20. Declan Rice
£105m has rarely looked so fantastic value. Declan Rice has established himself not just as one of the best defensive midfielders in the world this season but one of the best midfielders full stop, with all-action performances dragging West Ham away from a spiral, before man-of-the-match displays in a title race for Arsenal.
This was the year that Rice lifted the Irons' first European trophy since 1965's Cup Winners' Cup – and if his performances, age and leadership are anything to go by, it'll be the first of many medals in his cabinet.
19. Rafael Leao
When was the last time that Serie A had a game-changing wide-man in the shape of Rafael Leao? Quality-wise, plenty of matched the Portuguese's levels – but in the land of Catenaccio and Maldini, there have been few stars who have dazzled with such swagger and ferocity.
2022 brought a Scudetto, 2023 saw a Champions League semi. Milan have stuttered, in truth, looking to add youth and look to the sky rather than sit in the present – but Leao has been their Atlas, standing as majestic as the San Siro itself, bulldozing and bludgeoning. He has been electric as ever this year.
18. John Stones
Rarely has a prophecy ever been quite satisfyingly fulfilled. There were those who wondered if John Stones would ever live up to his billing as the best centre-back on Earth-in-waiting – but boy, has he backed up the hype.
An archetypal, cultured ball-player – previously seen as a luxury at the back – has developed into one of the first names on the team-sheet for Pep Guardiola and Gareth Southgate. But it's in his 2023 foray into midfield that Stones has truly excelled in the past 12 months, becoming the lynchpin of the City Treble with his drifts into midfield.
Seemingly, no one else in world football could play that role. In some games, he's played as a centre-back, a defensive midfielder and branched out further forward. It's the kind of year in football that may well be looked back on in the future as the moment that his position truly evolved – and it's been wonderful to watch Stones in full flow.
17. Trent Alexander-Arnold
A player so good that the rest of the game bends to his will. That Jurgen Klopp would rip up a highly-structured formation and re-draw it with Trent Alexander-Arnold at the nucleas.
Following criticisms in 2022 that he was a liability in defence, Liverpool's No.66 has responded in the way that legends often do: by becoming inevitable. Alexander-Arnold is now his side's most important player by an absolute landslide, dictating play and showing himself to be utterly unpressable while doing so. The talk of him actually being a midfielder may be growing – but it still doesn't matter all that much. He's still world-class, wherever he stands.
16. William Saliba
There is an aura about William Saliba that simply shouldn't exist in a 22-year-old. The centre-back has the magical combination that made the likes of Van Dijk, Pique and Ferdinand quite so head-and-shoulders above their contemporaries: impossible to fluster on the ball, impossible to beat off it.
His 90-minute clinic in keeping Erling Haaland quiet in October was a picture postcard of his ascension. He barely broke a sweat while stopping the best striker on Earth from having so much as a sniff on goal – and for many, there's no doubting that had he have stayed fit in the run-in, he'd have beaten the Norwegian to a title, too. The best defender on Earth already? We could be talking about an all-timer in a decade's time.
15. Ilkay Gundogan
Ilkay Gundogan is often categorised simply as the man who finished the moves at Manchester City. The typically German midfielder able to time his arrival and poke one home.
In truth, he's one of the most intelligent footballers of a generation, with innate understanding of a football match's rhythm and what's needed from him. He became immortal this year with a Treble – but his absence has punctuated Man City's faltering 23/24 campaign so far. Gundogan gave them stability, tempo and a player capable of turning his hand to whatever Guardiola asked.
14. Victor Osimhen
The mask-toting gunman of Napoli's crowing glory this year, Victor Osimhen is Serie A's undisputed superstar of 2023 – and that's as predictable as the Nigerian himself. Since joining from Lille, it's been obvious that this man would hold the rest of the league to ransom.
While Napoli assuming the throne was a turn-up for the books, in some respects – a side that had just sold their captain and rock at the back, lost legends recently and were placing faith in an unknown Georgian – Osimhen was clockwork in 2023. There were no off days: he could be shackled for 85 minutes and release the thunder for five. He simply never stops running the channels or drifting wide to pull a defence open for Kvaratskhelia.
For all the speed and the spark, watching Osimhen over the past 12 months or so has been like watching football in slow motion: you can see exactly what's about to happen with a drop of his shoulder or a swing of his leg. He's terrorised defences.
13. Kevin De Bruyne
Kevin De Bruyne is legendary: there's no other way to square it. The Treble-winning campaign won't go down as the one that he invested some of his most extraordinary displays, but City certainly saw some of his most important over the season.
He's perhaps Guardiola's finest tactical achievement at City, turning a playmaker into a Swiss Army knife of a midfielder, forward and winger in one – sometimes all at once, during the heat of big games en route to three trophies. De Bruyne didn't play every minute but the minutes he played had his fingerprints all over them, the metronomic Belgian pulling the strings. The greatest Premier League midfielder… ever?
12. Jamal Musiala
Jamal Musiala's 2023 was the year that he stepped up and became the face of Bayern Munich. The Croydon-raised schemer pulled Die Roten over the edge to win the title race and has now established himself as their most important player.
Its not just his interplay in the pockets, on the half-turn or the way he can drift beyond Harry Kane up front. It's not his intelligence on or off the ball or his creative expression. It's that he puts a six-time European title-winning institution on his 20-year-old shoulders in times of need. Bayern are huge – and Musiala is their north star.
11. Bukayo Saka
Since tweeting that Arsenal fans "deserve more" in 2020 during the absolute nadir of the club's toughest times, Bukayo Saka has developed into quite the footballer. First pick for his club, near as dammit for his country and an absolute icon in English football.
The 22-year-old has the two traits that make him potentially generational. Firstly, that he always steps up from the setback, taller and broader than when he knocked down; secondly, that he has an incredible knack for seemingly downloading new patches to his repertoire as a footballer. Formerly a humble left-back capable of exhilarating with his pace and precision, he now decides and dictates with his stop-start runs, passing and drifts in and out of space.
Most excitingly as Arsenal challenged this year, Saka discovered the ability to cut inside and find the bottom corner. Is it any surprise that he's also designated penalty-taker, two years on from the Euros shootout miss? Rising from that to become the man in those moments is just who he is, by now.
10. Vinicius Jr
It's fair to say he initially struggled in Europe. He's one of the most scintillating footballers on Earth now, though.
Vinicius Jr is still one of the most watchable players around, using his year to reconfigure himself into something altogether different. Real Madrid have commonly deployed him up front in a pairing this season, sometimes with countryman Rodrygo – and though Jude Bellingham has generated most of the headlines, Vini remains a capricious flare of a footballer, able to turn the game at the drop of a hat. He goes from strength to strength.
9. Antoine Griezmann
Few could touch him in Qatar; no one scaled the same heights as him in Spanish football in 2022/23. Antoine Griezmann is testament to coming back from the brink, all right.
The Barcelona nightmare has led to a fabulous renaissance back in his spiritual home in Madrid, with Griezmann reborn as an all-action figure of invention and intelligence. The goals have mounted up – no one has more in the Champions League – but the Frenchman's hard-running and creativity have separated him as being an utterly unique footballer and one that Diego Simeone surely cherishes as the best he's ever had at Atletico.
8. Mohamed Salah
Mohamed Salah is a picture of staggering consistency. 2022/23 was yet another 30-goal season for the Egyptian King from the right-wing, while the sequel this term has seen him stand alone as the last remaining pillar of the iconic Salah/Mane/Firmino triumvirate.
And he's still the most important member of Liverpool's new front three, dragging the Merseysiders in another title race. Salah has tweaked his game this year, becoming slightly more creative this year to notch more assists, while assuming new positions on the field to play in the spaces that the likes of Szoboszlai and Alexander-Arnold aren't taking.
But the results are largely similar. The No.11 will go down as one of the most reliable players who ever touched the grass at Anfield: he's already a third of the way towards his 30-goal tally this term, too.
7. Bernardo Silva
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, according to the cliche. It's the unwritten law that all midfielders must either run their socks off or have vision of a hawk at the very top level – and yet Bernardo Silva is the uniquest case of both.
This was the year that the Portuguese established himself as one of the defining footballers of the 2020s. The masterclasses have come one after another, whether centrally or on the right: he destroyed Real Madrid in one of the most breathtaking Champions League performances in recent memory and has toyed with opponents, always one move ahead. He's the one man that Guardiola dare not let go.
Bernardo's blossomed into the very lifeblood of City's philosophy – and it's been another amazing year. One wonders what's next for him…
6. Lionel Messi
With the scores at 3-3 between Paris Saint-Germain and Lille in February, Lionel Messi had been rather quiet. And then he stepped up to score a free-kick and send the Parc des Princes into rapture. It was the last moment of bedlam that he'd give European football.
He's still football's greatest at walking pace. Still the best passer, mover and striker of a ball. Since winning the World Cup in December 2022, he's notched a 700th senior career club goal, his 300th club career assist, before supercharging soccer. He'd barely played US football for 35 minutes and he'd already netted (yet) another free-kick to open his account for Inter Miami. Weeks later, he'd waltzed to another trophy stateside (literally), as if this game is simply his by now.
Barcelona missed out on signing him over the summer – and he'd probably still be their best player. But while David Beckham was the catalyst for Major Soccer in the 2000s, he was moved to tears by Messi's debut goal in Miami, perhaps recognising that not even he had this impact.
Due to the quality of the league he now plays in, this may be the last time we ever consider Messi as one of the best 10 players on Earth. But the MLS is now his. 2023 belonged as much to him as anyone. And this GOAT is simply ageless.
5. Rodri
He deserves to be recognised as one of the best holding midfielders of a generation – and 2023 was a magnum opus in midfield for the artist less commonly known as Rodrigo Hernandez.
The thunderbolts against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid have merely punctuated Rodri's presence as the engine of this machine; as have three successive City defeats without the suspended Spaniard later in the year. The consistency has been almost robotic; it's not that he never loses possession, but he never wastes it either, always looking to progress, always looking for the next move rather than thinking about the last.
Midfield metronomes by their very nature were players able to provide control. Rodri is there to ensure dominance. He has the grace of a Pirlo, for sure, but the edge of a Gattuso, wanting to strangle opponents with incessant strings of passes. The Manchester City Class of '23 might just be one of the best teams that the world has ever witnessed – and Rodri defines it not just in his physical and technical abilities but his mindset, too. The midfielder of the year.
4. Kylian Mbappe
Historians will look back at Neymar's record-breaking 2017 move to Paris Saint-Germain as the moment he that stepped out of one all-time great's shadow and right into another's. As a teenager Kylian Mbappe captured the lightning of country and boyhood club, arms folded in defiance as much as celebration.
As a 24-year-old, he stands alone from both Neymar and Messi – but he is the modern-day equivalent to what we said of those two for a decade or longer. If the Ballon d'Or was awarded purely on ability, on the capacity to lift backsides from seats or on sheer dripping talent, it could be awarded to him every damn year. Mbappe is that guy.
That he hasn't achieved more in 2023 is a fault of PSG's project. January brought a 10-minute hat-trick and five in a game; in February, he drew level with Edinson Cavani for PSG goals in 20 fewer games before breaking the record in March. He won Ligue 1 again, the division's Player of the Year award for the fourth consecutive season, was the most coveted star of the summer – staying in France, obviously – before netting a 300th career goal and becoming France's third all-time scorer by the close the calendar year.
He's may hit his prime at the 2030 World Cup. It's incomprehensible given how good he is already. We're watching greatness before our eyes.
3. Harry Kane
30 is the prime age for most strikers. There's just about enough speed left in the legs, energy and hunger levels are yet to wane, while a forward's brain has matured like a merlot by this point to be able to read the final third by split seconds.
It's no coincidence that as Harry Kane celebrated his third decade on Earth, he hit his absolute peak as a player. 30 goals in the Premier League, to match his age, before the definitive big-money move to Bayern Munich, where he's made a mockery of all who've faced him. He's been unstoppable.
Critics will seemingly always critique – but Kane has hit his golden form despite of the weather around him rather than because of it. The England captain was phenomenal in his final flourish in England, as the focal point of arguably the worst side he'd led. Then came Hollywood FC, and he had much the same effect. It's the sign of a great to simply perform almost in defiance of opposition or team-mates.
A nation hopes that Kane's 2024 had better be better. As time ticks along though, Kane is gradually growing better and better – who knows where he'll be in another 12 months?
2. Jude Bellingham
There is nothing to say about Jude Bellingham that hasn't been thus far – "Living the dream" being the obvious cliche. So let's avoid the hyperbole and temptation to gaze into a long-distant future to talk solely about the present in black-and-white.
20 Real Madrid games, 17 goals – despite arriving at the club as a tenacious box-to-box midfielder who wasn't guaranteed to start in a stacked line-up – Bellingham has not just bucked all expectations, he's turned into a world-beater at 20. It's like very little football has seen in years.
He's handing out killer blows in the biggest fixtures. He's the most well-rounded footballer on Earth, seemingly netting for fun on work experience up front in the absence of a senior poacher among the bunch. All at the biggest club on Earth, and were it not for injury, he'd have a Bundesliga title to his name in 2023.
He's perhaps his country's best shot at a major trophy since 10 years before his own father was born. Bellingham is the future, for sure, but he's also perhaps the most exciting player to watch right now.
1. Erling Haaland
Those who have been blessed by Erling Haaland's company know him as a man of few words. He will say what he has to with absolute brevity: as minimalist as you would expect from a Scandinavian artist such as himself.
It's not unlike how he's played the game since arriving at the very top table. No fluff, no filler. He may only be graced with a handful of touches across 90 minutes. He will make every single one count as if he feels each could be his last. And though it seems very anti-football to call the best player on Earth the one who does things will the most efficiency – a player who doesn't give you enough time to feel – it's wholly accurate.
2023 belonged to Haaland. Three trophies, a Premier League goal record for a 38-game season and the fastest man to 50 goals in the competition by an absolute mile. He is Usain Bolt: this sport is a superhuman ability to him. The deadly spread of stoppage time this year, too, means that at a goal every 98 minutes, he's pretty much guaranteed to net if he plays.
Others may be more complete as players but no one does what Haaland does as well as him – and no one has for a very long time. He was the best player in the world this year. That's a fact. As cold and as simple as the man himself would appreciate.
