2000-2005: Defensive/Central Midfielders Deco Michael Ballack Frank Lampard David Beckham Patrick Vieira Steven Gerrard Xavi Andrea Pirlo Ruben Baraja Clarence Seedorf Paul Scholes Emerson Claude Makelele Mark Van Bommel Roy Keane Juan Sebastian Veron Damiano Tommasi Edgar Davids Guti Valeri Karpin Xabi Alonso Phillip Cocu Costinha Torsten Frings Luigi Di Biagio Gennaro Gattuso David Albelda Owen Hargreaves Gilberto Silva Alessio Tacchinardi Ze Roberto Dejan Stankovic (Essien, Maniche, Soldo, Dyer) - Look at all this room here. Friggin' Costinha and everything. There's gotta be some players outside the ESM-list I've overlooked.
2000-2005: Attacking Midfielders/Wingers Ronaldinho Zinedine Zidane Pavel Nedved Kaka Ludovic Giuly Luis Figo Robert Pires Arjen Robben Pablo Aimar Vicente Rui Costa Fredrik Ljungberg Mehmet Scholl Juninho Pernambucano Rivaldo Joe Cole Juan Carlos Valeron Jerome Rothen Ryan Giggs Mauro Camoranesi Juan Roman Riquelme Cristiano Ronaldo Johan Micoud Jose Antonio Reyes Luis Enrique Sylvain Wiltord Alvaro Recoba Bernd Schneider Rafael Van Der Vaart Stefano Fiore Tomas Rosicky Damien Duff (Hleb) - Both the AMs and FWs section have a bunch of players who had an incomplete era, and could make room if necessary. We have guys like Cristiano Ronaldo and Robben, who may not have the required 3 seasons at top level during this time. No viable challengers, though. - Rivaldo was mostly past it during this time, but his high-profile WC earns him a spot.
2000-2005: Forwards Thierry Henry Andriy Shevchenko Ronaldo Roy Makaay Ruud Van Nistelrooy Francesco Totti Samuel Eto'o Christian Vieri Hernan Crespo Raul Michael Owen Adriano Filippo Inzaghi Alessandro Del Piero Mateja Kezman Vincenzo Montella Fernando Morientes Pierre Van Hooijdonk Zlatan Ibrahimovic David Trezeguet Henrik Larsson Javier Saviola Alan Shearer Alberto Gilardino Pauleta Giovane Elber Claudio Lopez Antonio Cassano Patrick Kluivert Jan Koller Dennis Bergkamp Claudio Pizarro (Nihat, Ailton, Torres) - Kezman is an interesting choice, because he ended up being such a huge flop. Before that, he was seen as a top top guy, so deserves to be included.
U wot, mate!?? I must admit he wouldn't have been my personal pick, either. I'm letting the ESM-votes influence me too much. All his ESM-votes are from the 00-01 season, so it's probably enough if he's part of 95-00.
1995-2000 We've reached the nineties, and my estimation of things getting more crowded smacks me right in the face! Seriously, things are so crowded I'm totally screwed! I've still included some of the possibles in brackets, but there were seriously many others who wouldn't look out of place in this list, and I feel would've made it in later eras. Good era or nostalgia? You tell me. This is also the first era where I'll be including players who played (almost) exclusively in South America, which makes things even more complicated. Chilavert, Gallardo, Romario and Edmundo are all included. Goalkeepers: Oliver Kahn Angelo Peruzzi Edwin Van Der Sar Peter Schmeichel Vitor Baia Gianluca Pagliuca Gianluigi Buffon Santiago Canizares Bodo Illgner Stefan Klos Francesco Toldo Fabien Barthez Andreas Köpke David Seaman Ed De Goey Jose Luis Chilavert (Hesp, Lehmann, Roa, Lama) -ESM seems to be quite a bit club-oriented, which is understandable. It also seems somewhat big club -biased, meaning players who played for a club that was winning (especially in euro-competitions) were likely to score more votes. I wouldn't have picked Klos or Hesp as my own choices for this era. Klos is highly-rated, though, so I've kept him in. Hesp seems more like a beneficiary of Van Gaal's Dutch fetish and big club bias, though, so I've swapped him over with De Goey, who deserves a place, IMO. -Lama probably deserves a place somewhere. In this era, he had some situations where he was dropped as #1, though, so he drops from my list, too. Hoping I'll have room for him in 90-95. -Roa is an interesting case. Just when it seemed like he was about to develop into a top class goalie, he went cuckoo and joined a cult or something. With things being so crowded, it's an easy choice to drop him. -I gave Lehmann some rope for 2005-2010, so now he returns the favor and drops out voluntarily from this era.
1995-2000: Fullbacks RB: Lilian Thuram Gary Neville Ciro Ferrara Moreno Torricelli Jocelyn Angloma Christian Panucci Michael Reiziger Javier Zanetti Marcus Babbel Cafu Albert Ferrer Mazinho Thomas Helveg Dan Petrescu Stefan Reuter Angelo Di Livio (Bergomi, Dixon, Salgado) LB: Roberto Carlos Paolo Maldini Sinisa Mihajlovic Frank De Boer Bixente Lizarazu Sergi Barjuan Christian Ziege Jörg Heinrich Antonio Benarrivo Leonardo Vincent Candela Gianluca Pessotto Denis Irwin Celestine Babayaro Robert Jarni Graeme Le Saux (P. Neville, Georgatos, Pancaro, Zenden) -Left-back seems to be the one area where there's quite a bit of space. It's a nice dumping ground for a bunch of players. -Bergomi was experiencing his Indian summer during this time. He hadn't been an international for almost a decade, though, so he'll make room for others. I presume he'll be well-represented in other eras.
1995-2000: Central Defenders Fernando Hierro Laurent Blanc Jaap Stam Lothar Matthaus Alessandro Nesta Frank Leboeuf Danny Blind Paolo Montero Tony Adams Thomas Helmer Jurgen Kohler Philippe Albert Gheorghe Popescu Abelardo Fernandez Fabio Cannavaro Marcel Desailly Olaf Thon Gary Pallister Fernando Couto Bruno N'Gotty Viktor Onopko Taribo West Sol Campbell Martin Keown Jens Nowotny Mark Iuliano Patrik Andersson Alessandro Costacurta Miroslav Djukic Christian Wörns Sammy Kuffour Miguel Angel Nadal Aldair (Alkorta, Ayala, Gamarra, Linke, Naybet, Nikiforov, Sammer, Sensini, Southgate) -Look at all those reserves. So surprised a guy like Ayala got zero ESM-votes in this era. -Pata Andersson's best period was the early 00s, but injuries destroyed him before he could get the required three seasons, so I've moved him over here. -Gamarra is supposed to be a titan-class defender according to the South Americans, but didn't do much in Europe. Should I squeeze him in? -Sammer is an intriguing case. This was surely his best era, but he only had two seasons before injuries ended him. Maybe the only case of a Ballon winner not making it for the era he won the Ballon? This omission may also mean he'll never be included on my lists as a defender, the position he's mostly known for.
1995-2000: Defensive/Central Midfielders David Beckham Stefan Effenberg Roy Keane Lothar Matthaus Edgar Davids Juan Sebastian Veron Clarence Seedorf Josep Guardiola Diego Simeone Patrick Vieira Krasimir Balakov Didier Deschamps Fernando Redondo Paulo Sousa Jens Jeremies Emerson Phillip Cocu Paul Scholes Matias Almeyda Dietmar Hamann Vladimir Jugovic Valeri Karpin Ciriaco Sforza Zvonimir Boban Paul Ince Roberto Di Matteo Sunday Oliseh Emmanuel Petit Demetrio Albertini Christian Karembeu Mauro Silva Dino Baggio (De La Pena, Di Biagio, Donato, Lamouchi, Makelele, Jonk)
1995-2000: Attacking Midfielders/Wingers Luis Figo Zinedine Zidane Alessandro Del Piero Luis Enrique Youri Djorkaeff Ryan Giggs Andreas Möller Jari Litmanen Pavel Nedved Rui Costa Mario Basler Marc Overmars Gianfranco Zola David Ginola Rai Mehmet Scholl Steve McManaman Ronald De Boer Aleksandr Mostovoi Roberto Mancini Robert Pires Sergio Conceicao Roberto Baggio Marcelo Gallardo Thomas Hässler Patrik Berger Finidi George Juninho Paulista Gaizka Mendieta Juninho Paulista Julen Guerrero Ariel Ortega (Gascoigne, Giovanni, Hagi, Pantic, Poyet, Savio) -Jari is another interesting player. His biggest moment came in the 1990-1995 era, but he doesn't really have the necessary 3 seasons to qualify. At least he's included here. -Case Pantic: Really good for a couple of seasons, but little impact at international level. Decided to drop him. -Ortega... mostly a disappointment in Europe. His international profile was so huge, though, I think he needs to be included somewhere.
1995-2000: Forwards Raul Rivaldo Ronaldo Gabriel Batistuta Predrag Mijatovic Christian Vieri Andriy Shevchenko George Weah Oliver Bierhoff Mario Jardel Michael Owen Davor Suker Patrick Kluivert Dwight Yorke Dennis Bergkamp Alen Boksic Thierry Henry Claudio Lopez Robbie Fowler Filippo Inzaghi Jurgen Klinsmann Giovane Elber Francesco Totti Alfonso Perez Luc Nilis Hernan Crespo Alan Shearer Andy Cole Fabrizio Ravanelli Marcelo Salas Romario Edmundo (Sonny Anderson, Anelka, Jancker, Morientes, Signori, Simone, Trezeguet etc etc) -Look at all the devastation here and in the AMF-section. I feel like an executioner. Luckily all the really big omitted names are included elsewhere. -Romario could be seen as being past it. He half-assed it in Valencia, but was pretty important for the NT. He would have been included in 1998, but had to drop out due to being injured/douchebag. He's a huge name, but shall I keep him in?
I've added Reiziger, Hamann, Overmars and Hasselbaink as possibles for 2000-2005. The future of this project: I'll be doing 1990-1995 soon. This is the first era where I won't be helped by ESM, but maybe that'll just work to my advantage. After that, there will be a break to gather more information. I'll actually jump back to the early 60s and go through the World Soccer issues from that era, then move forward chronologically until 1990.
1990-1995 OK, so this is the first list I'm going to have to take complete responsibility for. Compiling this list confirmed my suspicions about WS being ridiculously oriented towards attacking players. Even many of the best defensive players barely warranted a mention! Somebody like Kohler was basically only mentioned in team lists and such, and then suddenly there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention that he's maybe the best in the world in his position, and I'm like "when did this happen, magazine?" Likewise with keepers, Baia apparently doesn't warrant a mention at all, and then he's ESMs keeper of the season. OK. Taking all this into account, the defensive lists (especially FBs, the unsung heroes) are more unreliable, and I've had to go more with online reputations and just picking guys who received several caps for major teams. I might have missed some even really obvious player. In general, players who weren't capped much or represented some obscure NT are more likely to escape my notice. Goalkeepers: Vitor Baia Francisco Buyo Bodo Illgner Andreas Köpke Bernard Lama Bruno Martini Gianluca Pagliuca Michel Preud'homme Thomas Ravelli Peter Schmeichel Neville Southall Uli Stein Claudio Taffarel Hans Van Breukelen Walter Zenga Andoni Zubizarreta (Bell, Bonner, De Goey, Immel, Seaman) -Immel is first reserve. Martini received some Ballon-votes, but would probably be the one I'm least sure about. -Goycoechea and Higuita are notable keepers who didn't make the cut. Goyco, according to Glanville a "scarecrow of a keeper who could only save penalties", is really one of those players whose reputation is based almost entirely on a WC. Higuita seems more known for his gimmick rather than his actual ability as one of the world's top goalies. He also spent this era flopping in Europe or being in jail.
1990-1995: Full-Backs I can't for the life of me come up with 32 FBs that deserve to be included. This being the era of 3-5-2 probably has much to do with it. I feel even the reserve CBs would deserve a mention over some of these guys. If you can spot a guy in one of the other sections that could make a makeshift fullback/wingback, let me know. RBs: Jocelyn Angloma Giuseppe Bergomi Thomas Berthold Cafu Lee Dixon Ciro Ferrara Albert Ferrer Georges Grun Jose Herrera Rob Jones Jorginho Vasili Kulkov Mazinho Dan Petrescu Stefan Reuter Mauro Tassotti (Abelardo, Roland Nilsson, Paul Parker, Joao Pinto) LBs: Antonio Benarrivo Branco Andreas Brehme Frank De Boer Tony Dorigo Denis Irwin Robert Jarni Leonardo Bixente Lizarazu Paolo Maldini Sinisa Mihajlovic Stuart Pearce Emmanuel Petit Stefan Schwarz Steve Staunton Christian Ziege
1990-1995: Central Defenders Tony Adams Phillippe Albert Aldair Rafael Alkorta Franco Baresi Miodrag Belodedici Laurent Blanc Danny Blind Basile Boli Rune Bratseth Guido Buchwald Alessandro Costacurta Fernando Couto Marcel Desailly Miroslav Djukic Ricardo Gomes Richard Gough Thomas Helmer Fernando Hierro Julio Cesar Miroslav Kadlec Ronald Koeman Jurgen Kohler Paul McGrath Miguel Angel Nadal Gary Pallister Ricardo Rocha Manolo Sanchis Marcio Santos Pietro Vierchowod Des Walker Mark Wright (Donato, Mozer, Onopko, Popescu, Ruggeri) Couto and Wright are first on the firing line, with Popescu and Ruggeri as the main challengers.
1990-1995: Defensive/Central Midfielders Demetrio Albertini Guillermo Amor Dino Baggio Zvonimir Boban Jose Luis Caminero Didier Deschamps Dunga Stefan Effenberg Paul Gascoigne Pep Guardiola Ray Houghton Paul Ince Wim Jonk Vladimir Jugovic Christian Karembeu Roy Keane Lothar Matthäus Paul McStay David Platt Fernando Redondo Frank Rijkaard Matthias Sammer Bernd Schuster Mauro Silva Diego Simeone Paulo Sousa Gordon Strachan Jonas Thern Andy Townsend Valdo Aron Winter Jan Wouters (Berti, Lechkov, McAllister, Mikhailichenko, Rincon, Speed, Sforza, Van Der Elst)
1990-1995: Attacking Midfielders/Wingers Roberto Baggio Krasimir Balakov John Barnes Dennis Bergkamp Tomas Brolin Claudio Caniggia Thomas Doll Roberto Donadoni Enzo Francescoli Paulo Futre Ryan Giggs David Ginola Ruud Gullit Gheorghe Hagi Andreas Herzog Thomas Hässler Andrei Kanchelskis Brian Laudrup Luis Enrique Michael Laudrup Roberto Mancini Michel Andreas Möller Marc Overmars Abedi Pele Robert Prosinecki Rai Dejan Savicevic Enzo Scifo Igor Shalimov Carlos Valderrama Gianfranco Zola (Bakero, Begiristain, Rui Costa, Djorkaeff, Figo, Massaro, McManaman, Muller, Neto, Zidane) -Some big names on the bench here. Figo and Zidane didn't really make their name until the late 90s (it seemed both Pinto and Costa were rated above Figo in this era), so they'll make room for others. -Valderrama is a similar case to Ortega. He totally failed in Europe, but his all-around profile is too high to leave off the list completely. -Neto is an interesting case. He was hailed as the next big thing/new Falcao, but then lost form. He makes it as an honorable mention.
1990-1995: Forwards Faustino Asprilla Abel Balbo Gabriel Batistuta Bebeto Alen Boksic Emilio Butragueno Eric Cantona Stephane Chapuisat Martin Dahlin Daniel Fonseca Mark Hughes Jurgen Klinsmann Emil Kostadinov Ally McCoist Darko Pancev Jean-Pierre Papin Luboslav Penev Karl-Heinz Riedle Romario Ian Rush Dean Saunders Alan Shearer Giuseppe Signori Tomas Skuhravy Ruben Sosa Hristo Stoichkov Marco Van Basten Gianluca Vialli Rudi Völler George Weah Tony Yeboah Ivan Zamorano (Beardsley, Ferdinand, Suker, Ian Wright) -My non-ESM list seems to be more attack-oriented than the ESM-based lists. I basically threw everyone I could from here into the AMF/W side. But managed to include everyone I really wanted to. -Van Basten (and Futre) just about have the bare minimum 2.5 seasons completed. They were such high-profile players they need to be in, though. -Pancev is another player whose peak is situated between eras. He doesn't have the required 3 years, but he had his most high-profile moment in this era, so he's included.
Interesting note that popped to my mind when reading WS: I think we can all agree club football has a much higher status in the modern era than back in the day. I think 90-95 is the era when this first happened, as I seemed to notice a clear shift in WS towards club football, with less space devoted to qualifiers, for example. I'm going to suggest the early 90s tournaments had an effect in changing popular perceptions. The piss-poor 90 WC counted among its stars a scarecrow of a goalkeeper, a 60-year old dancing geriatric and some Italian pub-level striker, and it made the football community wake up to the fact maybe NT-tournaments were no longer the zenith of footballing achievement. This was backed by the following Euro, won by a team that had failed to qualify. Meanwhile, Berlusconi & co. were bringing some proper glamour back to club football, with the big leagues making full use of the three foreigner rule. Before that, a player's reputation was much more tied to NT performances, as a lot of the top players still made much of their career in smaller clubs. Meanwhile, even the EC was often won by teams that had only like a couple of world class stars, and then a bunch of basically league-level players. I'm imagining my own rankings will follow this shift. In the eras covered so far, we've had a bunch of players who received very few caps, and were nominated primary for their club performances. In earlier eras there will be less of these players, who didn't have a lot of opportunities to show their stuff at NT-level, which would have been viewed as being above club-level.
How do you explain that 70s and 80s all-time lists had many players in (including up to half of the top 20 or 30) that actually did not really shine at international tournaments, the world cup or even never played there... ? By the way, already in the mid 1960s World Soccer claimed/wrote club teams could reach a higher level of interplay and performance.
Well, I'm not saying club football didn't matter at all. I'm saying the 90s were the era when the scale started tipping more towards club level. I'll elaborate. I believe WS was referring to Real Madrid and Barca as the higher level clubs, right? Of course the most legendary clubs of the time were on par with the top-level national teams, but I'd say they were few and far between. From the 60s and 70s we'd have Real, Barca, Inter and maybe Ajax who I would say were on par with their respective national teams, and that's about it. The other clubs were basically carried by a couple of world class players aided by fairly basic league performers. Take a legendary team like 70s Bayern. They had their big 3 in Maier, Beckenbauer and Muller, along with major internationals Breitner, Schwarzenbeck and Hoeness. That still leaves half a team of "wait, whos". Or how about the 60s Man United that had their own big 3, with the rest of the team made of pretty basic league performers. It was also quite common for EC-final matches to feature a true outsider, like a team that had no major stars. By the 80s we start getting more teams, I'd say Liverpool and Juve, who were superior to their respective NTs, but the EC-final teams still featured a lot of clubs that had maybe a couple major stars, if that. By the 90s these teams no longer reached the final, which were dominated by the dream teams that had major stars in all areas of the pitch. See what I'm saying? The observers at the time saw that success at club level, even European club level, was not necessarily an indication of absolute top class. In a similar vein, in the 60s it was still possible to win the Ballon with primarily NT-performances (Masopust, Yashin, Albert). By the 90s all the big names were playing in the big leagues. Have you noticed how the old WS-issues always mention how many internationals a club team had? It was like a major badge of honor, even if it was some mid-ranking NT.
I'd suggest Igor Akinfeev for the 2005-2010 goalkeepers list. He won the Russian Premier League twice during this time period, plus a few domestic cups. In addition, he won the UEFA Cup back in 2005, as well as being part of the Russian team that made it to the Euro 2008 semifinal. Maybe Hasan Salihamidzic for the 2000-2005 midfielders list? And Joaquin instead of someone like Jerome Rothen perhaps? Would
1960-1965 After weeks of painstaking research, I'm finally ready to unleash the next installment of my methodology! The most important discovery is that, even after traveling back 30 years, the methodology is still sound. In fact, it's quite amazing how constant the number of great players is. For most positions there were once again 12 or so obvious candidates, with the remaining spots getting filled from a larger pool. The important thing is that it didn't feel like an injustice to drop anybody. For this era, I'm going to use the WM-formation as the basis for my system. 4-2-4 was already in wide use, but so was WM, and the amount of great players fitted in naturally into a WM, meaning there were a lot more major attacking players and less defensive ones. As always, fullbacks are the problem area. After the obvious 12, I had to squeeze in basically anybody I could possibly think of. As can be expected, inside-forwards were the most crowded area. Could've used a couple more spots, but after shuffling players around a bunch between positions, I'm good. I was supposed to split the forwards between inside- and centre-forwards, but there were too many goalscoring CF types, so I broke the WM-mold and separated them into AMFs and general FWs. The methodology is a combination of WS-research, number of caps and online reputation. I used WS primarily, but it's hopelessly inadequate on some fields, especially with regard to defenders, so I had to give some players the benefit of the doubt.
1960-1965: Goalkeepers Bill Brown (Scotland) Antonio Carbajal (Mexico) Amadeo Carrizo (Argentina) Alberto Da Costa Pereira (Portugal) Gernot Fraydl (Austria) Gilmar (Brazil) Harry Gregg (Northern Ireland) Jean Nicolay (Belgium) Bengt Nyholm (Sweden) Eddy Pieters Graafland (Netherlands) Antonio Roma (Argentina) Viliam Schrojf (Czechoslovakia) Milutin Soskic (Yugoslavia) Ron Springett (England) Hans Tilkowski (Germany) Lev Yashin (USSR) (Pierre Bernard, Wolfgang Fahrian, Turgay Seren) -It seemed like a good and interesting era for goalkeepers, with a lot of choices. One noticeable thing is the lack of a Spanish or Italian goalie, probably the only time in history? Spain were between goalies, while Italy didn't seem to be able to pick their #1, so it was hard to find a standout. -Fraydl is first on the chopping block. He made it twice for the Batty/WS world 11, but there were also examples of him making howlers or losing his spot. Also not fully convinced of the Benelux representatives.
1960-1965: Fullbacks RB: Jimmy Armfield (England) Orvar Bergmark (Sweden) Tarcisio Burgnich (Italy) Vladimir Durkovic (Yugoslavia) Luis Eyzaguirre (Chile) Gerhard Hanappi (Austria) Georges Heylens (Belgium) Jan Lala (Czechoslovakia) Lima (Brazil) Sandor Matrai (Hungary) Hans Nowak (Germany) Jose Ramos Delgado (Argentina) Feliciano Rivilla (Spain) Djalma Santos (Brazil) Klaus Urbanczyk (DDR) Jean Wendling (France) (George Cohen, Enzo Robotti, Carmelo Simeone) LB: Altair (Brazil) Victor Benitez (Peru) Eric Caldow (Scotland) Ignacio Calleja (Spain) Noel Cantwell (Ireland) Giacinto Facchetti (Italy) Fahrudin Jusufi (Yugoslavia) Andre Lerond (France) Silvio Marzolini (Argentina) Ladislav Novak (Czechoslovakia) Rildo (Brazil) Enzo Robotti (Italy) Nilton Santos (Brazil) Laszlo Sarosi (Hungary) Karl-Heinz Schnellinger (Germany) Ray Wilson (England) (Hilario, William Martinez) -Like I said, I basically had to include anyone I could possibly come up with, including players who WS didn't exactly shower with praise. Also the likes of Caldow, Nilton Santos and the Frenchies, who I'm not sure necessarily had the required 3 years at the top. -Urbanczyk is the most unclear case for me. I seem to recall WS hyping him up, but it wasn't in the issues for this era. He wasn't a regular starter for the late 60s, though, so we'll see.