Football Month: My Top 10 All-Time Favorite Players

Greetings, reader!

My sporty theme month of football/soccer continues - last week, I attempted an unbiased list of the greatest and most talented football players from my lifetime, and this week, I'm going fully subjective and ranking my all-time favorite players. Any number of factors are considered in the mix: how I like someone's style of play, what kind of person they seem to be outside the pitch, one's role in their team, moments of fair play and likable characteristics, et cetera. These are my favorite football players from as long as I've followed the sport!

Here are my honorable mentions: Danny Drinkwater, Frank Lampard, Jesse Lingard, Mason Mount, Xavi, Declan Rice, Christian Eriksen.

10. Philipp Lahm

For someone with very little personal connections to Germany and who is a die-hard fan of Germany's traditional football rivals known as England, I have a surprisingly big soft spot for the German team. I don't love them, but I also don't hate them, and would support them against many other teams (and I was genuinely happy for them when they won the 2014 World Cup). There are many reasons for this: the way they transformed their style of play from robotic to beautiful across the early 2010's, and many players who I'm sympathetic towards, like old-timers Marco Reus and Manuel Neuer as well as young guns Kai Havertz and Joshua Kimmich.

But the biggest reason for my amiable views on the German team will always be legendary full-back Philipp Lahm.

Throughout his prolific career, this dude was so indescribably passionate on the pitch. He always gave 110 per cent, running like a maniac to assist in the attacking situations but always being back where he's needed the most in defensive situations. He played every moment of every game like a fierce warrior, and even if he was playing against a team I supported more, I couldn't help but cheer slightly whenever Lahm would make a brilliant side tackle or an epic cross.

9. Virgil Van Dijk

Big Virg is the sort of fellow that you love to have on your team, and would absolutely hate to have on the opposing team - thank God he plays for Liverpool. When a rock-solid defender like him is playing for the team you support, you can't help but fall in love with just how downright artistic his defending is - I've lost count of the razor-sharp tackles, beautiful interceptions and immaculate blocks that have made me pump my fist and go "BEST DEFENDER IN THE WORLD!!!!". More often than not, my favorite players include underdog-archetypes more so than jock-archetypes as they're easier to relate to for someone like me, but Virgil is the specific kind of jock that I can thoroughly get behind - there's clearly a big heart beneath the somewhat cold and arrogant-ish exterior.

His devastating injury in the 2020/21 season really made me care for the man on a whole new level - it was heartbreaking to see him out for such a long time, and the way Liverpool struggled that season compared to previous ones was a massive testament to how important he is in Klopp's system. Following his journey to recovery, as he eventually got back into shape and got back to his best, was truly heartwarming to witness.

8. Marcus Rashford

I want to make one thing clear - when I say that I'm a fan of English football culture, I don't mean the side of English football culture where a bunch of heartless asshole dickhead pricks decide to racially abuse a player who had the guts to take the decisive penalty in a European Championship final, and barely missed the shot only to find many of his "fans" taunting and racially abusing him in a true showcase of humanity at its ugliest. No, I don't mean those fucking despicable rat bastards.

I mean the people who showed up in said player's hometown afterwards, to show solidarity and support for their hero at a mural that had been made for him, showing a giant symbolic middle finger to racism and doing their everything to show the player that the real fans have his back and are there to enjoy the sport, and not to desecrate it with racism and bullying. And most of all, I mean footballers like Rashford himself, who hasn't let the haters get him down and is still going strong after all he's been through. On the pitch, he's a talented attacking player who is such a joy to watch that I can't help but cheer for him even when he plays for Manchester United, but it's his work off the pitch that truly makes him one of my all-time favorites: he has used his platform to do valuable work for many causes, most famously standing up to the British government concerning the needs of starving children, and earning an M.B.E. in the process. Rashford is a truly heroic figure who embodies football at its finest, and I sincerely hope that everyone who participated in racially abusing him has an absolutely miserable and joyless rest of their life.

7. Ngolo Kanté

I don't think I've ever seen Ngolo Kanté complain to the referee or lose his temper with an opposition player. Can't think of another player on the world class level that I could say the same thing about. I'm also quite sure that throughout his Premier League victories with two different teams, his Champions League victory and his World Cup victory, I've never seen him display a fraction of arrogance or self-importance. In every interview and off-the-pitch moment, the French midfielder is humble to the maximum with a smile that will melt your heart, and on the pitch, he's the perfectly respectful gentleman type that the sport truly needs more of.

I also love Kanté's style of play; as a combination of his pace, stamina and skills in different departments, he's basically just everywhere throughout the game. In Chelsea's victorious 2020/21 Champions League campaign, Kanté was argued to be the team's best defender, best midfielder and best attacker, as his position on paper is central defensive midfielder but in reality it's "whatever and wherever Chelsea needs him to be at any given moment". It can be the 93rd minute of a match where he has given his everything, and he'll still have the stamina to run across the pitch for an epic goal line clearance.

Oh, and speaking of the 2020/21 Champions League - not only was Kanté chosen as Man-of-the-Match for the final, but one statistic showed that he won more aerial battles than any other player in that game, despite being the shortest player on the pitch. Guys like this are too good to be true.

6. Steven Gerrard

Along with Fernando Torres (who barely missed out on the list), Gerrard was among the very first players that I really, really liked. My Mom is a Liverpool fan and taught me to be one just in the era where Gerrard and Torres were running the show for the Reds, and I remember being fascinated by the modest midfield maestro - in a world of big-ego stars and big-money transfers, Gerrard seemed to care only about the game and not the fame, while playing for his boyhood club Liverpool throughout his senior career from ages 18 to 35.

His autobiography was the first football book I read, and it made me all the more invested in his story - reading about his childhood toe injury that came close to ending what would be a legendary career, and about the 2005 'Miracle of Istanbul' where Gerrard lead the charge in a comeback from 3-0 to 3-3 (and a subsequent penalty shoot-out victory) in the Champions League final, is inspiring as hell. It is a curse and a travesty that this man never won a Premier League title with Liverpool, but be that as it may, he has still gone down as one of the greats.

5. Lionel Messi

In terms of who is objectively better at football, the everlasting GOAT debate of Messi vs. Ronaldo comes very close, with my answer being "Messi, but very barely". But in terms of who I like more, they're in a whole different ballpark (heh) - I never cared for Ronaldo all that much with his arrogance and diva tendencies, whereas Messi has always been a figure I root for with all my heart.

For starters, his story and style of play are just so special. His career had a hard time getting started as his shortness and small physique kept getting in the way, yet the Barcelona academy had his back and helped channel his wizard-like football ability into an unforeseen level of greatness. As I mentioned in last week's post, Messi's style of play is unique; when you watch his greatest performances, it doesn't even seem like he's human, but some strange alien sent from another dimension to show mortal humans what football could some day evolve to. He's just on a different plain of existence with his genius understanding of the game, visionary playmaking, and off-the-charts dribbling (it has been alleged multiple times that he apparently runs faster when dribbling a football than he does when just sprinting without a ball, which would likely make him the world's only person with such an ability).

And yet, through the record-breaking seven Ballon D'Ors, not to mention his 10 La Liga Titles, 7 Copa Del Rey trophies, 4 Champions League wins, 1 Ligue One title and 1 Copa América championship, the dude seems genuinely modest. We've all seen how selfishness rears its heads in players as great as Neymar or Mbappe, but with Messi, he's always happy to make the key pass instead of trying to score himself whenever he deems it to be smarter for the team. Throughout it all, it seems like Messi has built his all-time-great career out of a genuine passion for football, with very little care for ego or fame. What a guy.

4. Mohamed Salah

Speaking of modesty, here's a faithful Muslim who drops down and thanks Allah with a striking sincerity every time he scores a goal. Here are just a few reasons why Salah is one of the most lovable footballers out there:

- He has used his platform to speak out against racism and religious persecution in a powerful manner

- When he was awarded the Man-of-the-Match award for a game that was teammate James Milner's 500th Premier League appearance, he refused to accept the MOTM award and gifted it to Milner as a show of respect for his incredible career

- When he couldn't play in the second leg of the 2018/19 Champions League semifinal due to injury, with Liverpool being 3-0 down on aggregate, he showed up to watch the game while wearing a hoodie that said "NEVER GIVE UP" in large print

- As captain of Egypt, he stopped multiple scraps from turning into full-on riots in the 2022 AFCON tournament as the referees couldn't handle the escalating situations and he had to be the one to diplomatically calm down the players on both sides

This dude deserves everything, and I hope with all my heart that one day he'll win that damn African Championship that has so barely eluded him so many times and clearly means the world to him. Also, both to the British fans who have treated him with racism and to those members of the Muslim world who have turned their back on him because he has adopted some western norms like celebrating Christmas, a sincere 'fuck off' is in order - the man is trying to build bridges in a divided world, and deserves nothing but respect for it.

3. Trent Alexander-Arnold

Remember how I mentioned Salah showing up to the second-leg semi-final against Barcelona where Liverpool started off at a 3-0 disadvantage, while wearing a "NEVER GIVE UP" hoodie? Well, here's how that game ended up going.

The 'Never give up' sentiment seemed ridiculous to many, as being three goals down against prime Barcelona seems like such a hopeless situation (especially when your main forward is out due to injury). But, early in the game, Liverpool scores to make it 3-1 and give fans some fragment of hope. The game remains in deadlock for a long time, until super-sub Gini Wijnaldum comes on and scores to make it 3-2. Moments later, the same guy scores again, as it is 3-3, and Liverpool fans start to realize they might be witnessing greatness. But a tie isn't enough, as the team needs one more goal.

After the ball is deflected off a Barcelona defender, 20-year-old defender Trent Alexander-Arnold comes up to take the corner. He has just placed the ball down, which would conventionally be followed by 10-20 seconds of players rummaging to find a spot while he takes aim - but this time, he sees that while Barcelona's defense is still planning how to position themselves, Liverpool striker Divock Origi is all ready. And so, in a moment of unparalleled spontaneous tactical genius, the defender doesn't go through the usual rituals but gives the corner immediately with no warning, leading to Origi scoring the winning goal against an unprepared and shell-shocked Barcelona defense. And Liverpool proceed to the final that they go on to win, all thanks to this moment of out-of-the-box thinking by the young right-back.

That is just one of the reasons why Trent is such a favorite of mine, with others being his unbreakable passion, his creative play and insane goal/assist statistics for a defender, as well as his perfect balance of being the ever-loyal team player yet still having many moments of individual heroism under his belt. I really hope that this dude goes the Gerrard way and never leaves Liverpool, as he would make such a great captain one day.

2. Luka Modric

Watching Luka Modric play ball makes me feel proud, in a way that is quite odd considering the fact that I very much don't personally know the man. But, the thing is, I've followed his career closely and with great investment. The first football tournament I actively followed was the 2008 European Championship, where the Croatian midfielder was just breaking through as a promising young hot-shot, and I immediately liked his energetic and passionate style of play and kept him in mind. By the 2010 World Cup, he was among Croatia's biggest stars, while making a name for himself on a club level in Tottenham Hotspur. By the time he transferred to Real Madrid, he had grown into Croatia's biggest name and one of the world's best midfielders.

My emotional investment in Modric's wonderful career came to a climax in 2018, as by that time, he was the veteran captain of the Croatian national team - and the madman led this bunch of underdogs all the way to the World Cup final. While Croatia lost the final, Modric was named Player of the Tournament, and rightfully so - he had given his everything in every match, and I remember watching in awe as the then-32-year-old sprinted back and forth to have a foot in every situation in the 120th minute of extra-time games, with a pace and energy one could imagine seeing only in 20-year-olds at the start of a game. At the end of 2018, he rightfully won the Ballon D'Or, becoming the only player besides Ronaldo and Messi to win it in the era of Messi&Ronaldo's dominance.

Modric is the very definition of a player who always gives one hundred per cent, and his stamina is just unreal - just last spring, at the ripe age of 36 years, he dominated the midfield throughout Real Madrid's victorious Champions League campaign with no real signs of aging. His team might be called 'Real', but this guy is simply unreal.

1. Jamie Vardy

Picture this: after a few years of not following football all that actively, you hear that a team you've never heard of, one that was just promoted to the Premier League two years prior and barely escaped relegation the previous season, is now leading the league. You start following football more actively again, wanting to see if this scrappy bunch of underdogs can pull it off. You see that their biggest goalscorer and most important player is an English striker, so you imagine him being a typical Harry Kane or Wayne Rooney type. That is, until you read up on him, and find out that he's not the typical star you'd expect.

Here's a few things to know about Jamie Vardy. For starters, he played outside the four highest tiers of English football until he was twenty-five years old, and only really broke through when he was twenty-nine, making him an exceptionally late bloomer. It's a miracle that he bloomed at all, considering what an untypical athlete he is: he drank heavily in his youth (and throughout his first seasons as a pro), smoked cigarettes all the way to his first years at Leicester, chugs a lot of Red Bull to this day, and apparently does not exercise at a gym. Seeing how amazing he is at football despite all that is staggering, although it is a bit sad to think what all-timer levels he could've reached if he had the diet and work ethic of Cristiano Ronaldo (or even of any normal pro footballer).

Furthermore, even after becoming a star, Vardy doesn't have any diva-like tendencies. He always looks like he's just out of a barfight, and everything points to him being a genuine British football-loving lad who just happens to be phenomenal at scoring goals. His goal celebrations are iconic (I can't decide whether my favorite is the one where he picked the corner flag off the ground and played it as a mock guitar, or the one where he celebrated a 90th-minute winner against the biggest rivals of his boyhood club by smashing the corner flag with a slide tackle). His oddball nature is perhaps best described by the time he bought a stake in American soccer club Rochester FC, and became one of its owners while still actively playing at Leicester. When asked about this surprising business venture, he simply replied "I guess I'm not like normal footballers".

It pains me to admit that my favorite Vardy moment of all, in addition to the season-long feat of winning the Premier League against all odds with Leicester City, comes from a match against my favorite team Liverpool from last season: while I wanted Liverpool to win, I couldn't help but root for Vardy as an individual and gape in awe at his performance. After he was clearly injured but his team had used all three substitutions, manager Brendan Rogers signaled that it's okay for Vardy to come off and they'd finish the game with 10 men. But Leicester were leading, which was a rare occurrence against Liverpool, so Vardy decided to stay on the pitch and play some f**king football despite being injured (he later clarified that people shouldn't try that at home, but he simply made a judgement call as he's coming towards the end of his career and decided that winning that match would be worth his injury potentially getting worse).

With his leg clearly in pain, he still made several tackles, sprints and passes to the best of his abilities, only limping off the pitch after the match had ended, with the fans giving him thunderous applause. This guy better get a statue outside of King Power stadium when he eventually retires (presumably at the age of 45 years after scoring a hattrick against Manchester United while hungover and full of Red Bull).

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as Football Month continues with a ranking of my Top 10 all-time favorite football moments.