Messi, Lewandowski, Oblak among No. 1s; Premier League has most representatives
For the sixth consecutive year, ESPN presents its annual ranking of the best men’s players and coaches in world soccer! Welcome to FC 100.
As always, rankings are broken down into Top 10 lists for positions, plus a countdown of managers, in order to present the most meaningful look at talent on the pitch and the sideline.
Whereas last year was dominated by Liverpool and Bayern Munich — the clubs combined for eight of the 10 No. 1 spots — the leaders in this year’s edition are spread across six teams, with none having more than two men on top of their respective category.
One common theme, though, was that all but two of the 10 leaders won silverware in the past 12 months, be it at club or international level. Which is kind of what we wanted voters to think about: Put reputation to one side and focus instead on a “what have you done for me lately?” approach, with the year’s top performers getting their due.
Once again, there is large-scale turnover of names, with 41 new entries (compared to 47 in 2020 and 43 in 2019). Meanwhile, there are 28 nationalities, with 26 clubs represented, plus three international teams.
During the October international break, 77 ESPN experts around the world — from editors to writers, TV talent and former players — made selections from a list of more than 300 players and managers. Moreover, if the name they wanted was not there, they had the option to add a write-in nomination.
This is not simply a “best players in the world” megalist; The aim is to isolate specific areas of the pitch so comparisons can be made between those with similar roles. As such, every voter submitted 10 individual ballots, from which we crunched the numbers ahead of a final review by select writers and editors.
(And yes, we acknowledge that some players in certain positions might play elsewhere on the pitch at times; we made a call to ensure their votes were not split across two categories!)
Assessing the Top 10s
In addition to spotlighting a high point from the…
Source : espn
