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The 100 best footballers in the world

This article is more than 3 months old

The 100 best male

footballers in the
world 2023
Erling Haaland has been voted the best
player in the world for 2023 by our 218=
strong panel, with Jude Bellingham
finishing second
2022 D 2021 D 2020 D 2019 D 2018 D 2017 D 2016 D
2015 D 2014 D 2013 D 2012
Meet the judges D Best female footballers
to launch in January

Marcus Christenson, Garry Blight, Seán

Clarke, Steven Bloor and Pamela Duncan
Fri 22 Dec 2023 10.12 GMT

Share 1,830

All players

1 2

Erling Haaland Jude

1 Erling
Manchester CityHaaland
Bellingham
Real Madrid
Age 23

Team Manchester City / Norway

Position Forward

Rank 4 2022 ▲3

A new era has begun and for now, at

3 it belongs to Erling4 Haaland. The
least,
relentless striker has scored 50 goals for
Kylian
club andMbappé
country so far Harry Kane
in 2023,
delivering
Paris ManchesterBayern
Saint3Germain City aMunich
treble and
the Champions League holy grail in his
first season. Highlights included a five-
goal haul against RB Leipzig and two
crucial strikes against Bayern Munich as
he became the youngest player to reach
40 goals in Europe’s top competition.
This season Haaland has proved his
phenomenal start to life in England was
no5 statistical freak, taking6 his City goal
tally to 71 inside 18 months. A hulking
on-field presence withVinícius
Rodri an outrageous
Júnior
turn of pace,
Manchester Cityit is easyReal
to forget
MadridHaaland
is only 23. He is the youngest player to
top our annual men’s poll, and the first
plying his trade in the Premier League.
He is also a clear winner of our list – 146
judges put him top, with another 40
panellists awarding him second place.
Niall McVeigh

7 8

Mohamed Kevin De
Salah Bruyne
Liverpool Manchester City

2 Jude Bellingham
9
Age 20 10
Team Real Madrid / England
Victor Osimhen Lionel Messi
Position
Napoli Midfielder Inter Miami

Rank 14 2022 ▲12

Our No 2 this year is not Diego Maradona.

He’s not Zinedine Zidane either. Or
Cristiano Ronaldo. Or Alfredo Di Stéfano.
He is, though, a man who has been
compared to all of them, and favourably.
Man? An “extraterrestrial”, Leonardo
11 12
Bonucci called him. Must have big
pockets, because he has managed to fit
Bernardo Silva Khvicha
the entire Santiago Bernabéu inside. His
Manchester City Kvaratskhelia
goal celebration, armsNapoli
wide, has become
iconic and often imitated, not least
because it has been so often repeated, his
goalscoring start to his Real Madrid
career better than anyone else’s, ever.
“He’s a gift for football,” the coach, Carlo
Ancelotti, says. It is an understatement.
Twenty-one judges had him top and 211
of our 218 voters had him in their top 40.
13 14
And he is only going to get better. Sid
Lowe
Lautaro Bukayo Saka
Martínez Arsenal
Internazionale

15 16

Antoine Ilkay
3 Kylian Mbappé
Griezmann Gündogan
Atlético
Age Madrid
25 Barcelona
Team Paris Saint-Germain / France

Position Forward

Rank 2 2022 ▼1

The last 12 months have seen Mbappé

consolidate his place among the sport’s
17 18
elite – he was handed the France
captaincy, became Paris Saint-Germain’s
Robert Martin
all-time top scorer, and was named Ligue
Lewandowski Ødegaard
1 player of the year for the fourth
Barcelona Arsenal
consecutive season. The now-yearly
summer contract showdown with his
employers meant the forward was
sidelined from the first-team at the start
of the campaign. Once he returned,
though, he picked up where he left off
and continued to score at a blistering
pace, averaging more than a goal per
19 in the league. But20
game another standoff
with the club looms large, and Mbappé’s
Julián
potentialÁlvarez
involvementJamal Musialais
in the Olympics
Manchester City Bayern Munich
increasingly likely to be his send-off from
his home city. Raphaël Jucobin

21 22

Rúben Dias Declan Rice

Manchester City Arsenal

4 Harry Kane
Age 30

Team Bayern Munich / England

Position Forward

Rank 13 2022 ▲9

23 24
An ever-present on the list since 2015,
Ederson
Kane has reached his Son
highestHeung=min
position,
Manchester City Tottenham
his instant impact at Bayern Munich
impressing the judges. Remarkably, he
already has more Bundesliga goals than
last season's joint top scorers,
Christopher Nkunku and Niclas Füllkrug,
having scored 18 in his first 12 league
games. After Kane had netted twice
against Galatasaray in November, his
manager, Thomas Tuchel, said: "I can't
25 you anything more 26
tell than I did at the
start of the season. His performances, his
Luka Modric
goal ratio, his games, John Stones
they tell the story.
Real Madrid
No more Manchester
words needed." His time City
at
Tottenham ended with the team in
disarray as Antonio Conte's reign blew
up. Did it stop Kane from scoring though?
Of course it didn't. He still got 32 in all
competitions in 2022-23. Marcus
Christenson

27 28

Cristiano Gavi
Ronaldo Barcelona
Al3Nassr

5 Rodri
Age 27
29 30
Team Manchester City / Spain
Nicolò
Position Barella
Midfielder Rafael Leão
Internazionale Milan
Rank 53 2022 ▲48

He does not dominate the headlines like

some of his more glamorous teammates,
but Rodri may be Manchester City’s most
important player. The Spain midfielder is
the team’s heartbeat, a precise cog that
turns the gears in Pep Guardiola’s trophy-
31
winning 32
machine. It is Rodri’s
distribution and ball-winning abilities
Fede Valverde
that have allowed his Pedri
manager more
Real Madrid from the swarming
flexibility, Barcelonahigh-
tempo passing that suffocated Real
Madrid to the sweeping counters that
sank Arsenal. City are simply not the
same force without Rodri in the control
room. Not all his best work is behind the
scenes, though – it was his instinctive
strike that broke the deadlock in a
fraught Champions League final, the
33
highlight 34 year that sees
of a breakthrough
him soar from outside the top 50 all the
Rodrygo
way into the top five. Marc=André
Niall McVeigh ter
Real Madrid Stegen
Barcelona

35 36

Alisson Karim
6 Vinícius Júnior
Liverpool Benzema
Al3Ittihad
Age 23

Team Real Madrid / Brazil

Position Forward

Rank 8 2022 ▲2

“Probably the best player in the world,”

37the words of Jude Bellingham.
in 38 The
most fouled player in Spain last season,
Kim
partlyMin=jae
because he wasLeroy
the mostSané
feared.
An electric,
Bayern Munichexplosive Bayern
attacker whom
Munich
Carlo Ancelotti joked, was “crying for
hours” when he was surprisingly left out
of the shortlist for The Best. No one
dribbled more, and only Antoine
Griezmann assisted more, although
injury has meant a slower start this
season. The focus of repeated racist
abuse, he has also taken it upon himself
to
39lead the fightback, confronting
40
supporters, clubs and even the president
of La Liga, forcing change.
Thibaut Sid Lowe
William Saliba
Courtois Arsenal
Real Madrid

41 42

Phil Foden Bruno

7 Mohamed
Manchester City Salah
Fernandes
Age 31 Manchester United

Team Liverpool / Egypt

Position Forward

Rank 10 2022 ▲3

Liverpool rejected an astonishing £150m

offer
43 from Saudi Arabia44 side Al-Ittihad for
their leading goalscorer last summer,
despite the 31-year-old
Eduardo having
Virgil onlyDijk
van two
years remaining on his
Camavinga contract, and have
Liverpool
been
Real thoroughly vindicated by the
Madrid
striker’s response. Salah scored 30 goals
in the 2022-23 season, maintaining his
phenomenal level while the team’s
dipped, and his prolific form has fuelled
Liverpool’s revival as title challengers
this term. The Egypt international
recently registered his 200th Liverpool
goal in his 327th appearance for Jürgen
45 46
Klopp’s side and has overtaken Thierry
Henry as the highest goalscorer for an
Kyle Walker Emiliano
English club in European competitions.
Manchester City Martínez
He remains fundamental AstontoVilla
Liverpool’s
prospects. Andy Hunter

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47 48

Achraf Hakimi Florian Wirtz

Paris Saint3Germain Bayer Leverkusen

Open account

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49 50

Jack Grealish Olivier Giroud

Manchester City Milan

8 Kevin De Bruyne
Age 32

Team Manchester City / Belgium

Position Midfielder

Rank 6 2022 ▼2
51 52

Joshua Dominik
Despite being out injured since August,
Kimmich Szoboszlai
the brilliant Belgian holds on to a top-10
place after
Bayern Munichplaying a crucial role in City’s
Liverpool
2022-23 treble campaign. De Bruyne led
the Premier League with 16 assists and
struck up a deadly connection with
Erling Haaland, setting up the striker 13
times in all competitions. De Bruyne
saved his best moments for the
heavyweight games, scoring three and
setting
53 up two against Arsenal,
54 assisting
both goals in the FA Cup final – and, best
of all, a clinical equaliser
Gabriel thatGvardiol
Josko turned the
tide at the Bernabéu in
Martinelli the Champions
Manchester City
League semi-finals. Unfortunately an
Arsenal
early injury robbed him of the chance to
play a bigger role in the final. The
creative spark in City’s slick machine, De
Bruyne continues to make the
extraordinary seem routine. Niall
McVeigh

55 56

Hakan Ronald Araújo

Calhanoglu Barcelona
Internazionale

9 Victor Osimhen
57
Age 24 58
Team Napoli / Nigeria
Trent Yassine 'Bono'
Alexander=
Position Forward Bounou
Arnold
Rank Al3Hilal
52 2022 ▲43
Liverpool

Sometimes it feels as though the only

opponent capable of slowing Osimhen
down is his own body. He missed six
Serie A games through injury last season,
started another two on the bench, and
still finished as the competition’s
59 60
runaway capocannoniere with 26 goals.
It was a similar story in the Champions
Alexis Mac Bruno
League, where he scored four times in
Allister Guimarães
three knockout
Liverpool games but saw his team
Newcastle
eliminated because they lost the one
match in which he could not play. Named
as the African Footballer of the Year after
firing Napoli to a first Scudetto in 33
years, Osimhen might still not have
shown us his ceiling. Nicky Bandini

61 62

Federico André Onana

Dimarco Manchester United
Internazionale

10 Lionel Messi
63
Age 36 64
Team Inter Miami / Argentina
Kieran Trippier Victor Boniface
Position Forward
Newcastle Bayer Leverkusen
Rank 1 2022 ▼9

This year was always going to be a

comedown after Messi’s World Cup
triumph in 2022. But he still made an
impact as he shunned a move to Saudi
Arabia and headed to Inter Miami. He
duly brought back memories of Pelé’s
65 66
time in the US, selling out stadiums
across America. Messi transformed a
Germán Cano Xavi Simons
Miami team that were bottom of their
Fluminense RB Leipzig
conference, leading them to the Leagues
Cup, the club’s first ever trophy. How
much that said about Messi’s remaining
skills and how much it said about the
quality of Major League Soccer is an open
question. It is the first time the brilliant
Argentinian places outside the top three
on our list since the start in 2012. He is
one of only six ever-present players and
67 finished first a remarkable
has 68 six times.
Tom Lutz
Marcus Luis Díaz
Rashford Liverpool
Manchester United

69 70

Frenkie de JongSilva
11 Bernardo Toni Kroos
Barcelona Real Madrid
Age 29

Team Manchester City / Portugal

Position Midfielder

Rank 29 2022 ▲18

Standing at 5ft 8in and as slight as a

featherweight, it perhaps makes little
71 that Silva makes the
sense 72 first XI of this
athletic list. He is fairly one-footed and
Kaoru
may lack Mitoma Serhouhe can play
pace but, incredibly,
Brighton
right wing, No 10, holdingGuirassy
midfield and
even left-back for the Stuttgart
treble winners and
European champions. Beloved by his
teammates, manager and fans, he is a
Swiss army knife of a footballer: versatile
but indispensable, discreet but incisive.
Silva has perhaps been underappreciated
in the past but no more, he is an elite
talent in a modest shell, knitting
73
everything together for74 City and Portugal
with guile and finesse. In our voting he
Álvaro Morata
missed out on the topÁlex
10 by Grimaldo
a single
Atlético
point. Madrid
Michael ButlerBayer Leverkusen

75 76

Santiago Randal Kolo

Giménez Muani
12 Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
Feyenoord Paris Saint3Germain

Age 22

Team Napoli / Georgia

Position Winger

Rank 40 2022 ▲28

77player will ever be adored

No 78 quite like
Diego Maradona in the city of Naples, but
James Darwin
take a stroll through the Núñez
city’s Spanish
Maddison
Quarter and you might Liverpool
see more street
Tottenham
art devoted to Kvaratskhelia than any
other member of 2023’s title-winning
team. The Georgian winger’s unassuming
backstory – signed for only €10m from
Dinamo Batumi – and audacious
creativity struck a chord from the start in
a city that has always identified with the
underdog. Twelve goals and 10 assists
79 the rest of Italy to
forced 80take note,
earning “Kvaradona” last season’s Serie
Alessandro Romelu
A’s MVP award and a place on the Ballon
Bastoni Lukaku
d’Or shortlist. Nicky Bandini
Internazionale Roma

81 82

David Alaba Enzo

Real Madrid Fernández
13 Lautaro Martínez
Chelsea

Age 26

Team Internazionale / Argentina

Position Forward

Rank 70 2022 ▲57

83 knock on Martínez84
The was always that
he alternated prolific patches with
Ángel Di María
frustrating Mike
goal droughts. ButMaignan
what if
Benfica
those dry runs dried up? Milan
Internazionale’s
captain is outscoring his closest Serie A
rivals this season by almost two to one.
He already raised his game during the
previous campaign, leading the
Nerazzurri to within one game of a cup
treble. Delivering consistently on the big
stages, he found the net in the
Supercoppa, Champions League semi-
85 and Coppa Italia final.
final 86 Life was
supposed to get tougher with Romelu
Gabriel
Lukaku andJesus
Edin Dzeko Aurélien
leaving in the
summer. Instead, Lautaro
Arsenal Tchouaméni
looks better
than ever. It is his fifthReal
consecutive
Madrid year
in the top 100 and his highest ever finish.
Nicky Bandini

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87 88

Alexander Isak Cristian

Newcastle Romero
Tottenham

89 90

Jan Oblak Loïs Openda

Atlético Madrid RB Leipzig

14 Bukayo Saka
Age 22

Team Arsenal / England

Position Winger
91 92
Rank 22 2022 ▲8

Antonio Riyad Mahrez

Rüdiger Al3Ahli
A move up by eight places from last year
Real Madrid dynamic winger who has
for Arsenal's
played in a Euros, a World Cup and
reached 200 games for his club despite
turning 22 only in September. His 14
league goals and 11 assists in 2022-23
helped Arsenal back into the Champions
League after a six-year absence and he
ended the season scoring his first hat-
93 for England. “The94
trick more you play,
the wiser you get and the smarter you get
Granit Xhaka
– there are things I canMarcelo
definitely improve
Bayer Leverkusen
on,” he Brozovic
told the Guardian in August. An
Al3Nassr thought
even better Saka? A frightening
for left-backs everywhere. Paul
Chronnell

95 96

Theo Alphonso
Hernández Davies
Milan Bayern Munich

15 Antoine Griezmann
Age 32

Team Atlético Madrid / France

Position Forward
97
Rank 17 2022 ▲2 98

Denzel Ollie Watkins

Dumfries Aston Villa
Eternally overlooked and
Internazionale
underappreciated, except by those who
watch him. Fifteenth? Is that all? The
best player in La Liga in 2023 with 19
goals and 13 assists, and present in each
of the last 84 France games – a run that
includes two World Cup finals. Should be
Atlético’s all-time top scorer any time
soon. “He has something special,” Diego
99
Simeone 100 talented
says: a supremely
footballer, clever and efficient, at the
Warren Zaïre= everything,
heart of absolutely Marcus butThuram
who
Emery
works as if he was rubbish. “He’s
Internazionale
extraordinary:
Paris he understands where the
Saint3Germain