The center back position is becoming more of a premium position in world football these days with elite European clubs trying to lock down the world’s best attacking players.
Here are the 10 best center backs in the world right now in 2024.
10. Giorgio Scalvini, Atalanta
Atalanta star Giorgio Scalvini gets overlooked because of all the top-class defensive talent in Serie A, and Atalanta tend to get a whole lot less press than, say, Juventus or Inter Milan.
Furthermore, it doesn’t help that Bologna star Riccardo Calafiori is the young Italian center back soaking up all the media attention and social media fanposts.
That’s for good reason, but before Euro 2024, Scalvini was seen as THE young center back to watch in Italian football after putting together a second excellent season with La Dea.
Scalvini has been on the radar of clubs like Real Madrid, and he has a knack for helping the attack, too, thriving in Gian Piero Gasperini’s fluid system.
9. Gleison Bremer, Juventus
Former Serie A Defender of the Year Gleison Bremer made a name for himself as a top-class center back for Torino before moving to rivals Juventus.
Since then, Bremer has only enhanced his reputation as something of an heir to Giorgio Chiellini, proving that Brazilian center backs are very underrated.
Bremer is a warrior who can lock down any striker in this world with some of the tightest and most physical man-marking you will see.
8. Cristian Romero, Tottenham
Cristian Romero loves to make aggressive gambles in defense, and they pay off for the former Atalanta star more often than they do not.
Tottenham have vastly upgraded their defense with the additions of Destiny Udogie, Guglielmo Vicario, Micky van de Ven, and Radu Dragusin, adding a certain former Serie A flair to their back four.
Romero is the best of the bunch and in the discussion for being one of the best center backs in the Premier League, slowly shedding the underrated role.
7. Kim Min-jae, Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich love to bash their own players and find scapegoats instead of looking inward at what has become a laughingstock of an organization.
How else can a club that fired Julian Nagelsmann mid-season for no apparent reason, only to fire his replacement not long after, be described?
To that note, Bayern Munich do get things right and have the foundational pieces in place that made them Europe’s most feared club at one point in the 2010’s and then later in 2019/20.
Kim Min-jae was a bargain of a signing and was the best center back in the world in the first half of the 2023/24 season, just as he was throughout the 2022/23 campaign for Napoli.
There are some Bayern fans who will have you think that Kim is a flop and a scrub, but nothing could be further from the truth – and those are the same fans who likely gleefully supported the inane decision to fire Nagelsmann.
6. Alessandro Bastoni, Inter Milan
Alessandro Bastoni was the best ball-playing center back in European football before Riccardo Calafiori changed the whole complexion of the argument within his own league.
Still, Bastoni deserves just as much hype as Calafiori for being a world-class center back who rarely puts a foot wrong and sets the tone for Inter’s passing game from deep.
5. Riccardo Calafiori, Bologna
Calafiori has become the most coveted center back on the transfer market, in no small part because he can also play at a top-class level at the left back position.
Arsenal are the apparent favorites to sign Calafiori and may even have a transfer all but sealed to give them three legitimately world-class center backs.
The 22-year-old Calafiori’s numbers at Bologna last season have to be seen to be believed. He had two goals and five assists as a central defender with 3.3 combined tackles and interceptions per game while being dribbled past just 0.3 times per match.
With all due respect to Bremer, Bastoni, and Torino’s new defensive star Alessandro Buongiorno, it was Calafiori who stood out as the league’s best defender.
Calafiori was Bologna’s brightest star on a Cinderella team that was just a point behind Atalanta in the battle to secure Champions League football.
He will now be headed to Arsenal after a stellar Euro 2024 campaign, ready to add to his legacy as the most interesting defender in the world to watch.
4. Gabriel Magalhaes, Arsenal
As good as Calafiori is, he would be the third-best center back at Arsenal until proven otherwise, but Arsenal already have two world-class, entrenched starters in Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba.
While Saliba unsurprisingly soaks up the most praise, Gabriel is pretty much just as good and may even be more consistent, owing to his experience.
A former Ligue 1 standout in his own right at Lille, Gabriel is a no-nonsense defender who man-marks as effectively as Bremer and is well-known for making game-saving interventions.
Gabriel is always there to put his body on the line defensively for the Arsenal cause, and like all of his teammates on the back line, he’s not bad with the ball either.
3. William Saliba, Arsenal
William Saliba has shown the world levels at Euro 2024, building a strong case for himself as the best center back in the world, though the competition is quite stiff.
The Frenchman was the best center back in Ligue 1 before making his debut Arsenal, anticipating by Gunners fans as the next great center back in the Premier League.
Saliba has lived up to expectations. He is a world-class passer, an elite athlete, and a special defender who ranks up there with Virgil van Dijk, Fabian Schar, and any other top-class Premier League veteran in terms of the intelligence of his defending.
2. Eder Militao, Real Madrid
Eder Militao was the only Real Madrid player who didn’t embarrass himself at Copa America for Brazil, as he was quite solid defensively in the tournament to show that the ACL tear is well and truly behind him.
The former Porto man replaced Raphael Varane’s starting spot on the right side of the Real Madrid defense, making it an easy decision for Florentino Perez to sell the iconic Frenchman to Manchester United in 2021 after an injury-plagued season.
Militao is a highly effective and underrated passer out of the back who loves hitting up coutryman Vinicius Junior on those searching balls behind the back line.
He’s an even better defender, of course, with elite recovery speed and physical toughness, rarely making a mistake. Militao is the most underappreciated Real Madrid player by those outside of LaLiga circles.
1. Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool
Yet because Militao is coming off an ACL tear, Dutch center back Virgil van Dijk has reclaimed his place as the best center back in the world, as nauseating of a statement as that is to fans of any other club besides Liverpool.
But Liverpool fans should sing the icy van Dijk’s praises so boisterously, because he is a truly unique and classy defender, always a step ahead of attackers.
Van Dijk can sometimes slip against elite teams because of his nonchalance, but his mistakes seem to grand because they are magnified by their rarity.
That is to say, van Dijk is a center back who causes his own criticism because he is so good; his mistakes are thus magnified to the point of absurdity.
After a poor 2022/23 season by his standards, van Dijk was the best center back in Europe without much of a shadow of a doubt, hoisting Liverpool back to Premier League title contention.
He has kept up that standard for a resurgent Netherlands national team at Euro 2024, standing a class above the rest of the field in all of his matches.
