The Spanish national team was the most dominant side in world football from 2008 to 2012. In that time span, they won the European Championship twice and the World Cup once, proving just about impossible to beat behind a Tiki-Taka style of play that was perfected by Pep Guardiola in Barcelona. It is, therefore, unsurprising that when looking back at the best Spanish footballers of the century thus far, many of those players were key cogs in the Blaugrana wheel.
Of course, when Spanish footballers are discussed, you had best believe there are plenty of rival Real Madrid players represented. These two historic clubs will unsurprisingly dominate the list of the 10 best Spanish footballers since the year 2000, but if you look closely, you’ll find two players who were superstars without spending any time with either Real Madrid or Barcelona during their careers.
10. Fernando Hierro, CB, Real Madrid
Before Sergio Ramos was banging home the goals for Real Madrid, there was Fernando Hierro. The Spanish and Real Madrid captain always wore his heart on his sleeve, even when it lead to his eventual ousting from Madrid for defying Florentino Pérez’s awful strategy of commoditizing players and treating loyal members of the club like expendable parts. Hierro’s words of caution and dramatic stand would be proven right, and the idea of keeping the squad stable would later become a key tenant of Madrid’s success during the president’s second run.
Despite the clash with Pérez, Hierro had plenty of time to become a legend in Madrid. He won the Champions League three times and was in the discussion for being the best center back in the world at his peak, in addition to being a world-class presence in the defensive midfield due to his ball-playing ability and reading of the game. Hierro was in the FIFA XI for three straight years in the 90s from 1996 to 1998, spending nearly 15 years with the world’s biggest club while scoring over 100 goals.
Although he would finish his career with Bolton in 2004/05 after being sacrificed by Madrid two seasons prior, Hierro is synonymous with Los Blancos. He should have never left.
9. Cesc Fàbregas, CM, Arsenal/Barcelona/Chelsea
It may seem like Cesc Fàbregas is out-of-place on this list, because he’s surprisingly not viewed as a legend in the same breaht as the others here. But the thing is, Fàbregas was an absolute phenom at the beginning of his career and one of the most talented players we’ve ever seen in the Premier League. He’s only held back by the fact that he was overshadowed by the literal best midfielders of the era while playing for both Barcelona and the Spanish national team. I mean, look no further than the players ranked ahead of him on this list.
Fàbregas carried Arsenal despite only being a teenager. In the 2004/05 and 2005/06 seasons before he even turned 19, Fàbregas had a combined 15 goal contributions and played well over 2,000 minutes for the Gunners. Then, he exploded with 11 assists and 17 assists in the following two seasons, producing the most sublime playmaking in the English top flight.
During his seven seasons with Arsenal, the Gunners never finished outside the top four, with Fàbregas reaching double-digit assists in four of those campaigns. When he pushed his way back to his dream club Barcelona in 2011/12, he hadn’t even turned 25 years old, yet he was already recognized as one of the elite players in the world – and he could have reached even greater statistical heights as the clear star in North London.
Yet you cannot consider Fàbregas’ move to Barcelona a failure, because even though he took a backseat to the likes of Lionel Messi and Xavi, the young playmaker was still sensational. In his three seasons with the Blaugrana, Fàbregas had 28 goals and 33 assists, effectively averaging 20 goal contributions per season. That is outrageous, particularly on a team with so many mouths to feed.
After never winning the Premier League with Arsenal, Fàbregas returned to England in 2014/15 as a 27-year-old to rivals Chelsea and was immediately the best playmaker in the country. He totaled 18 assists in his first season with the Blues, leading them to the title. After that, Fàbregas wasn’t quite the same and declined early from his theoretical prime, suffering injuries and likely feeling the effects of a career that included an awful lot of minutes and damage in his teens at Arsenal. Even so, Fàbregas did have one last hurrah in him in 2016/17, scoring 5 goals with 12 assists as a key member of another Premier League-winning Chelsea side.
Maybe Fàbregas’ career could have been remembered more for the talent he was, and it may seem controversial to have him ranked above players like David Villa and Carles Puyol – more successful teammates at Barcelona. But you cannot overlook what Fàbregas did at his true peak with Arsenal. He was unplayable and one of the best young talents many of us have seen in our lifetimes. He really was that good.
8. David Silva, AM, Valencia/Manchester City/Real Sociedad
David Silva may leave an underappreciated legacy in world football, because he doesn’t have the statistics of some of his contemporaries. It’s fair to worry that elegant, linking players like Silva who made the team better tactically will get overlooked because of that fixation on goals and assists. But to those who watched Silva in the Manchester City midfield, the man was incomparable and one of the most consistent players in the world. He made City a juggernaut, serving a more important role than perhaps any other player in the club’s modern history – even Kevin De Bruyne.
The Spanish international got his start in LaLiga for Celta Vigo before moving to Valencia, back when they were truly one of the biggest clubs in Spain, producing players like David Villa and Juan Mata. He was an immediate success in the Spanish top flight, even providing seven goal contributions for Celta as a teenager before exploding with 11 for the Bats. By the time he left for Manchester as a 24-year-old entering his prime, he had 14 goal contributions to his name and led Valencia to a third-place finish in LaLiga.
With Manchester City, Silva became a player capable of scoring or assisting in the double-digits in the Premier League at a time when the English top flight was returning to absolute prominence in European football. Silva pulled the strings, creating two or three chances per game over the entire decade for the Citizens, in addition to providing silky dribbling that progressed play and weaved his team through tight traffic in the final third.
Before his arrival in 2010/11, City had never been in the Champions League. They finished in the top three in his first season. And then, they finally won the entire Premier League one year later, with Silva playing the decisive role with a whopping 15 assists. From then on, would help the team hoist the title three more times, ushering in an era of unrivaled dominance upon heartfully departing the club for a return to Spain with Real Sociedad.
Already 34 upon arriving in San Sebastián, the seasoned veteran helped upgrade the status of La Real, too. In his final season in 2022/23, Real Sociedad finally secured Champions League football, having last finished in the top four of LaLiga 10 years ago. Silva played a key role as a deeper facilitator, helping the likes of Takefusa Kubo and Brais Méndez devastate LaLiga defenses. And Silva himself was still a useful playmaker, registering five assists as a 36-year-old standout in LaLiga.
For each of the clubs he played for, Silva left an indelible mark and demonstrably made them better, including after he left. But even on a crowded Spanish national team, the intelligent and eternal midfielder made his mark, contributing to five goals in just six games during Spain’s triumphant 2012 European Championship campaign, for example.
Silva needs to be remembered as a legend of Spanish football and should not be overshadowed by the other world-class midfielders in the country during the 2000s, 2010s, and even the earlier 2020s. He bridged eras and, if anything, may be underappreciated because of the sheer magnitude of his season-to-season consistency in any sort of environment.
7. Sergio Busquets, DM, Barcelona
The benchmark by which all No. 6’s will be evaluated going forward, Sergio Busquets was the beating heart of the Barcelona midfield from 2008/09 to 2022/23. Though he shared responsibilities with others, including Xavi and Javier Mascherano, Busquets forged a legacy all to his own with his innate ability to always find the proper pass.
There is a term now called “technical empathy” that is meant to address making passes that are easier for the receiver to control and actually do something with. Busquets had already mastered this art long before it even entered the mouths of the modern footballing lexicon. Forwards at Barcelona delighted in Busquets’ ability to place passes in their direction on a silver platter, playing into space or at their feet, knowing that if they did need to turn while receiving, Busquets had weighted the curve and pace of the ball such that they could do so safely.
Defensively, Busquets was a monster, even if he did not look like one with his wiry frame. The defensive midfielder won his battles by using an attacker’s momentum against them, positioning himself perfectly, and baiting opposing defenders into making the wrong pass up the pitch. Busquets gave the opposition a sense of security before snapping into a tackle, and he was firmer with his challenges than his frame would suggest.
During his time in LaLiga, Barcelona dominated the competition with nine league titles, seven Copas del Rey, and three Champions League titles. Internationally, Busquets was part of the Spanish national team that won the 2010 World Cup and 2012 European Championship. He is one of the best players to ever lace up the Barcelona boots.
6. Fernando Torres, ST, Atlético Madrid/Liverpool/Chelsea
The highest-ranked player on this list to never play for Real Madrid or Barcelona, Fernando Torres is, instead, an Atlético Madrid icon. He’s also a Liverpool one, even though he broke their hearts by leaving for another top Premier League side in Chelsea, having been frustrated with a lack of ambition from Liverpool on the transfer market. His chase for glory and gold with the Blues did end in triumph, with Torres scoring a vital goal to sink Barcelona in the Champions League en route to winning the title with the London-based outfit. However, Torres’ legacy suffered from his failure to adapt at Chelsea, as his time there was mostly known for abysmal finishing.
His struggles at Chelsea were especially puzzling, because Torres was the most lethal finisher in world football before joining the Blues. While at Liverpool, Torres was automatic. He scored 24 goals in his first season with the Reds, averaging 0.75 goals per 90 minutes during his four seasons at Anfield. And before that, Torres had an even better scoring record with his home club of Atlético Madrid, finding the back of the net 19 times as a teenager in 2003/04.
After a brief spell with AC Milan, Torres would return to Atléti as a grizzled 30-year-old and rewrite the part of his legacy that soured in London by being one of LaLiga’s better strikers. Torres had 28 goal contributions between the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, maturing into a more well-rounded No. 9 to end his days at the club that always embraced him. Atléti even reached the final of the Champions League with him, though they were heartbroken again by Real Madrid.
Torres’ club career was solid, but he really stood out at the international level. Spain’s rise started with Torres, who was irresistible in the 2008 European Championships, forming one of the best striker partnerships we have ever seen at an international tournament alongside David Villa. It was Torres’ moment of individual brilliance that proved decisive in Spain defeating Germany 1-0 in that Final. Though he would not be undisputed in the lineup during the other two title victories, Torres did score a goal with an assist in Spain’s 2012 demolition of Italy at the Euros.
For those who watched El Niño play in the late 2000s and early 2010s, there wasn’t a better striker. He had the full package with his explosiveness, finishing skills, and ability to always find that yard of space inside the penalty box. You just could not defend him.
5. Raúl, ST, Real Madrid/Schalke
Raúl has a case for being the most elegant striker of all time, yet he was also a scrappy leader for Real Madrid during the Galácticos era. He was the homegrown (well, Real Madrid did sign him from Atlético Madrid’s academy) hero ticketed to spend his prime years as Madrid’s attacking superstar when the club brought in the likes of Luis Figo and Ronaldo Nazário to build a beyond-stacked attack. It unbalanced the squad, yes, but it set an unforgettable legacy of attractive football and made Madrid a global brand that would later attract the superstars who would have sustained success.
At the time, many wondered if Raúl could lose his place or some status. How would he co-exist with Ronaldo? Who would be the bigger star? Peak No. 9 Ronaldo was untouchable, but if you look at the full context of that era, Raúl was the best player at Real Madrid. The homegrown Spanish international was the superstar among all the global superstars.
Though Raúl never won the Ballon d’Or because of all the talent he played with in his era, he came close in 2001 as the runner-up and was the Pichichi winner twice. Raúl, more importantly, achieved great team success through two different decades, winning LaLiga six times and bridging the success of the 90s with the Galácticos era and then the fruitful 2010s. He surpassed 20 goals three times in his career and reached 10 assists in the 2002/03 season when Los Blancos won LaLiga.
Maybe Raúl could have scored more goals and achieved even more individual plaudits if he were more selfish, but part of what made Raúl so special was his team-first attitude. On a side full of egos, superstars, selfishness, and a notorious lack of training discipline, Raúl was the one who avoided the spotlight. He was the first one in and the last one out on the training ground, setting an example that the Madrid sides of the 2010s would later follow.
A three-time Champions League winner, Raúl is yet another Real Madrid legend who saved his most iconic performances for the biggest stage when his team needed it most. Even after he left Madrid for two seasons at Schalke in the Bundesliga, he immediately became a club legend in a totally different environment. The German crowds saw how special Raúl’s professionalism and guidance of the youth was, with the likes of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (29 goals in 2011/12) and 17-year-old phenom Julian Draxler benefiting greatly from his graciousness. Raúl still got his, too, scoring 28 goals between his two seasons in Gelsenkirchen.
4. Iker Casillas, GK, Real Madrid
San Iker, as he is known by Real Madrid fans, had quite the rise in a Royal White jersey, heroically making saves in the second half of the 2002 Champions League Final after the starter got injured. Iker Casillas and César Sánchez had been trading places in between the sticks, with the veteran displacing Casillas after a rough patch. But after Casillas’ historically great performance in the waning minutes against Bayer Leverkusen to help Real Madrid preserve their Zinédine Zidane-inspired 2-1 lead over the greatest Leverkusen side in history, he never looked back as the No. 1 in the Spanish capital.
Casillas put together two decades of greatness in Madrid, becoming the team’s captain. Another homegrown legend of the Galácticos era, Casillas tied Raúl as being the player from that era of Madrid with the most fruitful impact on the pitch. (If you include coaching, Zinédine Zidane obviously enters that discussion).
A three-time Champions League winner and five-time LaLiga champion, Casillas won at all costs and made game-saving stops on a consistent basis. His cat-like reflexes were praised to the point of turning a cliché into an even bigger one, but that made it work. It became an endearing, universal way to praise a penalty-spot maestro with a penchant for clawing out sure-fire goals from inside the six-yard box.
Real Madrid had a difficult period before La Décima, with Casillas being the main leader keeping the side going. It was rewarding to watch him hoist the Champions League title, even as it was bitter to see how his time at the club ended before Keylor Navas came in. Casillas will always be one of the biggest legends to play for Real Madrid and a serial winner.
At the international level, Casillas was just as good. Everything he did for Real Madrid, he did for Spain, and he was often the unifying force for the national team amidst the bitter rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona during the Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho days. (Casillas, of course, had his own issues with the controversial Mourinho). “The Saint” and his calming influence were undoubtedly vital to each of Spain’s three major triumphs.
3. Andrés Iniesta, CM, Barcelona
The winner of the 2010 World Cup, Andrés Iniesta cooly finished the goal that put Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, and the gutsy Netherlands away in extra time. Iniesta always looked like the most likely man to score in that match, and, at the time, he was so good that he was entering the discussions with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the absolute best player on the planet.
Iniesta began his career in Barcelona in the 2002/03 season as an 18-year-old, rising up the ranks alongside Lionel Messi in La Masia as someone widely seen as the next legend of the club. Barcelona were already watching Xavi flourish after coming from the academy, and they knew Iniesta could be another building block in the midfield with an even more creative skill set.
Even the most optimistic fan could not have seen just how incredible Iniesta would become 10 years later. Iniesta was the centerpiece playmaker of the 2008/09 and 2010/11 Barcelona teams that won the Champions League and were seen as two of the best club sides in the history of football. He then had 15 assists in the 2012/13 season when Barça won LaLiga again.
In total, Iniesta won the Champions League four times with La Blaugrana, the last hurrah coming in that special 2014/15 season for the Blaugrana attack. And he was just as dominant in Spanish football, taking home the LaLiga title nine times with six Copas del Rey.
Iniesta was arguably the best player on the Spanish national team during their peak between 2008 and 2012, leaving defensive players for dead and controlling the midfield alongside Xavi, just as they were doing it for Barcelona. The legacies of Iniesta and Xavi are impossible to separate from each other, and it is just as unfair to try and definitively pick one over the other. You have to appreciate both.
2. Xavi, CM, Barcelona
As Xavi helps Barcelona rebuild as a manager, he has an untouchable and unquestionable legacy at the club as a player. From the moment he stepped foot in the first team as a 17-year-old in the late 90s, everyone around Spanish football knew that Xavi was ticketed for greatness. He didn’t look like an imposing presence, but with his almost innate feel for the ball and knowledge of the game, you understood that the young midfielder was going to innovate in ways that changed the game.
His skill moves, turns, touches, flicks, and calmness when in possession can never be replicated. Xavi was a guy who epitomized the idea of winning space and defending with the ball. He executed Pep Guardiola’s tactical genius perfectly, serving as the coach on the field for a man also known as a coach on the field during his playing days as a Barça midfielder.
Xavi was an 8 who mostly dictated play, progressed the ball, and provided industry and linking in midfield, yet he had some gaudy statistics. From 2007/08 to 2012/13 when Barcelona dominated European football like nobody else, Xavi never had fewer than 12 goal contributions in a season. In fact, he averaged nearly 16 goal contributions per season in that time period, including a jaw-dropping 19 assists in that insane 2008/09 season.
Equally brilliant for the Spanish national team, Xavi is one of those players who defined an entire era of football globally with how he ran the Tiki-Taka show. He was effective, aesthetic, and unique. Xavi is one of those players we will never see again, but his influence can be seen in just about every single modern-day center midfielder.
1. Sergio Ramos, CB, Sevilla/Real Madrid
The arguable GOAT center back, alongside Paolo Maldini and Franz Beckenbauer, gets in at No. 1 above two legendary Barcelona midfielders who were Ballon d’Or candidates at one point. Anyone ranking Xavi or Iniesta No. 1 is well within their right to do so, but there’s something about Ramos’ overall accomplishments and ability to be elite at two completely distinct positions that makes him the most fitting for the top spot.
An icon for rivals Real Madrid, Ramos won the Champions League four times in five seasons for Los Blancos, after already achieving the pinnacle of success with the Spanish national team as a tireless right back.
Ramos was so good, in fact, that he was statistically rated as the very best player in the 2010 World Cup when Spain were comfortably the champions of the world, surviving a tough challenge in the Final from Arjen Robben and Co.
To begin his career at Sevilla, Ramos was a right back and quickly showed the technical class that would eventually make him the most uniquely gifted center back in world football. Ramos impressed so much at Sevilla that he earned a 30 million euro transfer to Real Madrid, which would go down in history as a bargain.
A great right back for Madrid, Ramos transitioned to center back and became even more influential there with his ability to read the game and make decisive, goal-saving interventions. Fearless in defense, Ramos was lion-hearted and made plenty of clutch attacking plays, too, such as his 92:48 header vs. Atlético Madrid in the 2013/14 Champions League Final.
Ramos completed 90 percent of his passes in eight different league seasons between his time at Real Madrid and PSG, and he is currently working on a ninth season reaching that benchmark in his return to Sevilla. Even at the age of 37, the No. 4 is one of the best players at his position on the planet. He has won everything there is to win and achieved the highest degree of individual success at center and right back. No defender in history has scored more goals than Ramos, and that aspect of his game is just the sweetener to everything he does as a ball-playing CB and rugged defender.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.