoine Griezmann FRA
60 Jurgen Klinsmann GER
61 Reinaldo BRA
62 Emilio Butragueno SPA
63 Harry Kane ENG
64 Robin Van Persie NET
65 Fernando Torres SPA
66 Heleno De Freitas BRA
(Gold IV)
67 Arthur Friedenreich BRA
68 Bebeto BRA
69 Michael Owen ENG
70 David Villa SPA
71 Gary Lineker ENG
72 Milos Milutinovic SER
73 Paul Van Himst BEL
74 Abe Lenstra NET
75 Edinson Cavani URU
76 Faas Wilkes NET
77 Allan Simonsen DEN
78 Ian Rush WAL
79 Preben Elkjaer DEN
80 Roberto Bettega ITA
81 Christian Vieri ITA
82 Rudi Voller GER
83 Wlodzimierz Lubanski POL
84 Magico Gonzalez ELS
85 Jose Alfatini BRA
86 Radamel Falcao COL
87 Bobby Walker SCO
88 Tommy Lawton ENG
89 Adriano BRA
90 Georgi Asparuhov BUL
91 Manuel Seoane ARG
92 Giampiero Boniperti ITA
93 Davor Suker CRO
94 Ferenc Bene HUN
95 Coutinho (Antonio Wilson Vieira Honorio) BRA
96 Stjepan Bobek CRO
97 Diego Forlan URU
98 Franz Binder AUT
99 Hernan Crespo ARG
100 Telmo Zarra SPA
Honourable Mentions (Gold IV):
Anton Schall AUT
Careca BRA
Ernst Kuzorra GER
Carlos Bianchi ARG
Hans Krankl AUT
Carlos Tevez ARG
Vava BRA
Imre Schlosser HUN
Luis Artime ARG
The Ratings:
I finalised the assessment of each player with a rating to help me categorise and organise them. There are 3 ranks, Platinum, Gold & Silver, with a level of I-V (roman numerals) within each rank, I being the highest. There would also be ranks below, but they were not needed for this.
Generally speaking:
Platinum V is the minimum level as an ‘All-Time Great’ player
Gold V is the minimum level as a ‘World-Class’ player
Silver V is the minimum level for a ‘Good’ player (perhaps someone who can be a regular in a top-level league)
However, these definitions can vary from person to person. I find that the term ‘World-Class’ for example is used more often for players in positions that have a lower standard of player, but I wanted to keep it more consistent. For example, the best right-back in the world may not always be one of the best players in the world. The standard in certain positions can also shift across decades - there’s no rule for the minimum or maximum number of world-class players in a single position at once.
Shearer so low is a disgrace.
Not sure how he’s become so criminally underrated.
https://youtu.be/d4Q4ywESavs?si=mqvoJ4c5SInveSOc
Left foot, right foot, header, dinks, volleys, penalties, free kicks, long distance thundering strikes. They’re all going in.