Who is the best current center back in world football?
Defenders often don't get their due in world football, and it's a conundrum that has impacted the position, especially the center back position, for several decades; it's not a new phenomenon.
Fabio Cannavaro, Franz Beckenbauer, and Mattias Sammer are the only defensive players to have won the Ballon d'Or. In addition to just being underrated in general, defenders are hurt by the fact that defensive output and impact are much more difficult to measure objectively and statistically than attacking impact.
Even the new-age analytics often do a poor job of adequately evaluating or contextualizing the value of defensive performances. As Paolo Maldini liked to say, the best defenders often don't have to make an intervention at all.
Virgil Van Dijk was worth the record transfer fee at cent...