Twelve months ago Cristiano Ronaldo swept all before him in world football and knocked Lionel Messi off top spot in our 2014 list of the world’s top 100 players. Since then, Barcelona have won an historic Treble, with Messi invariably the fulcrum in his team’s dazzling displays.
Is that enough for the Argentinian to regain his position at the summit of our 2015 list at Ronaldo’s expense? Or should the breathtaking chutzpah of Neymar propel the Brazilian towards our No1 spot this year? And what about the third element in Barça’s majestic attacking triumvirate, Luis Suárez?
Meanwhile, how should we assess the impact of Jamie Vardy’s phenomenal year in a global reckoning of talent? How do his goalscoring exploits for Leicester City compare to those of Robert Lewandowski for Bayern Munich, for example?
How much recognition should go to goal creators like Mesut Ozil? And what about the goal preventers like Manuel Neuer, David de Gea and Philipp Lahm?
These are the questions we asked of our judges when we set them the task of choosing the Guardian’s World’s Top 100 Footballers of 2015.
This year we have gathered together our biggest judging panel yet: 123 judges from 49 countries led by 16 current and former internationals who have won a combined total of 1,145 caps.
Names such as Zico, Javier Zanetti, Gheorghe Hagi, Paolo di Canio and Quinton Fortune have given up their time to participate in an illustrious judging team which also comprises reporters, writers, columnists, editors, broadcasters, advisors and coaches from around the world. Many are household names in their own country. Together, they have a combined Twitter following of 14.7m.
Our judges have seen thousands of players around the globe this year at every leading club and in every major league. We asked them to distil their experience and expertise into a list of their individual top 40 choices, which we turned into our overall countdown of 100 names.
You can read the full list of judges and the rules here.
As usual we will reveal this year’s results over four days, starting on Monday 21 December with Nos100-71, continuing with 70-41 on Tuesday, 40-11 on Wednesday, and concluding with the top 10 on Christmas Eve.
Hopefully entertaining and not too infuriating, this is our list and we hope you enjoy it. But before we start our own countdown, it’s over to you. Who would you like to see in this year’s Top 100, and why?
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