40. Paul Gascoigne
Quite possibly the supreme natural talent English football has ever produced, as well as one of its most exciting and relatable. When Gazza moved to Italy, Channel 4 acquired the rights to Serie A just so we could all keep watching him. He was that much of a superstar.
A constant source of ‘how on earth has he done that?’ magic for both club and country, injuries and personal issues stopped him doing it for longer.
Yet still, there’s an entire generation of football fans who still break out into a misty-eyed grin remembering Gascoigne at his pomp.
39. Giuseppe Meazza
Meazza possessed excellent proficiency in his dribbles and a great ability to find the back of the net with his unerring accuracy, as demonstrated across his 20-year playing career between 1927 and 1947. The Italian striker scored 347 goals across 564 appearances for both club and country, playing most notably for Inter Milan before short spells at AC Milan and Juventus during his later career.
But while he has an impressive club career, it's what Meazza achieved at international level that earns him a place so high on this list. With two World Cup triumphs, Meazza played in every match for Italy in 1934 and 1938, even captaining the side in the latter tournament as he led them to victory.
Such was his influence, the ground shared by Inter Milan and AC Milan is actually officially known as the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, with San Siro only a nickname.
38. Arjen Robben
Calling Robben a one-trick pony is a bit unfair: there was more to the Dutchman than just cutting inside from the right onto his left foot and smashing it into the net.
The thing is that we saw Robben do it a million times, because nobody ever quite figured out a way to stop him doing it, especially at his Bayern Munich peak.
Strong, technical and with a stunning eye for goal, Robben will forever be the touchstone inverted wingers are compared to – even above Mohamed Salah – in much the same way Stanley Matthews has been for more traditional wingers.
37. Gianluigi Buffon
There’s a list on Buffon’s Wikipedia page of all the records (or near-records) the goalkeeper holds that runs to 68 separate bullet points. Some are more impressive and valid than others, but still: 68!
Buffon’s 28-year playing career was remarkable not just for its length, but for his unerring consistency and shot-stopping ability throughout.
While two whole generations of his contemporaries faltered and declined, there stood Buffon, just as good as ever, through 975 club appearances and another 176 for Italy, winning ten league titles and a World Cup in the process.
36. Gunter Netzer
A pioneer, Netzer became the first player to win the World Cup while contracted to a club outside of their home country when he lifted the 1974 edition on home soil with West Germany - two years after triumphing in the Euros.
A technically gifted playmaker who dictated possession, Netzer earned the nickname 'Karajan' during his career, after the conductor Austrian Herbert Von Karajan. The German had great influence at Borussia Monchengladbach thanks to not only his superior technical ability, but also his leadership skills in motivating his team-mates. A late career move to Real Madrid also proved fruitful, as the off-field playboy won four trophies in three years.
35. Kevin De Bruyne
The ‘through pass’ button on FIFA was invented for De Bruyne, wasn’t it?
It takes some doing to come into a team midway through the tenure of a side’s greatest ever playmaker and live up to his standards, but De Bruyne was more than up to the task when he joined David Silva at Manchester City in 2015.
Nine years later, De Bruyne is second only to Ryan Giggs for making the most Premier League assists of all time – and his Manchester United counterpart had an extra 13 years to add to his tally.
34. Andrea Pirlo
The definitive deep-lying playmaker, to the point that his name instantly provokes a full understanding of exactly what that job looks like at its best – though practically nobody has done it as well as Pirlo.
The midfielder certainly had his shortcomings, and it took a while for his talents to find an appropriate outlet in that position that was seemingly custom-made just for him.
But by the end of his career, Pirlo was highly-prized for his vision, variety and a phenomenal passing range that made him just as dangerous from defensive midfield as most number 10s.
33. Kenny Dalglish
When it comes to strikers, there are goalscorers, and there are those who enable others to score. But for Celtic and Liverpool, Dalglish was the ultimate two-for-one offer.
Initially the focal point of the Liverpool attack after successfully replacing the seemingly irreplaceable Kevin Keegan, Dalglish later formed an unstoppably potent partnership playing just behind Ian Rush.
Just to round it off, Dalglish ended his Liverpool career as the most high-profile player-manager of all time, balancing his declining on-pitch commitments with leading Liverpool through the final years of their greatest-ever era – and the awful fallout of the Hillsborough disaster. The King.
32. Michael Laudrup
If the Dane were playing today, he would probably be better appreciated – and that’s really saying something, because Laudrup already had no shortage of admirers among those who played the game.
An incredibly classy playmaker, Laudrup didn’t just have a sensational reading of the game, but the technique to put his vision into action – and most of the time he did it while looking in a completely different direction, bamboozling opponents.
And yet if you ask his managers, we never even saw Laudrup trying his hardest. You can only imagine the heights he would have reached if he had.
31. Bobby Moore
When Pele and Franz Beckenbauer say someone is the best defender they ever saw, you listen. That’s Bobby Moore.
To this day, English fans will be intimately familiar with photos of Moore hoisting the World Cup on his teammates’ shoulders and his shirtless embrace with Pele four years later. Those two images say it all: Moore was a leader, respected and adored by teammates and opponents alike for his talents.
The word ‘iconic’ can be thrown around willy-nilly at times, but there’s no other word to describe Moore – and few players who live up to the tag so perfectly.
