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:

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(Platinum II)

1 Pele BRA

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(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.