Soccer fans had watched hundreds of extraordinary booters in the World Cup football tournament since its inception in 1930, but 10 players of them clinched the top spot.
Ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar-2022, Bangladesh Post is presenting a brief description of these 10 top players as the Sky Sports made the shortlist.
Though so many stars are not in the list, like Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Garrincha, David Beckham, George Best, Lev Yashin and many others, these 10 topped the list. Such debate will continue as long as football is played. But ahead of the World Cup Qatar-2022, we think that these 10 are considered as the best footballers.
However, football is a great event in sports and a leveler, as not everyone goes to a school with a rugby pitch and not everyone can afford a pony, in every corner of the world, in every country from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the slums of Nairobi to the playgrounds of Monaco and Beverly Hills, it is very common scenario that children kicking a football about.
Perhaps the way in which football stars have often escaped humble origins to shine in a sport that allows the very best to become icons on and off the pitch and truly become heroes of nations.
Arguments over the greatest 10 World Cup heroes have kept friends debating into the small hours for decades.
We will start from the number 10, the number one will come at the end.
10. ZinedineZidane:
Zinedine Zidane turned into the national hero of France leading France to win the World Cup for the first time in 1998. Zidane also widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. He was a playmaker renowned for his elegance, vision, passing, ball control and technique. He received many individual accolades as a player, including being named FIFA World Player of the Year in 1998, 2000 and 2003, and winning the 1998 Ballon d'Or. In 2004. Zidane, one of the greatest won the World Cup at home in 1998, scoring twice in the final after an injury returned to World Cup and went on to be named player of the tournament at the 2006 edition.
Zidane, who scored 31 goals in 108 matches for France, his charismatic leadership shaped the national team into something much greater than the sum of its parts. In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100, a list of the world's greatest living players compiled by Pele, and in the same year was named the best European footballer of the past 50 years in the UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll. Zidane is one of eight players to have won the World Cup, the Champions League and the Ballon d'Or. He was the ambassador for Qatar's successful bid to stage the 2022 World Cup.
Zidane, as a coach, went on to win three Champion League titles and La Liga twice with Real Madrid.
9. Jimmy Peter Greaves (1940-1941)
Whose statue greets supporters arriving at Wembley Stadium – was as loved by the everyday English fans as Jimmy Greaves but not even the great Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton and George Best or David Beckham.
Jimmy Greaves, who played as a forward is regarded as one of England’s best ever players, the highest goal scorer in the history of English top-flight football (357 goals), and also scored more hat-tricks (six) for England than anyone else He is also a member of the English Football Hall of Fame.
Greaves scored six hat-tricks in an England shirt, a record that still stands.
The 1966 campaign continues to be a focal point of English identity, the squad universally adored, and Greaves became a broadcaster, welcomed into the nation’s living rooms for decades.
Greaves was part of the 1966 World Cup-winning squad, but a savage injury inflicted by France’s Joseph Bonnel that required 14 stitches kept Greaves out of the final and was eventually awarded a World Cup winners’ medal by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009.
Already a star at home, Greaves gained international recognition after rescuing a pitch-invading dog that had evaded the Brazilian greats during England’s 1962 World Cup quarter-final. Brazil’s Garrincha took the dog home and Greaves became known in Brazil as “Garrincha’s dog-catcher”. (to be continued).
