Guardian is doing a top 100 women's players in the world. The first 30 are named. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...100-best-female-footballers-in-the-world-2025
It seems to me that only the last 30 are named and the rest are not even mentioned but they do have generic place holders. I guess they are serializing the release of name and will release more over time. They are trying, I guess, to build suspense.
To me, it's a normal thing to have a list like this released in a series. 11 through 69 are now out, on the same link above.
And no Girma now the full list is out. I'm not taking the list seriously, but I'm not blowing it off. They have to start somewhere, and at least there is a good list of players, though I will say the top 10 it is Euro final heavy.
The thing I find really weird about this list is that Williamson has been injured since the Euros, but is top 10. Girma, who returned post Euros, and even some pre-Euros, who is definitely better, was left off the list entirely. The top of the list has 9 out of the top 10 as playing for Arsenal, Barcelona, England, and/or Spain. The only odd player out is Chawinga, who is rightfully in the top 10.
The good thing with the guardian ranking is they have a lot of judges with different jobs from all over the world https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...100-best-female-footballers-in-the-world-2025
well... they can have even twice the numbers of judges but not much will change if 90% of them are following barely 3-4 leagues.
Yeah, but it was notable to me how there were a lot of non-European clubs represented. Still think the rankings were off (utter stunned that not only was Girma not in the top 10, she didn't even get a vote), but I also like the diversity, both of judges and of players.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...omen-soccer-players-ranked-world-2025-espn-fc ESPN FC Women's Rank: Top 50 soccer players of 2025
The reality is would need so much time to be able to follow the Leagues and National teams tournaments from the six confederations. And also access to video from those is not always easy, unless you have a lot of time to research.
Call me old-fashioned who used to be a coach, but no one should get animated about who is or isn’t on top lists of individual soccer players when those lists are based largely on subjectivity, made up by mostly career ink-stained wretches.
So there is like 5 different lists overall: Guardian, ESPN, FIFA best, Ballon d'or, FIFPRO all voted from different actors in the game: players, coach, media, GM and fans. There is also the IFFHS. They all ended up with the same number 1 regardless of the voting method/criteria. Either Aitina Bonmati's PR team is phenomenal or she is a great player. I think it is a bit of both.
Girma should be in the top 3. As one of my favorite YouTube healthy recipe reviewer says, "Fight me in the comments."
I would be interested to see how we would rank the players, perhaps to 50, particularly since there is a heavy US influence here. Would be interesting.
Couple of years ago, I was asked to sit in the panel for ESPN or another US award but I said no because I only follow two leagues properly France and England.
You're too much honest: I bet others, who don't follow half the women's football you do, said yes without a blink.
I told my 6-month-old twin girls that Naomi Girma is the GOAT—followed by a bewildered look in their eyes, as if they were asking each other, “Is our mom nuts?”