10. Paul Scholes (Manchester United)
He redefined the role of attacking midfield player in the Premiership. The one concern is how well he would do away from his mentor, Sir Alex Ferguson. Now he's already over 30. He might need to give to promising youngster in Manchester United team like Darren Gibson.
9. Juninho Pernambucano (Lyons)
Elegant and creative, but also with an edge when necessary, he can light up any side. Plus, he’ll get his usual haul of set-piece goals. He's the God in taking free kick. i bet you must know this.
8. Ronaldinho (Barcelona)
There’s a reason he’s always smiling. You’d be smiling all the time too if you knew that you were the best player on the pitch and you were about to make some poor defender look a jackass. He is the poster child for Brazilian football, the proud heir of those who came before him. He didn’t adapt to the European game, he forced it to adapt to him. Put him on the team sheet, sit back and enjoy the show. His glorious time in Barcelona has past but we could remember him how he scored the fantastic goal with Chelsea!
7. Carlos Tevez (Manchester United)
A single-minded winner, who has carried whole clubs on his back in Argentina, Brazil and England. Tevez’s contribution isn’t measured in just goals and assists, but in self-sacrifice and heroism. With a season of European football under his belt, there is no telling how much better he’s going to be next year. Manchester United never respect this man, delaying the offers for Tevez (he really wanted to stay at Old Trafford). So, here we go, he's heading to Manchester City. He's the general on the field. I bet you know this!
6. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)
Another who had a mediocre season (by his standards). You notice how important he is when he is not there. His workrate and ability are hard to replace and he is quickly becoming indispensable, both for club and country. Now he's going to take big responsbility to replace the impact of Cristiano Ronaldo and Tevez in the team.
5. Leo Messi (Barcelona)
Leave Maradona out of it for a minute. Focus instead on that when the ball is at his feet, unless you’re Nostradamus, you have absolutely no idea what will happen next. There is no legislating for unpredictability in football and Messi has bags of it. Plus, his 14 Liga goals last year show that he has added a healthy scoring dimension to his game as well.
4. John Terry (Chelsea)
He’s what God had in mind when he invented the British centre half. While Terry’s strength and courage win him plaudits, he is also an underrated distributor who reads the game very well.
3. Kaka (Milan)
The top four are incredibly tight, but he just edges it for one simple reason: he combines Brazilian flair with European directness like nobody else. He truly is a product of two footballing cultures, a man who has all the virtues and none of the vices of either. Speaking of vices, he really, really doesn’t have any. A committed Christian, he announced proudly that he was a virgin on his wedding night. He likes to parade around in his favourite T-shirt, the one that reads “I belong to Jesus” (thereby opening a whole can of worms regarding third-party ownership). And that’s another reason he tops the list - with Kaka in your team, odds are, the big fella upstairs will be on your side as well.
2. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
Speaking of heroics, he’s done it so many times, it’s easy to lose track. If Gerrard were a few inches taller and a few pounds more slight, we would marvel at his pure technical ability. Instead, we focus on his bruising workrate and other more obvious qualities. Don’t worry about fitting him into your side. Just do what Rafa does. Line up your nine other outfield players and let Gerrard do whatever he likes.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
In the P.C. era (pre-Cristiano) wingers were slight, nippy and small. He redefined the position marrying size and brawn with pace and trickery. You get the sense that, when he’s running at defenders, he could go around them or straight through them. As an added bonus, he’s also an aerial threat on set pieces. The 80 million tranfer deal to Real madrid could make him one of the richest man in sport history, earning 500,000 per week ( rumours). No one could replace him for now. Doughlas Costa? We need to wait and see... Wait for Man utd to buy him.
Greatest10 wish you all the best in what ever you do!
