100 Best Players of the Decade

By: Martin | November 8th, 2009

The Offside’s Main Page decided to compile a list of the “100 Best Players of the Decade.” I thought it might be of some interest to you, especially since Arsenal is out of action for a couple of weeks. It was voted on by all of the Offside’s bloggers, as well as readers. I will say that I thought the criteria was a little vague–it was simply to name the 20 best players who played in the decade. But they specifically noted that we could list someone who retired in 2000, which to me meant that the list was not to come up with the players who had been the best throughout the decade of the 2000s, but rather the players who had the best overall careers who played part of their career in the 2000s. There’s no point in me reprinting the entire list here, but the following Arsenal players made the list:

100. Anelka
90. Marc Overmars
75. Kanu
71. Robert Pires
64. Freddie Ljungberg
46. Cesc Fabregas
22. Dennis Bergkamp
18. Patrick Vieira
2. Thierry Henry

9 out of the 100 best players of the decade who played a significant portion of their career at Arsenal–not bad at all. See my personal Top 20 ballot which I sent in, as well as where my Top 20 ended up on the final list, after the jump:

1. Zinedine Zidane (1)
2. Thierry Henry (2)
3. Luis Figo (10)
4. Fat Ronaldo (4)
5. Ronaldinho (3)
6. Rivaldo (23)
7. Kaka (7)
8. Lionel Messi (6)
9. Cristiano Ronaldo (5)
10. Raul (13)
11. Alan Shearer (50)
12. Roberto Baggio (48)
13. Oliver Kahn (29)
14. Samuel Eto’o (25)
15. Roy Keane (34)
16. Paolo Maldini (8)
17. Steven Gerrard (11)
18. Patrick Vieira (18)
19. Frank Lampard (26)
20. Dennis Bergkamp (22)

I think my list matched up relatively well with the overall list. I think Luis Figo deserved to be a little bit higher–he was an absolute force of nature around the turn of the milennium. I think Rivaldo similarly suffered from people forgetting just how good he was in the late 90s and early 2000s. And I thought Alan Shearer was by far the most underrated player on the list–maybe because I mainly follow the Premiership, but how can the Premiership’s all-time leading goalscorer be ranked so low? And I understand that Baggio was past it by the time 2000 came around, but he was incredible in the mid-1990s. Finally, I know Roy Keane never put up big statistics or won a lot of individual honors, but anyone who saw him week in and week out for Manchester United in his prime understands just how much of a difference-maker he was.

Anyway, lists like this are always fun, and the disagreements are part of the fun. Feel free to tell me what an idiot I am or how wrong the list is in the comments section.