Top 20 best footballers 2014 in reference to The Gurdian 1 Cristiano Ronaldo 29 Real Madrid / Portugal Forward 2013 rank 2 ▲...
Top 20 best footballers 2014 in reference to The Gurdian
1
Cristiano Ronaldo 29
Real Madrid / Portugal
Forward
2013 rank 2 ▲1
Probably the best compliment of all is that he has beaten one of the giants of his sport into second place. Lionel Messi has taken the art of attacking football to its highest level, to the point at which it is perfectly legitimate to compare his achievement to Diego Maradona’s. Yet Cristiano Ronaldo has caught, and maybe overtaken, him as the most destructive force in world football. Ronaldo doesn’t just take on opposition defences, he bludgeons them. He could score the kind of goal that George Best used to score. But then again, he could score the kind of goal that Nat Lofthouse used to score. And he could score the kind of goal that the other Ronaldo used to score. It’s a blur of speed, gelled hair and fluorescent boots and perhaps the greatest part of it all is that this is a workaholic’s career. For all his natural skill and athleticism, it gets overlooked sometimes that Ronaldo is utterly devoted to his craft. He is coming up for 30, but just try to find the first sign of decline when he is greedily accumulating goals at the prodigious rate we have seen over the past year. Ronaldo is the former Manchester United star who was clapped off by an Anfield crowd this season. It is known as authentic greatness. Daniel Taylor2
Lionel Messi 27
Barcelona / Argentina
Forward
2013 rank 1 ▼1
At the time of writing Lionel Messi had played 50 games for Barcelona in 2014 and scored 48 goals. He had hit the post 11 times, too, so that figure could be even higher, and he had provided 19 assists. He ends the year having just become the all-time leading scorer in La Liga and the all-time leading scorer in European competition. And that’s just for his club: he also took Argentina to the World Cup final. And yet most people have concluded that this was a bad year for Messi, which perhaps it was. It was certainly disappointing for his club, runners-up to Real Madrid in league and cup and beaten by Atlético Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals. The statistics really just hammer home the absurdly high standards Messi had set. It was a difficult season off the pitch as well as on it, with injury and tax issues, while Messi’s relationship with some on the board has been strained. Meanwhile his team fades too. In a way, maybe the surprise is that he played as well as he did, albeit still not well enough to top this chart. For some Messi is the best player of all time, but not the best player in the world in 2014: Messi slips off the top of the Guardian list for the first time. Only nine of our 73 judges ranked him as the world’s best player in 2014. Sid Lowe
3
Manuel Neuer 28
Bayern Munich / Germany
Goalkeeper
2013 rank 22 ▲19
Neuer has politely rebuffed the idea that he has revolutionised goalkeeping, pointing at the influence of Jens Lehmann and Edwin van der Sar. But there is little doubt that the 28-year-old has set a new benchmark by adapting with particular brilliance to the modern demands on the position. His confidence, skill and pace allow him to come out of his area and effectively give his teams a 12th player on the pitch; Neuer is both No1 and last defender, an additional safety barrier behind the high line and an extra outlet for passes to break the opposition pressing. “Only Franz Beckenbauer was a better sweeper,” said Germany’s goalkeeping coach, Andreas Köpke, after Neuer had run six kilometres and touched the ball 21 times outside his own box in the last-16 match against Algeria at the World Cup, during which he also saved 85% of all shots on goal. His game can look flash to the uninitiated but Neuer, who has studied the movement of handball and ice hockey goalkeepers for inspiration, says he is simply doing what is best for his sides. “Goalkeepers can’t do their own thing and wait to make a great save on the line anymore,” he has said. “They are team players. Behind everything is the fundamental question: What does the team need?" Raphael Honigstein
4
Arjen Robben 30
Bayern Munich / Holland
Forward
2013 rank 14 ▲10
There has often been a resistance to the charm of Arjen Robben in the past, a sense that his almost self-parodying fondness for hitting the deck has undermined his appeal, but he is finally winning acceptance from the wider public. A rare case of a winger who appears to be getting better and more consistent with age, the level the Dutchman reached for club and country this year has seen him rise 10 places on this list and although Robben has just missed out on a place on the podium, it is heartening to see recognition of his talent. Life would be easier if he stayed on his feet a bit more but even his detractors would have to admit that few things are more exhilarating than Robben on the run, snaking inside from the right and bending a shot into the far corner with his left foot. He can be selfish, but the brilliance of Robben is such that his intentions are often predictable and yet defences still cannot stop him. Robben was exceptional for Bayern Munich as they won the Bundesliga and a leader for Holland on their way to finishing third in Brazil. His performance when Holland destroyed Spain 5-1 was one for the ages.
Jacob Steinberg
5
Thomas Müller 25
Bayern Munich / Germany
Forward
2013 rank 25 ▲20
“I don’t think there are many [opposition] players in the world who understand his runs and ideas,” Bastian Schweinsteiger recently said of Thomas Müller’s unorthodox playing style. With his spindly legs and sloppy attire – socks pulled halfway down, singlet peaking out above his backside – the Bayern Munich and Germany forward does a very good job at masking his predatory prowess. “There are others who are better in the air, better with their right, better with their left,” he has admitted. His deliberate free-kick stumble against Algeria didn’t quite work out but he still scored five goals for the Nationalmannschaft in Brazil to double his tally in final tournaments. Still only 25, he is on course to outscore both his namesake Gerd Müller (14 goals in the World Cup) and the current record-holder Miroslav Klose (16). Müller has moaned that “muscles don’t grow” on him but also credited that deficit for forcing him to be more proficient above the neckline, to explore spaces others don’t even begin to see. “My legs have helped me,” he told Süddeutsche Zeitung. “If you can’t just count on your physical attributes, you have to switch on your brain and make certain runs to avoid getting tackled.”Raphael Honigstein
6
Luis Suárez 27
Barcelona / Uruguay
Forward
2013 rank 9 ▲3
A typical year in the career of one of football’s most instinctive, divisive, brilliant and troubled talents. The striker inspired Liverpool to the cusp of their first league title for 24 years, his 31 league goals, audacious skill and relentless movement integral to the breathtaking form of Brendan Rodgers’ team. Suárez swept up England’s individual honours, being named PFA and FWA Player of the Year despite claims that everyone had it in for him, with an apparent new-found maturity behind his elevation into the game’s elite. Liverpool’s title challenge ended in tears but the World Cup offered another chance to alter his reputation. Recovering from a knee ligament injury to score twice against England was a fairytale for Uruguay’s talismanic forward, but five days later he blew it, or bit it, by sinking his teeth into Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini. His World Cup was over in disgrace. Fifa hit Suárez with a four-month ban from all football-related activity and a nine-match international suspension but the record punishment did not deter Barcelona from signing the striker for £75m in July. He has made a slow start at the Camp Nou but left behind a gaping hole at Anfield.
Andy Hunter
7
Neymar 22
Barcelona / Brazil
Forward
2013 rank 6 ▼1
Brazil’s wobbly World Cup train derailed even before the dramatic Germany game. Until Juan Zuñiga’s challenge literally broke Neymar’s back, the striker had carried the host country on his young shoulders. Despite almost unbearable pressure to be Brazil’s hero, he scored two goals in the opening game against Croatia after the host nation had fallen behind and were struggling to find their rhythm. There were another two goals in the last group game against Cameroon before the win on penalties against Chile and then that fateful game against Colombia in Fortaleza. With 42 goals, Neymar is already the fifth-highest scorer in the history of the Seleção and with seven more will pip a certain Zico for fourth place. His record for Barcelona is not bad either: in his first 18 matches for the Blaugrana in 2014-15 Neymar scored 14 goals, three of them in the Champions League. It did help that from his first day in Catalonia Neymar did not try to upstage Lionel Messi, instead happily assuming second-fiddle duties. Getting more adapted to the rigours of European football will only make Neymar more dangerous, and all of a sudden the possibility of having to do without Messi is not completely unthinkable for Barcelona fans. Fernando Duarte
8
Gareth Bale 25
Real Madrid / Wales
Midfielder
2013 rank 7 ▼1
After an injury-plagued start to his career as Real Madrid’s €100m record signing, Bale showed no sign of wilting under the burden of his price tag. He began 2014 in fine style and finished his first season in Spain with 22 goals, including one solo effort in the Copa del Rey final that was as breathtaking as it was lung-bursting. He also became the first Welshman to score in a Champions League final, during Real’s extra-time victory over Atlético. Bale has started this season as he finished the last, while speculation that his presence at the Bernabéu might pose a threat to the ego of Cristiano Ronaldo has proved to be without foundation. Indeed, the pair seem to have hit it off – “He understands me, I understand him and he produces fantastic passes,” enthused the Portuguese, “I love him.” Bale speaks equally highly of his team-mate. “I think I’m improving all the time and trying to get to the level that Cristiano’s at,” he said. “It gives me that platform to aim for and keeps me improving and hopefully one day I can get there.” On the international front, Bale’s nationality precluded him from strutting his stuff on the World Cup stage, but thanks to his influence Wales are entertaining realistic hopes of reaching the finals of Euro 2016. Barry Glendenning
9
Philipp Lahm 31
Bayern Munich / Germany
Defender
2013 rank 15 ▲6
The Germany and Bayern stalwart successfully filled in as a deep-lying playmaker for Sami Khedira and Bastian Schweinsteiger at the start of the World Cup, bringing rhythm as well as defensive stability to midfield. Joachim Löw switched him back to his customary right-back role from the quarter-final against France onwards, and the 31-year-old went on to lead his side to a fourth World Cup triumph, shedding a few tears at the final whistle at the Maracanã. Has there ever been a captain who has played two different positions so successfully in a major tournament? “A footballing robot,” the former Mainz coach Thomas Tuchel called him; Pep Guardiola praised him as “the most intelligent player I’ve ever worked with”. Lahm retired from the national team after lifting the trophy. Guardiola has had him playing in yet another role this season, as an inside-right midfielder with a licence to go forward. Lahm duly scored two goals in the league before suffering a broken ankle in training in November. “We cannot play badly any more,” he said. “That’s mostly due to the manager, and the variety we now have in our game.” In other words: Bayern have now become a side in his image.Raphael Honigstein
10
Sergio Agüero 26
Manchester City / Argentina
Forward
2013 rank 10 ▶
Sergio Agüero scored 19 goals in his first 21 appearances in a season that - injury permitting - is shaping to be the finest of his Manchester City career. For a man pivotal in both City’s Premier League title triumphs this is some achievement, and points to how Agüero has again elevated his game to a new level. Manuel Pellegrini, Samir Nasri and a host of other City players bill him as marginally a class down from Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi and, considering the form the 26-year-old had consistently showed before he was sidelined by a knee injury in early December, it is difficult to argue with that view. The hope now is that Agüero can recover soon and instantly return to the player who – when Pellegrini’s side had a prolonged wobble – kept City in the Premier League title chase and the Champions League almost single-handedly. Who can forget that nerveless hat-trick against Bayern? Agüero featured in five of Argentina’s games as they reached the World Cup final but was not quite able to reproduce his club form on the biggest stage of all. He started the final on the bench but came on at half-time for Ezequiel Lavezzi but was unable to prevent Germany taking the prize. Jamie Jackson
11
Toni Kroos 24
Real Madrid / Germany
Midfielder
2013 rank 40 ▲29
During the World Cup Johan Cruyff described Kroos’s play as “nearly perfect”. Statistically that view was backed up as Kroos was ranked top of all the players in Brazil last summer (earning a mark of 9.79 out of 10) on metrics based on passing, tackles, ground covered and goals. Real Madrid were delighted to have procured the services of such a refined modern midfielder from Bayern. His classy technique is welded onto his physical fitness – the feat of featuring in 90 games for club and country in the last 18 months was based on a programme of looking after himself extremely well. Kroos had a superb 2014.
Amy Lawrence
12
Diego Costa 26
Chelsea / Brazil
Forward
2013 rank 35 ▲23
A brute of a forward whose nomadic career through Portuguese and Spanish football finally found fulfilment last season at Atlético Madrid. His 35-goal tally took Diego Simeone’s fine team to the Primera Liga title and a Champions League final, where he was hamstrung and unable to contribute. Fitness issues then went on to hamper his impact for his adopted country, Spain, at the World Cup but, as a £32m Chelsea player, he then scored seven times in his first four Premier League fixtures. The focal point of José Mourinho’s side, he boasts the physical presence and aggression to thrive in English football, and looks set to do exactly that.
Dominic Fifield
13
Zlatan Ibrahimovic 33
PSG / Sweden
Forward
2013 rank 3 ▼10
“A World Cup without me is not worth watching,” lamented Zlatan after his dream was dashed following a play-off with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal. It speaks volumes for the global status of the singular Swede that an internet campaign “VemIbra” (Come here, Ibra), which included the likes of Ronaldo, Rai, Bebeto and loads of locals imploring him to go, went viral. The Swede made it to Brazil in the end, if only as a spectator. Now aged 33, he may be towards the end of his pomp, but he is still a potent marksman and inspiration for Paris Saint-Germain. He was the top scorer in France last season as PSG retained the league title.
Amy Lawrence
14
Ángel Di María 26
Manchester United / Argentina
Midfielder
2013 rank 72 ▲58
Described by our La Liga correspondent, Sid Lowe, as the kind of player Real Madrid might have signed last year if they had not already got him, Ángel Di María was the stand-out performer in the Spanish side’s Champions League final win over their city rivals Atlético. One of the players of the tournament at the World Cup, where Argentina lost the final in their winger’s absence through injury, his summer move to Manchester United for a British record transfer fee of £59.7m has thus far been an unequivocal success. Quick, intelligent and blessed with great technique, “Fideo” moves up 58 places from last year’s 72.
Barry Glendenning
15
James Rodríguez 23
Real Madrid / Colombia
Forward
New
The highest new entry on this year’s list, the Colombian figured in the top 10 of just over a third of our 73 judges. It was always likely that Real Madrid would use the World Cup as a kind of casting for their latest galáctico. They needed a new star to emerge and none did so more than James Rodríguez. Hardly a nobody – after all, he had cost £38.5m a year ago – ‘Hames’ was still a revelation in Brazil. Top goalscorer and scorer, against Uruguay, of the tournament’s top goal too. He has performed superbly since joining Madrid, with Carlo Ancelotti finding a role for him despite the absence of an obvious natural position in the lineup
Sid Lowe
16
Eden Hazard 23
Chelsea / Belgium
Midfielder
2013 rank 100 ▲84
Hazard has long been considered one of the most talented midfielders of his generation but has also been known to frustrate. Since returning to Stamford Bridge José Mourinho has prodded him constantly to try to make him more efficient. “It is the first time I have known this with a coach,” admitted Hazard. “The others tended to protect me. He really wants my potential to explode.” Hazard is not as influential as he should be for his country, as the World Cup proved, but he has become far more consistent for Chelsea – he was their leading assist-provider last season, though he is lagging well behind Cesc Fàbregas so far this season.
Paul Doyle
17
Thibaut Courtois 22
Chelsea / Belgium
Goalkeeper
2013 rank 47 ▲30
Excellent over three seasons as a key member of Diego Simeone’s triumphant Atlético Madrid side before returning to his parent club, Courtois has slipped seamlessly into life in the Premier League at Chelsea. Commanding and authoritative, even at 22, and a formidable presence albeit with a slender frame, he is the natural successor to Petr Cech and is already established as the club’s No1 having signed a new contract in September. His progress has been just as smooth with the Belgian national team, for whom he is first choice and played a major part in ensuring progress into the World Cup quarter-finals.
Dominic Fifield
18
Yaya Touré 31
Manchester City / Ivory Coast
Midfielder
2013 rank 19 ▲1
Touré’s PR was poor this year, his birthday cake outburst attracting ridicule and leading some people to dismiss him as a sulk when he made a slow start to the latest Premier League season, with some perhaps not taking sufficient account of the impact on Touré of the death of one of his brothers from cancer just before the World Cup. On the pitch the three-time and reigning African player of the year has been in better form of late, raising hopes that he is returning to the extraordinary standard that he set last season, when he was one of the most dominant midfielders in the world and plundered 20 Premier League goals.
Paul Doyle
19
Karim Benzema 27
Real Madrid / France
Forward
2013 rank 55 ▲36
Maybe he does not score as many as you would expect for a Real Madrid No9 but there should be no doubt about Karim Benzema’s importance to his club. His selfless leading of the line makes Madrid click in attack and his ego-free, intelligent movement creates the space for Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale to spread havoc in opposition defences. Benzema was once a source of frustration but he is hugely appreciated now that he is fully applying himself. He was slightly disappointing when France lost their World Cup quarter-final to Germany, but was nevertheless named as the French player of the year, for the third time.
Jacob Steinberg
20
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