These are the 27 most important soccer players in history. You probably won't agree with our choices

These are the 27 most important soccer players in history. You probably won't agree with our choices From pioneers to politicians and legends to legal campaigners, Jonathan Wright profiles the players who have helped to shape history To quote Bill Shankly: “Somebody said that ‘Football is a matter of life and death to you.’ I said: ‘Listen, it’s more important than that’.” The legendary Liverpool manager was trying to convey his passion for the game – and, a point sometimes missed when those words are recounted, his regret at how his family suffered because of his obsession. Many others have found themselves in the grip of a similar fixation. And, whether or not you personally like the game, football matters. In 1969, El Salvador and Honduras even briefly went to war after a riot broke out at a World Cup qualifier between the two countries. The conflict resulted in thousands of casualties. Happily, the beautiful game rarely sparks such ugliness, but plenty of characters have lived through other days where history and football have collided in fateful ways. With a few notable exceptions, the following 27 players aren’t necessarily the greatest names to have kicked a ball. However, on the eve of the latest World Cup, the story of each says something about how the beautiful game both shapes and reflects our world... 1. Arthur Wharton (1865–1930) Gold Coast-born pioneer The man widely thought to have been the world’s first black professional footballer was Arthur Wharton. Born in Jamestown – now part of Accra, Ghana – he arrived in England to train as a Methodist missionary. However, he was far more interested in sport than in saving souls. In 1886, he ran the 100-yard sprint in 10 seconds, equalling the world record. His football career began at Darlington FC. Subsequently, via time with Preston North End, he went professional with Rotherham Town in 1889. Though primarily a goalkeeper, he would also occasionally play on the wing. His later life was steeped in sadness: an alcoholic, he was buried in a pauper’s grave. 2. Herbert Chapman (1878–1934) Journeyman player, great manager In the early days of English professional football, teams were run by committees. This approach threw up forward-thinking figures such as Preston North End’s secretary, Major William Suddell, who recruited top players from as far afield as Scotland. However, the idea of a team manager had yet to coalesce. This changed in the 1920s and 1930s as the figure of the ‘gaffer’ emerged. The greatest of these interwar managers was Herbert Chapman, who built two sides that would go on to win a hat-trick of league titles in successive seasons: Huddersfield Town and Arsenal. Like José Mourinho later, Chapman enjoyed a modest playing career but thought deeply about the game and had a genius for coaching. 3. Walter Tull (1888–1918) Leader of men The son of a Barbadian carpenter (whose father had been enslaved) and an English mother, Walter Tull came to prominence playing for amateur side Clapton. In 1909, he signed for Tottenham Hotspur where, because of his mixed heritage, he received abuse from the terraces. In 1911, he moved to Northampton Town. While nobody doubted Tull’s skill, it’s been suggested he lacked the pace to play at the highest level. Nevertheless, he must have been an impressive figure because, in 1917, after serving on the Western Front, he became one of the first mixed-heritage officers in a regular British Army regiment. He was killed in action in March 1918. 4. José Nasazzi (1901–68) The captain of them all Over nearly a century of the global tournament, 22 men and nine women have held aloft the World Cup. They include some of the game’s greatest names: Moore, Beckenbauer, Maradona, Messi and April Heinrichs – captain of the US team that won the first ever FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991. All followed in the bootprints of Uruguayan defender José Nasazzi. The son of European immigrants, he was known as El Gran Mariscal (The Great Marshal) because of his ability to organise a team. This proved vital in the first-ever World Cup final, held at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo in 1930. Trailing 2–1 to Argentina at half-time, hosts Uruguay fought back to win 4–2. 5. Matthias Sindelar (1903–39) Principled and brilliant In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria. The Austrian national football team – which had reached the World Cup semi-finals in 1934 and was dubbed the Wunderteam – was folded into the German side. Not, though, before the scheduling of a ‘reunification’-celebrating match between Austria and Germany. After scoring in Austria’s 2–0 victory, it’s said that centre-forward Matthias Sindelar, known as the ‘Mozart of football’, celebrated wildly. He subsequently refused to play for Germany, citing injury and age. Was this code for a principled refusal? We will never know. Officially, Sindelar died accidentally of carbon monoxide poisoning in Vienna in 1939, but rumours have long swirled that he committed suicide or was murdered by the Nazis. 6. Lily Parr (1905–78) Stardom and the hardest shot In the summer of 1915, competitive men’s football was suspended in the UK as the First World War raged on. This created an opportunity for the women’s game, and teams such as Dick, Kerr Ladies, founded in 1917. That team’s greatest player was Lily Parr, a winger who ate voraciously, chain-smoked Woodbines and reportedly had a shot harder than any man. Post-1918, the women’s game attracted huge crowds: in 1920, no fewer than 53,000 showed up at Everton’s Goodison Park to watch Dick, Kerr Ladies take on St Helens. Alarmed, the Football Association (FA) banned women from playing at its members’ grounds, holding back the women’s game for decades. As for Parr, she scored close to 1,000 goals and, despite the FA’s efforts, played into her mid-forties. 7. Sir Stanley Matthews (1915–2000) Enduring brilliance Born during the First World War, Stanley Matthews didn’t retire from playing until he was 50. His final league game in the top flight came for Stoke City against Fulham on 6 February 1965. Matthews, a winger so tricky he was dubbed ‘The Wizard of Dribble’, was the first footballer to be knighted while still playing and, in 1956, the first recipient of the Ballon d’Or. But he’s perhaps best remembered for the FA Cup final of 1953 – the so-called “Matthews Final”. With much of the nation cheering him on, he played brilliantly while helping Blackpool to a 4–3 win against Bolton Wanderers. 8. Bert Trautmann (1923–2013) Adopted hero Few players demonstrate the unifying potential of football as powerfully as goalkeeper Bert Trautmann. He arrived in the UK in 1945 as a prisoner of war and, as a volunteer paratrooper indoctrinated at a young age, was regarded as a Nazi. In 1948, he was offered repatriation to Germany but instead decided to stay in England. After playing as an amateur with St Helens Town, he joined Manchester City. Following initial protests at the idea of a German ex-soldier playing for the club, Trautmann’s sheer brilliance won over fans. In the 1956 FA Cup final, unbeknown to Trautmann, he played part of the game with a broken neck. 9. Ferenc Puskás (1927–2006) Football’s first superstar On 25 November 1953, in the “Match of the Century”, Hungary spanked England 6–3 at Wembley. It was the first time England had lost at home to a team from continental Europe. But in May 1954 in Budapest, the carnage was even worse: England lost 7–1. Playing in a fluid 3-2-3-2 formation, the Hungarians befuddled and confounded the English. Among England’s tormentors that day was Ferenc Puskás, who scored 84 goals in 85 international appearances for Hungary. Being abroad when the USSR quashed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, he chose to remain in exile and didn’t return to Hungary until 1981. Playing for Real Madrid in the 1960 European Cup final, he scored four goals in Los Blancos’ 7–3 defeat of Eintracht Frankfurt. 10. Jimmy Hill (1928–2015) Renaissance man For anyone who remembers Jimmy Hill as merely a chirpy TV personality with a prominent chin, a look back at his working life is instructive. As an inside forward, Hill turned out for both Brentford and Fulham. In 1957, he became chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association and was instrumental in campaigning to scrap the Football League’s £20 per week maximum wage limit. As a manager in the 1960s, he took unfashionable Coventry City from the old Third Division into the top tier of the English league. Subsequently, he became a respected broadcaster and Coventry’s chairman. Setting the template for Franz Beckenbauer and Michel Platini, Hill didn’t content himself with any one role but built a wide-ranging career in football. 11. Garrincha (1933–83) Joyful and triumphant A few years older than Pelé, winger Garrincha twice won the World Cup with Brazil. He is reputed to have been the first player to inspire choruses of “olé!” from crowds enthralled by his ability to make fools of opposition defenders. Garrincha first came to global attention at the World Cup held in Sweden in 1958. There he embodied the attacking exuberance of Brazilian football, which seemed so exotic and magical to so many in a world where people couldn’t, as today, routinely access games in foreign leagues. “He had a childish spirit,” observed his teammate, Djalma Santos. “Garrincha was football’s answer to Charlie Chaplin.” 12. Pelé (1940–2022) The greatest of all time How good was Pelé? “The greatest player in history was [Alfredo] Di Stéfano,” reflected Real Madrid’s Ferenc Puskás. “I refuse to classify Pelé as a player. He was above that.” Twice a World Cup winner on the field (he missed the 1962 final through injury), he has come to embody sporting excellence. Pelé’s life also reveals much about how politics and football intersect. In 1970, Brazil’s authoritarian military regime used the country’s World Cup triumph for propaganda purposes. Ironically, for the rest of the world, Pelé and his teammates represented freedom. Joining New York Cosmos in 1975, Pelé was key to helping Americans understand the beauty of the beautiful game. 13. Bobby Moore (1941–93) Cultured and elegant In 1966, as he walked up to receive the Jules Rimet trophy from Queen Elizabeth II following England’s 4–2 victory over West Germany in the World Cup final, Bobby Moore paused to wipe mud and sweat off his hands. Even in a day packed with images that have passed into English football folklore, it was a telling moment. A skilful centre-back, Moore was always calm and classy. He also represents, along with the rest of the boys of the summer of 1966, a lost innocence. A sentimental idea? Perhaps – but the morning after the World Cup final, hat-trick hero and Moore’s club mate at West Ham United, Geoff Hurst, was spotted mowing his lawn in suburban Hornchurch, Essex. 14. Eusébio (1942–2014) Dual identity Born in Portuguese East Africa – now Mozambique – Eusébio joined Benfica as a teenager in 1960. The ‘Black Panther’ became the Lisbon club’s greatest player – a Ballon d’Or winner (1965), leading scorer at the 1966 World Cup, and a European Cup winner who scored twice as Benfica beat Real Madrid 5–3 in the 1962 final. His career is also fascinating in how it represented conflicting identities. Under the Portuguese dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, Eusébio’s prowess was cited as evidence of the success of Lusotropicalismo – the myth that Portugal’s colonies were somehow harmonious. Eusébio, who grew up kicking footballs made of socks stuffed with newspapers, rarely commented on political matters, yet became a symbol of anti-colonial liberation. Paradoxically, his remains lie in Portugal’s National Pantheon. 15. George Best (1946–2005) Wasted talent Dubbed O Quinto Beatle (the fifth Beatle) by the Portuguese press for his mop-top hair, Belfast-born George Best – a winger of prodigious talent – enjoyed a level of fame unprecedented in English football in the 1960s. Sadly, having scored one of the goals that led Manchester United to victory in the 1968 European Cup final, an increasingly erratic Best succumbed to alcoholism. Following a liver transplant in 2002, he continued to drink. He often made light of his addiction but, suffering from jaundice, insisted that the News of the World publish a deathbed photograph as a warning. Efforts to protect today’s young stars are rooted in the tragedy of Best’s decline. 16. Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) Total footballer If there’s one moment that encapsulates why Johan Cruyff was so beloved, it came at the 1974 World Cup. Marked tightly by Sweden’s Jan Olsson, he feinted, as if about to kick the ball back down the pitch – but instead drew it back behind his standing foot, spun and left Olsson flailing. The Cruyff turn entered football’s lexicon. Cruyff was endlessly cool – the man who made The Netherlands’ brand of total football tick, as players seamlessly switched positions. A three-time Ballon d’Or winner, and a star for both Ajax and Barcelona, Cruyff’s influence endures. As Barcelona manager, he developed an attacking possession game. One of those he most trusted to carry out his instructions on the field was the young Catalan midfielder Pep Guardiola – today, the second-most successful manager in football history. 17. Viv Anderson (b1956) The first – and third – man In November 1978, Nottingham Forest right-back Viv Anderson took to the field for England in a friendly against Czechoslovakia. He was just the third non-white footballer to represent his nation, after Frank Soo (partly of Chinese heritage and whose caps were unofficial because he represented his country during the Second World War) and the mixed-heritage Paul Reaney of Leeds United. Though England’s manager, Ron Greenwood, played down the importance of Anderson’s appearance, it came at a time when fans all too often directed racist abuse at black players. Anderson twice won the European Cup with Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. 18. Diego Maradona (1960–2020) Magic from the streets Only a very few footballers come to embody something about their nation’s psyche. Diego Maradona was arguably the greatest of these. Raised in Villa Fiorito, a Buenos Aires shantytown, he made his professional debut aged just 15. From the off, he had a magical ability to bring a football under his control. He was also streetwise, and came to represent the battling qualities of Argentina’s working-class hustlers and underdogs. In 1986, he led Argentina to World Cup glory. A quarter-final against England encompassed both Maradona’s trickster qualities – he scored his first goal with a blatant handball – and his brilliance, when he dribbled through five players in the English defence to net a magnificent individual effort. Later, he battled personal demons but died a national hero. 19. Justin Fashanu (1961–98) Pride and prejudice In 1990, in an interview with The Sun, Justin Fashanu became the first professional footballer to come out as gay. A centre-forward hitherto best known as the first black player to command a £1m fee when he moved from Norwich City to Nottingham Forest, he reached a whole new level of fame. But this wasn’t adulation. Fans routinely taunted Fashanu, who later told Gay Times that his career suffered “heavy damage”. His life ended sadly. In 1998, after being accused by a 17-year-old of sexual assault in Ellicott City, Maryland, Fashanu left the US for England. Fearing that he wouldn’t get a fair trial, and claiming the encounter was consensual, he hanged himself in London. 20. Jean-Marc Bosman (b1964) Legal eagle In 1990, 25-year-old Jean-Marc Bosman wanted to move from RFC Liège in Belgium to play for Dunkerque, across the border in France. A former under-21 international at the end of his contract, the Belgian midfielder needed a fresh start. But the transfer was blocked by Liège, who demanded a fee of around £500,000, paid in full and up front. The move stalled, and Liège cut Bosman’s wages by 75%. In response, Bosman went to the courts, arguing that Liège had breached his rights under the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which allowed freedom of movement within the European Community. In 1995, the European Court of Justice ruled in Bosman’s favour, leaving footballers free to run down their contracts without the risk of being prevented from moving on. 21. George Weah (b1966) National leader In 2003, aged 37, Liberian striker George Weah hung up his boots after a glittering career. The first – and so far only – African player to win the Ballon d’Or (1995), he played for such European giants as Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Chelsea, winning trophies with all three. However, perhaps because he’d been born in a country beset by conflict, he always looked up from the pitch. Weah became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador while still a player. He worked on youth programmes to bring football academies to emerging nations. After retiring from playing, Weah went into politics, and served as president of his nation from 2018–24. 22. Mia Hamm (b1972) Growing the game While women’s football in Europe was held back by a combination of sexism and the dominance of the men’s game, the development of – if we must – soccer in the US proceeded down a different path. Initially, soccer moms were far more likely to be ferrying their daughters to practice than their sons. It’s no coincidence that the US women’s national soccer team has won the World Cup four times. Mia Hamm was the team’s first true star – a two-time World Cup winner who scored 158 goals in 276 international appearances. In 2013, she became the first woman to be inducted into the international World Football Hall of Fame. 23. Sir David Beckham (b1975) Commanding the attention economy We live in an era when Ronaldo and Messi are global brands. But it was an English player who truly anticipated this brave new world of celebrity. In a match against Wimbledon in August 1996, Manchester United winger David Beckham spotted opposition goalie Neil Sullivan off his line – and lobbed the hapless keeper from 52 metres out. Beckham-mania was set to launch. The photogenic midfielder’s place in the global spotlight was cemented by his 1999 marriage to ‘Posh Spice’ Victoria. Despite some PR missteps, brand Beckham – powered by a glittering career that brought a Champions League winners medal and 115 England caps – powers on. He is now co-owner of US top-tier team Inter Miami, whose star player is Lionel Messi. 24. Didier Drogba (b1978) Bruiser and peacenik As a player, Didier Drogba was a muscular centre-forward. He spent the best years of his career at Chelsea, scoring the winning penalty in a shootout in the European Champions’ League final against Bayern Munich in 2012. Born in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, Drogba is a revered figure in his homeland, a former captain of the national team who was twice named African Footballer of the Year. In 2005, the Ivory Coast – then engulfed by civil war – qualified for the World Cup finals for the first time. Drogba immediately appealed for an end to violence, speaking to camera from the team’s dressing room. A ceasefire ensued. 25. Megan Rapinoe (b1985) Player and activist In an era when celebrities routinely big up their activism, Megan Rapinoe stands out for genuinely acting on her principles. In September 2016, she took the knee before a league game during the playing of the US national anthem – a gesture of solidarity with National Football League player Colin Kaepernick, who had done the same as a protest against racial injustice. “Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties,” she noted. Rapinoe has advocated for the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports, and campaigned for equal pay for female and male players in US national teams. Such activism doesn’t overshadow her brilliance on the field: she twice won the World Cup, in 2015 and 2019. - Read more | From LA glitz to Indy's legendary car races: which city is the true epicentre of American sport? 26. Marcus Rashford (b1997) Food for thought Footballers are often warned of the dangers of getting involved in politics. But today’s players are far more likely to speak their minds – as Marcus Rashford proved during the Covid-19 pandemic. Having been involved in a 2019 campaign to help homeless people, Rashford teamed up with charity FareShare to ensure that children in Greater Manchester who would usually receive free school meals continued to be fed during lockdowns. In June 2020, he wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson’s government calling for the end of child poverty. Within a day, the government announced that it would spend £120m on a “Covid summer food fund” for children. Rashford’s campaigning reflects his upbringing: his single mother worked multiple jobs and skipped meals to raise him during his childhood. 27. Chloe Kelly (b1998) England’s glory In 2022, England beat Germany 2–1 at Wembley to become European champions for the first time. An enduring image of the Euros final is of substitute Chloe Kelly’s enthusiastic celebration after scoring the game’s winning goal during extra time. Kelly’s celebration has become synonymous with female empowerment – the joy of a ‘lioness’. Her reaction won the approval of US international Brandi Chastain, who reacted similarly after scoring the crucial penalty in a shootout at the 1999 World Cup final. Kelly, a Champions League winner with Arsenal in May 2025, also scored the decisive penalty as England retained their European title following a shootout against Spain later that summer.