Top 40 best players in the world the guardian năm 2024

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Back in 2012 we had 11 judges to decide the list. This year football luminaries such as Philipp Lahm, Karen Carney and Walter Casagrande are among the 218 judges taking part. Former players such as Aldair, Thomas Hitzlsperger and Gilles De Bilde also join a selection of coaches, broadcasters, reporters, correspondents and editors from around the world to form a knowledgable and truly global jury. The 19 current and former professionals have won a combined 1,041 international caps.

The countdown begins at 9am GMT on Tuesday 19 December with numbers 100-71. On Wednesday we will reveal Nos 70-41, on Thursday 40-11 before the top 10 on Friday completes this year’s list.

The top 100 rules are explained beneath the list of judges. The judges are listed in alphabetical order by category.

How the voting works

The No 1 choice of each judge was awarded 40 points, No 2 given 39pts, down to 1pt for their No 40 choice. All the votes were added together to give a raw score. To minimise the influence of outliers in the list, the highest score awarded to a player was then deducted to give a final score.

A player needed to receive votes from at least five judges to qualify for the list. If players are level on points in the scoring, the number of individual votes cast is used as a tie-breaker. The individual voting breakdown will be published when the full list has been revealed.

Voting disclosure

We are very grateful to our judges for taking part, and none have been paid for participating in this project.

To allow our judges the freedom to express their opinions without fear or favour, individual voting records will be anonymised in the full breakdown of scores.

Voters are identified only by their category and a number chosen at random. The judges’ numbers bear no relation to the alphabetical list of judges’ names presented above.

Lionel Messi has been named the world's best footballer in the Guardian's top 100 footballers list published today. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

The Guardian's choice of the world's top 100 footballers has been unveiled today with Lionel Messi topping the list at No1.

An 11-strong international panel of experts were asked by Guardian Sport to name their top 30 players in action today and rank them in order of preference. Players were then scored on their ranking by each panellist: a No1 choice allocated 30pts, No2 29pts and so on down to selection No30, given one point.

So how did the Guardian top 100 come about? Sports editor Ian Prior explains:

Compiling such a list requires a certain confidence, some may say arrogance of judgment. Guilty, if so. Not all may agree, but it is a personal belief that these pages are currently home to perhaps the finest collective of football writers and analysts in the English language. From Daniel Taylor to Sid Lowe, Jonathan Wilson to Michael Cox, Richard Williams to Raphael Honigstein, we are blessed with writers whose knowledge covers not only the English game but who offer a genuinely global perspective.

The ranking, which has slowly been revealed in a countdown from the 20 December, is now published in full and the world's top 100 footballers are listed below for you to view.

The choice of Messi at No1, beating Cristiano Ronaldo into second place, is explained below by Sid Lowe:

There was only one name and one position on which all 11 members of the panel were in unanimous agreement; the world No1, Lionel Messi. How could we not choose him? The debate has moved to another plane: it is not so much a question of whether Messi is the best player in the world right now, as whether Messi might just be the best player there has ever been.

Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Radamel Falcao, Robin van Persie, Andrea Pirlo, Yaya Touré and Edinson Cavani make up the rest of the top 10.

Four English players make it onto the list; Ashley Cole (30th), Wayne Rooney (31st), Joe Hart (65th) and John Terry (86). Despite only a few English players making it onto the top 100, the Premier League is the best represented with 27 players, followed by La Liga with 23. The chart above shows the top five leagues by the number of footballers appearing in the list.

Barcelona is the best represented club with 12 players on the list followed by Bayern Munich and Real Madrid with 10 each. Chelsea and Manchester City each have eight players on the list.

The average age for the footballers appearing on the list is 26 years old. Stephan El Shaarawy, aged 20, is the youngest player in the top 100 whilst Javier Zanetti is the oldest at 39 years old.

So how does the list break down by nationality? 16 of the players are Spanish, 12 Brazilian and 10 German. There are 8 Argentinian players on the list and both Italy and France have seven footballers on the top 100.

If you're wondering which position is the most common amongst the top 100 players then we've also broken that down too: 36 are midfielders, 29 forward, 19 defenders. The full breakdown by nationality, club and position can be found in the downloadable spreadsheet.

The full list of the world's top 100 footballers can be found below along with information on each players club, position, nationality and age. Can you do something interesting with this data?

How many footballers are there in the world?

With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is the world's most popular sport. The attacking player (No. 10) attempts to kick the ball into the net behind the opposing team's goalkeeper (here wearing red and yellow) to score a goal.

Is Ronaldo better than Messi?

Messi is less consistent than Ronaldo. After Messi scored his historic 91 goals in a year, he then scored only half of those goals per year. If we make a graph of his total goals, the line would look more like a heartbeat! Ronaldo, however, consistently scored more than 50 goals for seven calendar years!

Who is the famous man in football?

Cristiano Ronaldo is the most famous in football history and is a notable goal scorer. In 2003, he joined Manchester United. He is considered the best football player in the world . He scored 450 goals in 438 matches According to reports, he was the club's finest player in its entire history in Europe.

Are there 22 players in football?

There are 11 players in a football team. Since 2 teams play a football game the total number of players becomes 22 at a given time on ground.