Top 5 football players of all time
Title: Top 5 football players of all time. The rating of the most reputable football stars
Meta Description: The most award-winning and respected football players in history. Short rating of active and retired players.
There are plenty of football players ratings and this one is dedicated to the ones, who have gained the most awards and have the most multiple and loyal fan community. Most of them are not playing anymore, but their names are still famous to everyone, even those, who are not so keen on football. You will not find them in the tournament tables and the top betting sites but their merits have made them remain the history of sports forever.
There are many more great players of all time, of course; this list is naming the most outstanding five soccer stars of the world for the whole history of football.
Zinedine Zidane
- Country: France
- Playing position: attacking midfielder
It is hard to imagine any chart of best football players without Zinedine Zidane, French football player. He has his own flawless style of game which brought significant wins to his teams. He was awarded the best football player in the world three times and was included in several European, World and France top lists of players of all time. In addition, he was the most paid soccer player for eight years in a row.
The list of the awards and records he beat throughout his career is enormous and would require a separate article to enumerate them all. After he retired and continued his career as a football coach, he also received prizes and awards. For instance, he was the coach, who received the “Coach of the Year” title faster than anyone else in the history of football.
Lionel Messi
- Country: Argentina
- Playing position: Forward
It may be a contradictory part of our chart: it may be too premature to make any resume about a player, who is still performing on the field. However, the exception can be done for Lionel Messi, who will hardly become unknown and excluded from the top charts by the time he will have finished his career. In addition, he is already included in the top-50 greatest football players of the UEFA Champions League of the past twenty years and is named the best shooter of the Argentina National Team with 65 goals scored.
He is a winner of nine Spain Championships, six Cups and eight Supercups of Spain. He is a prizer of the 2008 Olympic Games and five-times winner of the Gold Boot
Johann Cruyff
- Country: Netherlands
- Playing positions: attacking midfielder, forward
Johann Cruyff is the best football player of Netherlands and Europe; he is considered so due to the endless lists of his football awards. His path in football started when he was ten; at this age he became a part of the junior team of Ajax. At seventeen, he was transferred to the professional Ajax team and won eight champion titles of the Netherlands, three cups of the European champions and the UEFA Supercup. During the whole career, he changed four teams and was included in the National team of Netherlands. He was never awarded international prizes; however, he is still number one among all European associations.
Cruyff was awarded the Golden Ball three times and is the highest award of FIFA holder for the great input in football development. FIFA still includes him in the list of top-100 football players.
Pelé
- Country: Brazil
- Playing positions: forward, attacking midfielder
Pele is another retired player who is still a legend of the world’s football. He is one of the first associations that come to one’s mind when Brazil is mentioned and he is really a symbol of the country.
Pele’s game was flawless, especially, when it came to scoring. It’s easy to believe it even if you have never seen him in the action; the statistics is evident: he finished his career with the unbelievable figure of 1282 goals that he scored in 1366. This means that hardly a game with him ended without a goal. Football fans still love to rewatch the best moments videos with Pele as his game was creative and beautiful.
Among his main achievements are the wins on the World Cup with Brazil National team and Copa CONMEBOL Libertadores. Pele is the winner of a huge number of awards and the one of the most discussed people in sports in common.
Diego Maradona
- Country: Argentina
- Playing positions: Attacking midfielder, second striker
There are several football players who compete for the right to occur in the first places of the charts. However, the most regular winner is Diego Maradona, who is considered as the football genius of all times. There is hardly a player who could beat all records and achievements of Maradona; even though he is not an active player nowadays and performs as a booking agent, all that he has done throughout his twenty-one year football career, makes him remain the greatest football player in history.
The special thing about Maradona and his phenomenon was his ability to be universal. It is difficult to say what his strong sides were because he merely had weak ones. Football experts praised him for dribbling skills, his talent in scoring the goals accurately, the way he made passes and crossing. He came into history by scoring one of the most fantastic goals the planet has ever seen. This happened in 1986 during the match against England in the World Cup Tournament, where Maradona performed with the Argentina National Team. He was not just a player he made a beautiful show of each game he played.