Football is the most popular game in the world. Professional footballers receive millions of dollars and are watched by a huge number of fans. Who can be called the best player on the "football planet"?
Attack
The attacking players are more often than others recognized as the best football players in clubs, championships and around the world. The bottom line is simple: they score goals and are directly involved in victories. What boy has not dreamed of scoring a goal in the World Cup final! That is why contracts for strikers and attacking midfielders are usually much more expensive than those of goalkeepers, defensive midfielders and defensive players.
Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo is the current owner of the Ballon d'Or (the main individual award given by the football community at the end of the year) and has the English Premier League championship and the UEFA Champions League trophy (the main club tournament in the world). He has the highest speed, is a master of unusual feints. For years, he perfected the technique of executing free kicks, which subsequently resulted in hundreds of goals against the strongest clubs and national teams in the world. Cristiano is a football star and one of the world's best footballers.
Lionel Messi, striker for Barcelona and Argentina national team, is a constant rival of Cristiano Ronaldo for titles and the title of the best footballer in the world. He is not tall (at one time he suffered from a lack of growth hormone, but Barcelona's doctors were able to cure him), but this does not prevent Messi from being the threat of all clubs and national teams in the world. Messi was awarded the Ballon d'Or four times in a row. Lionel is regarded by millions of fans around the world as their idol.
Protection
Currently, defenders are highly respected, who can support the attack with quick flanking actions. The full-back of Real Madrid and the Brazilian national team, Maicon, has repeatedly scored goals from the edge of the box. Dani Alves, John Terry and Per Meptesacker have repeatedly brought Sevilla, Chelsea and Arsenal to club titles.
History
The great Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin was recognized as the best football player in the world. He managed to hold back the English, German and Brazilian strikers in the 1966 World Cup (the USSR national team took fourth place then), and also achieved the Olympic championship in 1960 in Melbourne. For his phenomenal playing qualities, Yashin received the nickname "Black Spider".
The greatest number of goals was scored in his career by the great Brazilian striker Pele. It is difficult to establish the exact number of successful actions of the Brazilian (due to the lack of professional statistics at that time), but it reliably exceeds a thousand. Of course, one should also take into account the level of football, which is growing every year. Nowadays, professional football has become much drier than in the middle of the 20th century. But at that time, the best footballer was Pele, fast, technical and methodical, and breaking his record is not easy.
Defender Franz Beckenbauer created the technical Germany team as we know it to this day. He was the captain of the national team and his native club - Bayern Munich, dozens of times became the champion of Germany, twice - the champion of the world and Europe. Until now, he is the standard of play for hundreds of defense professionals.
Perspective
It is difficult to predict who will become the world's best footballer in the future. Great hopes are pinned on Barcelona striker Neymar. He was bought from Brazilian Santos for a record 120 million euros, and in the first year of playing for the Catalan club he became the third scorer of Examples: after Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. High results and technical play are also shown by the player of Milan and the Italian national team Mario Balotelli (Super Mario).
