Best 20 Players of the Last Decade

By: Neil | November 14th, 2009

A number of these posts are going up on various offside blogs, so with a quiet weekend for club football I thought I’d create my own team of the decade. This activity might be a lot better if people waited a year for the next World Cup and used the years 2001-2010 but that wouldn’t really be this decade would it? The timespan for this exercise is 2000-2009 whether it creates problems or not. After the jump I will list my team and the begin the long process of explaining and justifying.

Goalkeepers

Gianluigi Buffon
Petr Cech

Defenders

Fabio Cannavaro
Roberto Carlos
Lilian Thuram
Alessandro Nesta
Paolo Maldini
Lucio
Carlos Puyol

Midfielders

Zinedine Zidane
Kaka
Cristiano Ronaldo
Pavel Nedved
Michael Ballack
David Beckham
Michael Essien

Forwards

Ronaldinho
Lionel Messi
Thierry Henry
Wayne Rooney

Now a bit about the methodology. First, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t biased in favour of recent players who are fresh in the memory. It’s easy to overlook players who were great in the first five years of the decade but haven’t done anything recently, and I tried not to do that. Second, I wanted equal representation for each position. I decided on 2 goalkeepers, 7 defenders, 7 midfielders, and 4 strikers before I wrote down a single name. I also wanted to make sure the defense and midfield had both central and wide players. Finally, I decided on trying to include players with different skills within their position. I did not want to show favourtism for one style of player, i.e. the creative midfielder or the attacking fullback.

The main criteria I used for selection was how important a player was to the overall strength of his club and country. Although the list has many Italian, French, and Brazilian players I didn’t want to punish players whose national teams or clubs just aren’t as competitive as the traditional heavyweights. I also put emphasis on a player’s peak form. Players had to have been dominant or close to dominant in their position to be included.

Now for the explanation. The biggest surprise might be the inclusion of Petr Cech. Casillas would be most people’s second choice behind Buffon, so why did I go for Cech? Well, Casillas has a sparkling resume: 2 Champions League titles and a Euro 2008 win in the last ten years. But given the relative strength of the Real Madrid and Spain teams, Casillas has never had to dominate games every time. Cech on the other hand almost single handedly (along with Nedved) lifted his Czech Republic team to the Euro 2004 title. Even though Greece won, I still maintain the Czechs were easily the best team that tournament. No disrespect to Greece fans, but the 1-0 semifinal win over the Czechs was a bit fluky. It was a game the Czechs dominated and had so many near misses. Cech was also getting lots of acclaim at Rennes. Is it really his fault Rennes never won a Champions League title like Real Madrid? Cech was also one of Abramovich’s first signings. That shows you how valuable he is. True, his quality has dropped off recently, but I think he’s never been the same after getting accidentally getting kneed in the head and suffering head trauma. Casillas has been more reliable over the last ten years but at his peak Cech had better technique than Casillas and played bigger roles in his teams’ success. People will accuse me of punishing Casillas because he plays on great teams that don’t always need great goalkeeping (probably a good accusation) but I still think that Cech in his prime came closer to Buffon that Casillas does. That’s why I’m including Cech, but it was the most difficult decision I made. There’s a strong temptation to include Casillas because he outplayed Buffon in the shootout at Euro 08, but there’s more to goalkeeping than shootouts.

On defence the two controversial choices are maybe Lucio and Puyol. I think Lucio is hugely underrated because he’s a defensive minded Brazilian defender. He’ll always be overshadowed by players like Roberto Carlos and Maicon, but he’s been the rock of the Brazil defence since around 2002 and is now Dunga’s captain. For some reason South American defenders never get the credit they deserve, and Lucio is a master who has worked his way from Bayer Leverkusen to Bayern Munich to Inter. He’s won plenty of titles and has valuable leadership skills. Maybe he’s a bit out of place in European club football, but I ask you how would Zambrotta look playing at a Brazilian club like Santos or Fluminese? He wouldn’t fit in very well there either.

Puyol has really emerged as a dominant player for Barcelona and Spain the last five seasons. Like Lucio he often goes unrecognized because his style insn’t glamorous but he’s currently among the best defenders in the world. He was the defensive rock of Barca’s memorable double last year as well as Spain’s 2008 win. Often because of Puyol his goalkeepers (Valdes and Casillas) have very little to do. And like Lucio, Puyol has leadership skills and is a reliable big game performer.

In midfield the surprise is probably Michael Essien. Like Cech, Essien showed world class skills for teams that were never going to compete for major titles (Lyon and Ghana.) But if you’ve every seen Ghana play you know that Essien single handedly (OK, with help from Appiah and Muntari) made Ghana into what I think is currently the best overall African team (arguments could be made for Cote d’Ivoire or Egypt.) Essien is great defensively and can also get forward to score massive goals. Since moving to Chelsea his versatility has actually harmed his individual profile as he frequently gets asked to play in positions that aren’t his best. But whenever he plays central mid he usually ends up dominating and he makes the rest of the midfielders on his team so much better.

Ballack might be left off of many people’s lists, but he has been the best player for Germany the last ten years and took the team to the World Cup final in 2002 and the Euro final in 08. The last few years he’s shown his age a little, but in the early part of the decade he was dominant, leading Bayer Leverkusen to the CL final and turning Germany into a major force again. He’s great with penalties, set pieces, and his defensive skills and physical presence make him more valuable than a player like Pirlo.

Nedved should also be an obvious choice even though he tailed off in recent years. His suspension for the 2004 Euro Cup semi final was a huge blow to his Czech team, probably keeping them from winning the title. His ball skills, passing, creativity, and tactical knowledge are all world class. He also does more defensive work than people give him credit for. It was an easy decision to include Nedved.

Some people might be surprised by my inclusion of Wayne Rooney in the strikers ahead of someone like Drogba. But for the last six years he’s been essential to Everton, Man United, and England. He does have discipline problems every once in a while but there aren’t too many strikers with his combination of finishing, speed, and physical play. Actually, it’s kind of sad how much England depends on Rooney being in the lineup to have any hope of success. And with Ronaldo leaving the same could almost be said of Man United. What other strikers have been as essential a component to their teams as Rooney? Eto’o and Drogba come close but Rooney has been in peak form longer and more consistently so that’s why he gets the edge.

For ever player I tried to think of good reasons for excluding them. Is Beckham overrated because of his public appeal? I decided no. He could be included for his passing and his free kicks alone but he’s also competent (but not great) defensively and isn’t afraid to make key tackles when necessary. He’s also a great athlete and in his prime he is just as effective in the 90th minute as the first. Was Maldini only dominant in the 90’s and never at his peak in the last ten years? Maybe, but until 2005 he was still one of the best defenders in the game. Even though he was in physical decline his reading of the game and skills were sublime. I had to include Maldini over someone like Zambrotta who was in his prime for most of the last ten years.

What else is there to say? I was going to make a list of honourable mentions but it became so long that I gave it up. There are definitely a lot of players who come close and would be included on other people’s lists. However, if I could create a team of 22 with two players in each position I would include Cafu to reach 8 defenders and Figo to reach 8 midfielders. Both have been in decline for most of the decade but in the first few years they were dominant players in their positions. It’s easy to forget them because they haven’t done anything lately but Cafu was essential to the Roma scudetto and the Brazil WC win in 01 and 02, and like Roberto Carlos he was always better defensively than what people gave him credit for. Figo in 00 and 01 reached the top 3 both years for FIFA World Player of the Year. He was also the key player in the Portugal side that reached the semis of Euro 2000 and the final of 04. Like Maldini, it would be unfair to penalize these players because they were at an advanced stage in their careers for the second half of the ten year time span.

So let’s hear your feedback… where did I screw up, and why? Try to list a number of reasons rather than something like, “Drogba scores more goals at Chelsea than Rooney does at United.” I can counter that by saying Rooney didn’t need to score as often because of Ronaldo’s goals from midfield and Rooney is also better at creating goals for others. But if you have a complete evaluation with a number of different reasons, I won’t be able to counter it very well.