9 players we can’t believe didn’t make The Athletic’s 100 greatest footballers in history

The Athletic have just released a new book ranking the 100 greatest players in football history, and the likes of Lionel Messi , Cristiano Ronaldo , Diego Maradona and Pele unsurprisingly feature near the top.

The football website’s team of writers have contributed to the newly-released ‘ The Soccer 100 ‘ book, with a chapter on each of the top 100 footballers of all time. But which names didn’t make it in? You’d be surprised – there are some big and controversial omissions.

Here are nine of the best players we can’t believe didn’t make the list.

England’s all-time top goalscorer doesn’t make the cut.

A man who’d almost certainly be closing down on Alan Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record had he decided to stick around in English football.

Yes, Kane might not have the silverware to show for his brilliance. But surely there’s more criteria for greatness.

We defy anyone to watch Kane in his Spurs pomp, or see the football he’s produced in recent months at Bayern Munich , and conclude that’s not one of the best 100 footballers in history. That’s not recency bias – just common sense.

It’s difficult to include players who are currently at the peak of their powers. We get it. At 25 years of age, Haaland has far from written his full legacy.

He couldn’t suffer a career-ending injury tomorrow, though, and we’d be pretty sure he’s already done enough to be considered among the all-timers.

The fastest player to 100 Premier League goals . Fifty-two goals in Man City’s 2022-23 treble campaign. Firing Norway to their first World Cup in a generation by making mincemeat of the qualifiers. What more does he need to prove?

We just mentioned Haaland’s outrageously fast Premier League century. Well, Suarez reached a hundred La Liga goals in just three fewer matches .

He’s Uruguay’s all-time top goalscorer. A classic, historic footballing nation. He’s also third in Barcelona’s scoring charts. Suarez has lifted silverware pretty much everywhere he’s been, and was one third of the most devastatingly unstoppable attack football’s ever seen.

His namesake, the Spanish Ballon d’Or winner from the fifties, also didn’t make the cut. Justice for Suarez(es).

This is probably the most glaring omission.

There’s a brutal efficiency to Lewandowski’s game that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to flowery prose, like Garrincha, Gazza or George Best.

But c’mon.

Only Messi and Ronaldo (first and fifth, for what it’s worth) have scored more goals in the entire history of Europe’s big five leagues.

Thirteen league titles with Lech Poznan, Borussia Dortmund , Bayern Munich and Barcelona . Robbed of a rightful Ballon d’Or after his show-stealing turn in Bayern Munich’s treble in 2020.

We have no qualms with Mbappe being included. He deserves it. But you can’t have him and overlook Lewandowski, given all he’s achieved.

In the four entries above, we’ve listed their outrageous records and achievements.

Stevie G probably can’t compete on that front, but The Athletic’s top 100 – thankfully – isn’t just a list of who scored the most goals and lifted the most trophies.

There’s room for something a bit more ethereal, players who made you feel things. We’re sure the entries on the likes of Francesco Totti, Socrates and Dennis Bergkamp make for wonderful reading. Likewise the chapter on Gerrard that somehow doesn’t exist.

Virgil van Dijk missed out too. Waterstones across Merseyside, brace yourselves.

Browsing the list of names that did make the list, there’s a wonderful array of eras, leagues and cultures represented. We get that they didn’t want the present day and Premier League to dominate.

Kante, though. Kante .

Forget the World Cup . Forget Antonio Conte’s Chelsea. Forget the Champions League. The man transformed Leicester City into Premier League champions. That’s surely enough for inclusion alone.

We know there was something awfully unromantic about the Bayern Munich side that bludgeoned their way to 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles.

A kind of success so massive it almost undermined itself, prompting existential questions about the stratification of resources and whether the sport is eating itself.

We’re not having Manuel Neuer as the sole representative of that era-defining team. Yes, he redefined modern goalkeeping, changing the sport as a true one-off.

But you could say the same for Muller at the other end of the pitch. The man responsible for writing ‘raumdeuter’ in any self-respecting football hipster’s lexicon.

Shall we start with Spain? Starting in all three finals as La Roja made history by bookending the World Cup with two European Championships.

How about scoring the header that won Real Madrid the fabled La Decima before going on to captain them to a further three Champions League trophies in as many years.

Take away all that and Ramos would still be worthy of a place just as football’s greatest exponent of the dark arts.

Look up ‘sh*thouse’ in the football dictionary and it’d surely be accompanied by a picture of Ramos.

You might look at the above eight names and level the charge that Planet Football’s Soccer 100 would be way too dominated by the last 25 years. Guilty as charged.

An attempt to balance the scales with a shoutout for Mazzola, one of the leading lights of the ‘Grande Torino’ team tragically wiped out in the 1949 Superga air crash.

The legendary Italian midfielder featured as high as 37th in FourFourTwo’s all-time top 100 greatest footballers , but didn’t make The Athletic