How do you choose the 100 best footballers in the world? This year we recruited our widest judging panel yet in the Guardian’s annual bid to settle the ultimate pub argument: 73 experts drawn from 28 nations casting a total of 2,920 votes.
Hernán Crespo, Gilberto Silva, Slaven Bilic and Dietmar Hamann are among the leading names on a jury comprised of international players, journalists, broadcasters and Guardian correspondents.
Our 11 players on the panel have amassed a total of 1,003 international caps and three World Cup winners’ medals; every continent is represented at least twice on the jury; and between all 73 judges they have witnessed hundreds of matches and thousands of players in every major league on the planet this year.
All this experience and expertise we asked them to distil into their own individual top 40 list. We combined all the results to produce our own top 100 for the year.
On Sunday we reveal Nos 100-71, on Monday Nos 70-41 and on Tuesday Nos 40-11, before we publish the top 10 on Christmas Eve to complete this year’s list.
It’s not definitive, of course. Ask 73 other people and you will get a different answer. But it is our list, and we hope you enjoy it.
Judging panel and categories
• The 73 judges were separated into three categories: international players (current and retired); international journalists and broadcasters; and Guardian reporters, correspondents and senior editors.
• Every continent is represented at least twice in the whole panel. Every continent is represented at least once among our 11 players. In total 28 nationalities have been consulted. Our aim was to achieve a spread of age, nationality, experience and area of specialism.
• The judges below are listed in alphabetical order.
International players
• Eniola Aluko Current England women’s international
• Slaven Bilic Former Croatia international; played at 1998 World Cup
• Hernan Crespo Former Argentina international; played at 1998, 2002 & 2006 World Cups
• Jan Aage Fjortoft Former Norway international
• Quinton Fortune Ex-Manchester United and South Africa international
• Julie Foudy Former US captain who played 271 times for her country; won two World Cups
• Dietmar Hamann Ex-Liverpool and Germany international; 2002 World Cup runner-up
• Sunday Oliseh Former Nigeria international; played at 1994 & 1998 World Cups
• Gilberto Silva Former Brazil international who won the World Cup in 2002
• Claudio Suárez Former Mexico international and his country’s record caps holder
• Kazuyuki Toda Former Japanese international; played at 2002 World Cup
International journalists and broadcasters
• Gary Al-Smith African football expert
• Vítor Hugo Alvarenga Football writer, Maisfutebol, Portugal
• Philippe Auclair Senior writer, France Football
• Andy Brassell European football writer and broadcaster
• Martín Charquero Uruguayan football journalist on Tenfield and Goltv
• Ma Dexing China’s most prominent football writer
• Gianluca Di Marzio Sky Sport Italy journalist, specialising in football transfers
• Stavros Drakoularakos CEO of 24Media, Greece
• John Duerden Asian football correspondent
• Diego ‘Chavo’ Fucks Argentinian football writer
• Johanna Garå Swedish football writer
• Aleksandar Holiga Croatian football writer
• James Horncastle Italian football expert
• Sasa Ibrulj Bosnian football writer
• Tor-Kristian Karlsen Advisor to football clubs
• Carlo Laudisa Senior football writer at La Gazzetta dello Sport
• Julien Laurens BT Sport French expert and UK correspondent for Le Parisien
• Olof Lundh Swedish football columnist for Fotbollskanalen and pundit for TV4
• Ben Lyttleton European football writer/broadcaster
• Ben Mabley Football writer/broadcaster based in Japan
• Tom Marshall Football writer based in Mexico
• Marcela Mora y Araujo Argentinian football writer
• Fernando Palomo TV commentator, voice of Fifa Latin America
• Artur Petrosyan Editor in chief, Sport-Express, Russia
• Michal Pol Editor in chief of sports daily Przeglad Sportowy
• Fabrizio Romano Sky Sport Italy journalist and Goal contributor
• Thijs Slegers Dutch football writer for Voetbal International
• Kristof Terreur Belgian football writer and Premier League correspondent
• Paulo Vinicius Coelho Brazilian football writer
• Carl Worswick Football writer based in Colombia
• Michael Yokhin European football writer
Guardian reporters, correspondents and editors
• Ed Aarons Deputy news editor
• Nick Ames Football writer
• Paolo Bandini Italian football correspondent
• Simon Burnton Football writer
• Paul Campbell Community co-ordinator, sport
• Marcus Christenson Football editor
• Michael Cox Tactics expert
• James Dart Sports editor, theguardian.com
• Paul Doyle Football writer
• Fernando Duarte Brazilian football correspondent
• Dominic Fifield Football writer
• Owen Gibson Chief sports correspondent
• Barry Glendenning Deputy sports editor, web
• Matthew Hancock Observer sports editor
• Raphael Honigstein German football correspondent
• Andy Hunter Football writer
• David Hytner Football writer
• Jamie Jackson Football writer
• Stuart James Football writer
• Amy Lawrence Football writer
• Sid Lowe Spanish football correspondent
• Sachin Nakrani Sports features editor
• Gary Payne Deputy football editor
• Ian Prior GNM head of sport
• Barney Ronay Senior sports writer
• Martin Rose Guardian sports editor
• Jacob Steinberg Football writer
• Daniel Taylor Chief football writer
• Louise Taylor Football writer
• Jonathan Wilson Columnist and international expert
• Paul Wilson Observer football correspondent
How our judges made their choices
• Our judges were sent a longlist of 244 players drawn from leagues on every continent and asked one simple question: who have been the best players in the world in 2014?
• They were free to choose players not on the longlist if they wished.
• We asked our judges to choose 40 names each, and rank their selection in order from 1-40, No1 being their choice of the best player in the world this year.
How the voting worked
• The No1 choice of each judge was awarded 40pts, No2 given 39pts, down to 1pt for their No40 choice.
• All the votes were added together to give a final score.
• A player needed to receive a minimum of three judges’ votes to qualify. Any player who failed to meet these criteria was eliminated from the final list.
• The full voting statistics are published here.
Voting disclosure
• We are very grateful to our judges for taking part, and none have been paid for participating in this project.
• To allow our judges the freedom to express their opinions without fear or favour, individual voting records are anonymised on the full breakdown of scores.
• Voters are identified only by their category and a number chosen at random. The judges’ numbers bear no relation whatsoever to the alphabetical list of judges’ names presented above.
