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The worlds best 100 – the consensus

By on December 24, 2014

Assembling at list of the best hundred players in the world over the past year is tedious. The top two might be easy, but even inside the top ten, much less top hundred, things become far more biased, and murky. How do you compare a defender and forward? Furthermore, how do you compare a center forward and a defender who are born fifteen years apart from each other, play on different teams in different leagues on different continents and have never played each other? But compiling a top one-hundred is genuinely interesting. The best contain the combined opinions of some of the worlds top players, pundits, and journalists from around the world. While it may make little sense and lists often obviously debatable, it captivates the mind. You know the feeling, it’s like: these are the hundred best players in the world, in order. They even have awards – the Ballon d’Or namely, for this kind of thing. It’s about who to look out for, what has changed since last year, and us humans do have our opinions. Four Four Two’s list had Diego Gogin in the top ten while Marco Veratti was not in the list at all, while The Guardian’s featured the defender all the way down in thirty-fifth and Veratti in the middle of the pack.

So, as these lists are so exhaustive to compile and are generally just a consensus of opinion between experts, wouldn’t the more experts you have increase the accuracy of the lists? Certainly – the Guardian have over seventy-three experts on their panel, and Four Four Two a healthy list of panelists as well. But, if more the merrier, why not combine the two? That is what you are about to read next, a brief consensus of the common themes in both lists, The Guardian’s and Four Four Two’s.

Bayern Munich have some of the best defenders in the world
Manuel Neuer has been the talking point of this years Ballon d’Or, because he is a goalkeeper, and made the shortlist of three players along with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for the award, to be revealed come the New Year.  However debatable having goalkeepers compared with outfield players even is, both The Guardian and Four Four Two agree he is one of the best players in the world – the third, and fourth, respectively.  However, Four Four Two even have another Bayern Munich defender ahead of Neuer, and that is Phillip Lahm.  Or, come to think of it, a Bayern Munich midfielder.  The reason Lahm is so high in Four Four Two’s list, in third, is because of a career changing year in which Pep Guardiola moved Lahm from full-back to the midfield, where he has become outrageously successful, winning the World Cup with Germany after Joachim Löw came to the same conclusion Guardiola did. The Guardian also rank the thirty-one-year-old inside their top ten at ninth. David Alaba, who was similarly moved by Guardiola from full-back to midfield, is put just inside the top fifty as well by both lists.

Cristiano Ronaldo swings pendulum in his direction
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have so long been in an ever-going arm wrestle between who is the best player in the world, and for both, this year hasn’t been perfect. Atletico Madrid pipped both players of the La Liga title, though Ronaldo did win La Decima with Real Madrid. Perhaps this and Messi’s relatively poor start to 2014 was the small tipping point in Ronaldo’s favor in a battle that year over year is swayed by a 1% change in order. Both The Guardian and Four Four Two tipped him ahead of Messi after both had chosen Messi first in 2013.

Benzema’s breakthrough year
The Guardian’s ranking of Karim Benzema is most telling – the Frenchman is put all the way up in the top twenty in their list, thirty-six positions up from 2013. While Four Four Two have him in thirty-sixth, it is clear that Benzema has seen an incredible improvement in performance over every other season in his career at Real Madrid, having been trusted by Carlo Ancelotti up front after the departure of Gonzalo Higuain. Benzema played an integral part in La Decima, scoring a crucial first leg semifinal goal against Bayern Munich.

Edison Cavani out of the limelight at PSG
For a player to drop fifty places in one list or another isn’t surprising. However, for a player near the top ten to do so, that is a surprise. Edison Cavani is a player dropped over fifty positions in both The Guardian and Four Four Two’s lists since 2013, and in a year when he turned twenty-seven, what should be the start of his prime years. It isn’t that Cavani has underperformed that much or lost his touch, not with five goals in six Champions League appearances so far this season, but is stuck at Paris Saint-Germain. His move to Ligue 1 has put him out of the limelight, and even somewhat discredited his goalscoring achievements due to the quality of the league. Furthermore, he has often been shoved out wide to make room for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, with whom he is reportedly at ends with. A move to the Premier League constantly seems in the offing for the Uruguayan, but really may happen this summer given how much he seems to need it.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.