MY 100 FAVOURITE FOOTBALLERS
So let’s grasp the nettle straight away and start with an apology. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I left so many wonderful players off this list and I’m sorry if they were your favourite players.
I’m sorry if there are players that mean the world to you, that you associate with a wonderful time in your life and I haven’t included them. I’m sorry if Zlatan’s your hero. I thought he was a legend in his own mind, a gifted player whose bluster outweighed his talent. My apologies if you think that is heresy. I’m sorry Gianfranco Zola is missing. I’m sorry about Gabriel Batistuta and Michael owen and Sergio Aguero and Bryan Robson and Ray Wilkins and John Barnes and Chris Waddle, who I loved to watch, but who didn’t make the list of my top 100 male footballers.
And I am imagining my esteemed colleague Jeff Powell shouting at me about the absence of Tom Finney. Jeff has watched a lot more football than me and compiled lists like this before and I know how high Finney is in his estimation.
So this list is flawed but it’s my list and I’m sticking with it. I took advice from Matt Barlow, Mail
Sport’s brilliant football writer, and former england player kieron dyer but I didn’t ask for too much advice because it is my favourite 100 players, who mean something special to me.
It’s not a cold, hard list. elements of it are irrational. That’s why duncan edwards is on it, even though he died of the injuries he sustained in the Munich air disaster at only 21. But I grew up with grandparents who talked about him with misty eyes and I listened to Bobby Charlton talk about him.
Maybe Johnny Rep would not be on many lists, but when I was a kid he epitomised the joy of the netherlands’ Total Football. eder was not the greatest of the 1982 Brazil team but I leapt off my sofa when he scored that chip against Scotland. I idolised him.
And I decided to cheat by using a Ryder Cup-style captain’s pick to include norman Whiteside because I will always associate the visceral joy of watching football with him. I will always remember hugging strangers in the mayhem of the Manchester United end at the 1985 FA Cup final when Whiteside scored against that mighty everton side. He was brilliant, better than he was ever given credit for.
This list is meant as a celebration of football’s rich history and of what players mean to us and why they capture something in us. You’ll disagree with some of the list and you’ll be right to.
The depth of our feeling for the game and the intensity of our opinions about players are just some of the things that make football so beautiful.
100. NORMAN WHITESIDE
He IS this list’s captain’s pick. He has his own place in history as the youngest player ever to appear at a World Cup. He was 17 years and 41 days old when he played for northern Ireland in 1982 and went on to play at the 1986 tournament, too.
The main reason he’s on the list is that he was my favourite player when I was growing up and I can’t have all of him, Gordon Hill, Peter Barnes, Tommy Sword, eddie Prudham and Micky Quinn in the top 100. I bought a pair of shorts Whiteside wore at the World Cup at auction during lockdown. They remain the most expensive item of clothing I have ever purchased.
99. NEYMAR
He WILL be remembered, sadly, not just for his extravagant talent but for the fact he has failed to make the most of it. He possesses breathtaking skill but was kicked out of the 2014 World Cup on home soil and was injured again at an early stage of the 2022 tournament. Winning olympic gold for Brazil at the 2016 Games is a high-point but it is a poor return for the scale of his talent.
98. GUNTER NETZER
NETZER was a pioneer, the first German to play for Real Madrid and the first player to win a World Cup, in 1974, while playing outside his home country. A flamboyant playmaker, he was the key figure in West Germany’s european Championship triumph of 1972.
97. BILLY MEREDITH
FOOTBALL’S first superstar, he led Manchester United to their first league title in 1908, having begun his career with Manchester City. A stalwart for Wales, he played top-flight football until he was 49.
96. DIXIE DEAN
DEAN’S achievement of scoring 60 league goals in a single top-flight season was thrown into sharp relief recently when erling Haaland launched an assault on modern-day records in the Premier League.
Haaland scored 52 goals in all competitions last season but got nowhere near dean’s tally, achieved with everton in the 1927-28 season. It wasn’t a fluke, either. dean scored 45 goals in the 1931-32 campaign.
95. CARLOS VALDERRAMA
A PRECISE passer and a wonderful technician, valderrama was one of the best playmakers in South American football in the 1980s and 90s, leading Colombia to the World Cup in 1990, 1994 and 1998. He had the best haircut in football history, too.
94. MOHAMED SALAH
GIFTED forward who has been given the platform he needed to excel at Liverpool and acted as the attacking fulcrum of Jurgen klopp’s great side that has gone head- to- head with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. Salah is a prolific goalscorer who has played in three Champions League finals in five years and won the Premier League.
93. SON HEUNG-MIN
one of the greatest Asian players of all time, Son has consistently been one of the best players in the Premier League since he arrived at Tottenham in 2015. A brilliant, quicksilver forward, he is an unselfish team player who consistently sacrifices individual achievements for creating goals for others.
92. STEVEN GERRARD
A DRIVING, surging, dynamo of a midfielder, a superb long passer and a player who could take the biggest games and appear to win them almost single-handedly. That applies most of all to the 2005 Champions League final, the Miracle of Istanbul, where Gerrard led Liverpool to one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the competition against AC Milan.
91. TEOFILO CUBILLAS
ATTACKING midfielder with a wonderful technique who led Peru to the last eight of the World Cup in 1970 and 1978. He was marked out by his ability with the dead ball and was South American Footballer of the Year in 1972.
90. JIM BAXTER
THERE is only one picture hanging on the wall in the attic office of former prime minister Gordon Brown at his home in Fife and it is of Baxter. A showman and a brilliant, assured left-half, Baxter’s finest hour may have been Scotland’s 3-2 win over World Cup winners england in 1967.
89. GHEORGHE HAGI
THE Maradona of the Carpathians, Hagi played in three World Cups for Romania and starred for Real Madrid, Barcelona and Galatasaray in a playing career that established him as one of the most creative and exciting no 10s of his generation.
88. DIDIER DROGBA
DROGBA was a throwback centre forward, a target man who used his strength and his mobility to dominate Premier League defences when Jose Mourinho brought him to Chelsea in 2004. He was a critical influence in winning the Champions League for Chelsea in 2012 and was one of the greatest African players of his generation — and led Ivory Coast to their first appearance at a World Cup finals in 2006.
87. HARRY KANE
KANE has been damned by some because he has not played in teams capable of delivering the trophies his talent deserves. often under-rated, he is close to the complete centre forward — a fine target man, a brilliant passer, a forward with rare vision and a clinical finisher. He won the Golden Boot at the 2018 World Cup and is already setting records at Bayern Munich.
86. EDER
He is on the list because he was part of the Brazil 1982 team. If I could put every member of that side in the top 100, I would. But decorum forbids it. eder’s goals in that World Cup, though, got the 16-year- old kid that I was leaping around his front room. Like Zico, Socrates and Falcao, I’ll always associate him with the beautiful game.
85. RYAN GIGGS
TENTH on the all-time list of Champions League appearances,