Not all positions in world football get the same love. Most fans are understandably infatuated with the attackers, whether that be the strikers who score the goals, the playmakers who create them, or the wingers who dazzle with their skill on the ball.
But the defenders, the box-to-box midfielders, the defensive midfielders, and, of course, the shot-stoppers in goal are also important to the entire structure. Just ask Lionel Messi at PSG or Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus.
Without the right players behind them, even the best attackers of all time cannot flourish to their fullest extent.
So let’s take a look at the best all-time XI of players at every position, concocting a team of superstars that could conceivably work together to create an unstoppable side.
GK Manuel Neuer
There are so many wonderful goalkeepers to choose from, but nobody changed the way the position was played quite like Manuel Neuer.
Today, you hear so many analysts and even people working for clubs discuss the importance of having a ball-playing goalkeeper in their system. So many managers want to have a keeper who functions as an outfield player and starts the build-up play, with perhaps no top manager demanding this more than Pep Guardiola. And it works.
Guardiola managed Neuer at Bayern München and helped unleash the controlled chaos that is Neuer with the ball at his feet.
If you ever want to watch a goalkeeper skillfully turn or chop past pressing forwards like he were a Barcelona midfielder, then you have to watch Neuer highlight comps during his peak in the 2010s under Guardiola.
Neuer’s skill on the ball should not shroud the fact that he is one of the greatest shot-stoppers to ever play the game, too. His catalog of saves, especially reflex stops, is up there with any goalkeeper in history.
The wrist strength he showed on this point-blank stop against the notoriously powerful Cristiano Ronaldo makes it one of the best saves ever.
Even before Neuer joined Bayern, he was one of the best goalkeepers in Europe at Schalke, and the acrobatic level of his saves were just as high then as they were in his prime when he won trophies every season for Die Roten.
Neuer saved at least 80 percent of the shots he faced in three out of his five seasons with the Royal Blues, only allowing more than a goal per game in his final season when Schalke finished 14th.
LB Roberto Carlos
There are a number of great left backs to choose from, including another Real Madrid legend in Marcelo. But when it comes to technical quality, strength, defensive contributions, endless attacking product, and pure speed, Roberto Carlos was on an entirely different plane of existence during his career.
The Brazilian icon’s infamous swerved free kick has been analyzed by physicists and replicated by YouTubers for what seems like time immemorial, but it was really just one of many iconic moments the magical left back produced in his career.
Roberto Carlos was a Galáctico at a defensive position and a titanic presence in that fabled Real Madrid locker room alongside global superstars and attacking players like Ronaldo Nazário, Raúl, David Beckham, and Zinédine Zidane.
Because truly, he had as much attacking flair and panache as any of them. He had 49 goals and 45 officially credited assists in 11 LaLiga seasons with Los Merengues, averaging nearly double-digit goal contributions per season.
CB Paolo Maldini
No all-time best XI is complete without Paolo Maldini, who could have just as easily played at the left back position if it weren’t for the unique gifts of Robert Carlos.
Maldini is one of the most revered and no-nonsense figures in the history of world football, earning a reputation built around respect and deeply-held principles that led him to be a one-club man for the iconic AC Milan.
What made Maldini so brilliant and so enduring was the fact that he could read strikers like they were mere street signs. Maldini knew exactly what the best forwards in the world were going to do before they even made their move off the ball.
Nobody could get open against Maldini, who would frustrate some players into almost giving up, taking out the key piece of an opponent’s attack.
It is Maldini who is most famous for remarking that if he had to attempt a tackle, he had already made a mistake. Maldini understood the true art of defending decades before the wider footballing world started to have an inkling of an idea of what it takes to be a top-class defender.
CB Franz Beckenbauer
Meanwhile, Franz Beckenbauer was a different profile at center back but equally legendary for another one of the most iconic clubs in history, Bayern München.
Beckenbauer popularized the “sweeper” role as the “Libero” for Bayern and the German national team, cleaning up messes, winning the ball, playmaking from deep, and even joining the attack to score goals.
Der Kaiser, as he was known for his imposing figure and even more imposing personality, scored 60 goals as a defender for Die Roten.
A serial winner, Beckenbauer won the Bundesliga four times with Bayern and once with Hamburg.
He also won the Champions League three times, as well as both the World Cup and European Championships with West Germany, making him one of the most prolific footballers ever at a team level. He was even great as a manager, winning league titles with Bayern and Marseille, as well as the 1990 World Cup with his country.
With two Ballon d’Or victories and three more podium finishes, Beckenbauer is the most individually decorated defender in the history of world football. He may not get GOAT shouts like the forwards, but he should really be on that shortlist.
RB Cafú
To this day, whenever someone wants to effusively praise a right back for playing out of their skin in a match, they will invoke the name of this iconic Brazilian by stating that the player “turned into prime Cafú”.
That’s because no single player at the right back position displayed the all-around tools, consistency, and class that Cafú did during his career for both his country and for AC Milan and Roma in Serie A.
Cafú could produce top-class deliveries to directly assist goals, but he was just as focused on being the one to progress play and make sure nobody got past him defensively.
It was such an asset to have Cafú, because teams that had him knew that they could entirely control the right flank.
An example to many future footballers, Cafú set the benchmark for how a fullback should play. Supportive in attack and resolute in defense, never sacrificing offensive output for defensive solidity, yet still proving capable of supporting the front line as necessary.
LCM Zinédine Zidane
There may not be a single footballer who played the game with as much ingenuity or grace as Zinédine Zidane, even though he was a physically imposing player throughout his career, from the time he was the hottest up-and-coming midfielder for Bordeaux to the time he was the standout of the 2006 World Cup as a grizzled veteran of the game.
Zidane’s roulette is one of the most iconic skill moves in football history, but there were so many other turns, flicks, and touches that left defenders for dead and started attacks that don’t even have a name to them.
Zizou was a player who defied time and space, seemingly creating endless amounts of both and defying the laws of physics, all for the betterment of his team.
The son of Algerian immigrants, Zidane’s class and leadership in the 1998 World Cup was a defining moment in the history of French football both from a sporting aspect and from a social aspect, given both the historic and ongoing issues with racism in the country – issues that continue to hold the national team back to this day.
Zidane has thus become a symbol of inspiration to so many fans around the world, both for his sheer brilliance on the pitch and for the significance of his success off of it.
DM Lothar Matthäus
Any midfield needs a player capable of defending at the highest level, and Lothar Matthäus is one of the best all-around midfielders to have played this game.
Prime Matthäus is legitimately one of the best footballers in history at any position, though it seems as if only fans familiar with German football – or those who watched him play in the 1980s and 1990s – understand just how special he was.
“I admire Platini, I admire Maradona, but to win, I need Matthäus.” Those were the poetic words uttered by the eminently quotable Giovanni Trapatonni, who managed Matthäus twice during his illustrious career.
Matthäus was the bedrock for any manager, offering a level of stability, quality with his passing, and athletic output that was necessary for a team to win matches and get the most out of attacking superstars like Diego Armando Maradona.
Able to play anywhere in the midfield or even as a sweeper, Matthäus was the definition of a leader for Bayern, Inter Milan, and the German national team over the years, fulfilling a variety of roles.
His consistency in defense and in the build-up phases made him a world-class player, but his ability to change games in an instant with a shot from long range or a free kick made him a game-changer and added to his legendary status.
Matthäus is a former Ballon d’Or winner who was named in the Bundesliga Team of the Season for more than a span of a decade, even winning German Footballer of the Year in 1999 when he was a touch away from 40.
RCM Diego Maradona
Diego Maradona has an argument for being the greatest player in the history of world football.
Certainly, he is one of the most inspirational figures in the game, as we saw with how many lives were touched and how many expressed their sorrows upon learning of his passing.
Sometimes, it takes a tragedy for us to realize how much an individual touched us.
What made Maradona so special, so beloved, was the fact that he was a man of the people. And from a sporting perspective, nothing exemplified that more than the way he led both his country, Argentina, and the city that would also become a huge part of him, Napoli, to gold.
From 1990 until this past season, Napoli had never won a Scudetto, though Maradona hoisted the Serie A title twice during his unforgettable stay in the world’s most romantic footballing city.
Maradona’s 1986 World Cup triumph is the greatest tournament performance in the history of international football. His 1989/1990 title-winning season with Napoli is also one of the best ever, with Maradona notching 16 goals and 10 assists as the clear leader of his team.
Summing up Maradona’s game in stats would never do justice to the man, and listing off his career honors would be an exercise in futility. All you need to do is watch this clip and understand why they called it the “Goal of the Century.”
LW Cristiano Ronaldo
There are so many fans who grew up watching Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United and became immersed in the Beautiful Game because of the way he played it.
At a time when the Premier League was still infamously rugged and even more adversarial to players from outside the United Kingdom, England specifically, performing skill moves.
So Cristiano absorbed some heavy challenges – the kind of challenges that would have been judged much more severely even 15 years into the future.
Even so, Ronaldo was as effective as he was mesmerizing, helping turn Manchester United into the most dominant force in European football at one point.
The partnership he conjured with Wayne Rooney was almost as magical as the goals he scored. Almost.
Because Cristiano first earned his reputation as an impossibly vicious striker of the football during this time, nailing some of the best free kicks we’ve seen to date.
But if that version of Cristiano Ronaldo captured the hearts of the football romantic, the version that graduated from United and saved Real Madrid from the doldrums of early Champions League knockouts was the one who became a true legend.
That version of Cristiano was one of the most jacked, explosive, and ruthless attacking players we have ever seen and probably will ever see.
That Ronaldo had the same skills but used them more sparingly, taking advantage of the backdrop of the Real Madrid spine in defense and midfield to morph into the most complete and efficient goal-scorer in history at his peak.
Cristiano was the superstar of the greatest team in Champions League history, winning four titles in five years and three-peating to end his time in the Spanish capital.
His dominance of Pep Guardiola’s Bayern machine and the hat-trick comeback against Wolfsburg were the two crowning individual performances of several Champions League campaigns that were the most prolific in history.
Even after he left Madrid, Cristiano remained relevant in Juventus. He even had one more legendary Champions League performance, quieting the fans of old rival Atlético Madrid with another second-leg hat trick in the knockout stages to bring his team back from the dead.
ST Pelé
There used to be this attempt at contrarianism in which younger football fans would deride Pelé as a product of his time, as a myth. They would posit that because they had never seen any evidence of Pelé’s greatness, it was simply made up. The goals, invented. The accolades, simply a case of a great player dominating inferior competition in an era of yesteryear.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Pelé is the most important player in the history of football. He is the original superstar.
Every single skill move you can think of today? The Cruyff turn? The bicycle kick? La Croqueta? Marseille turns? Neymar-style Rainbow Flicks?
Pelé was doing it all before your favorites of the modern age, and it is a shame that a desire of the younger generation (of which I am a part and shamefully contributed to this phenomenon in my past) to erase the accomplishments of the past.
Like Zinédine Zidane, Pelé’s greatness spanned more than what happened on the pitch.
He will forever be a vital icon in the battle against racism in football, which, unfortunately, remains at the forefront of the biggest problems in the global game decades later.
Pelé’s life and legacy touched the hearts of many.
Those who watched him play in person have never forgotten how they felt when they absorbed his magic and presence. For the rest of us, we can only watch the fleeting highlights left to us a generation later.
RW Lionel Messi
Based on his statistical dominance, Lionel Messi may have the strongest GOAT case of any player on this list. Messi mastered the most important skills in football: close control, passing in the penalty box, change of direction, balance, and placed finishing.
While there are some aspects of the game Messi does not dominate, it’s because he doesn’t need to or because his natural attributes do not lend themselves to it. For example, Messi does not need to spend his time pressing, nor does he need to worry about winning physical duels in the air that he cannot win.
Messi, instead, focused on perfecting the areas of football that most directly led to his team winning. He could dribble through anyone without losing possession and seemed to know how to turn his game up to an “11” when he needed to.
As much as Messi was blasted for being a choker in light of Barcelona’s Champions League failures to the end of his time with the club, those exaggerated debates were definitively negated by an all-time great World Cup run in 2022.
Though it should be noted, Messi was just as decisive in leading Argentina to the 2014 Final.
So as much as Messi has been criticized for being a stat-padder against teams like Eibar and Troyes, he is actually one of the greatest players of all time at the international level, too.
Argentina’s most successful period wasn’t with Maradona but, in the end, with Messi, considering their performances in 2014 (nearly winning the World Cup against a more complete Germany team) and 2022 (beating a beyond-stacked France).
Messi won the Ballon d’Or an unprecedented and unthinkable seven times in his career despite going head-to-head with the only other player who could possibly measure up to him in terms of career statistical dominance, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Their careers are inextricably linked, but, in this dream XI, their legacies intertwined as teammates in an impossibly gifted attack.
