70. Ronald Koeman
There is no modern equivalent to Ronald Koeman. Think of Sergio Ramos in his prime with the mind of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Still the top-scoring defender in the history of the game, Koeman was integral to Johan Cruyff's Dream Team and the man who scored Barcelona's first-ever European Cup winner. Sure, the headlines were all about his rocketing free-kicks and blasts from distance – but he was a brilliant sweeper too whose reading of the game was sublime.
Career highlight: That goal against Sampdoria in the final European Cup final before the rebrand. It changed the trajectory of an entire football club.
69. Jimmy Johnstone
Until Jock Stein arrived at Parkhead in 1965, both Celtic and the mercurial 'Jinky' Johnstone were struggling for consistency. Initially Stein felt the outside-right was too much of an individual, but showed faith in the player who was at the fulcrum of his side for the next decade. One of the Lisbon Lions (the Celtic team which beat Inter in 1967 to become the first British club to win the European Cup), Johnstone's superb performance during Alfredo Di Stefano's testimonial in Madrid in the same year prompted the supporters inside the Bernabeu to chant “Ole!” everytime he received the ball.
Career highlight: Informed by manager Stein that, if he played a blinder in the first leg of a European tie in 1968 he wouldn't have to travel to Red Star Belgrade for the return, 'Jinky' pulled out all the stops, scoring twice and setting up two more goals in a 5-1 win.
68. Dennis Bergkamp
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He may have been Dutch, but Bergkamp’s biggest impact was arguably made on English football. Arriving to the Premier League as one of its first wave of foreign imports back in the unreconstructed early 1990s, Bergkamp immediately demonstrated a suaveness and detached innovation that was alien to the culture he’d come into. The former Gunner had the star quality and an icy mean streak that immediately endeared him, but also showed that a hardened winning mentality and sumptuously refined technique need not be mutually exclusive.
Career highlight: His goals against Newcastle and in the World Cup against Argentina were his masterworks, and both are well-documented. But perhaps the moment that best defines him is an assist: for Freddie Ljungberg against Juventus, in a 3-1 win at Highbury in 2001.
67. Sandro Mazzola
A one-club man with Inter, Mazzola was key to Helenio Herrera’s Grande Inter side. Renowned for their tough-nut catenaccio tactics, and their ability to score from lightning-fast counter-attacks, Mazzola’s tactical nous from midfield brought him goals aplenty, and a raft of silverware as Inter became Italy’s team of the 1960s.
Sandro won four Serie A titles, the 1964 European Cup Final and added the 1968 European Championship with Italy.
Career highlight: “I played against your father. You did him proud, and I want to give you my shirt,” Ferenc Puskas told Mazzola after Sandro scored twice in Inter’s victory over Real Madrid in the 1964 European Cup Final.
66. Denis Law
There wasn't a more thrilling sight in the 1960s and early '70s than the vision of 'The Lawman' triumphantly punching his right fist into the air after plundering one of his 237 goals in 404 Manchester United appearances.
Law netted United's first goal in the 1963 FA Cup Final, won two league titles with Matt Busby's men, and dovetailed perfectly with the other two members of the 'Holy Trinity' - George Best and Bobby Charlton. Having unluckily missed out on the European Cup final triumph in 1968 with injury, Law nonetheless played on into the technicolor '70s, before enjoying a second spell at rivals Manchester City.
Career highlight: Law was United's top scorer during their title-winning 1964/65 campaign, winning the Ballon d'Or in the process.
65. Johan Neeskens
A tireless midfielder, equally able to score goals, provide assists and close gaps in defence, Neeskens was perfect for the Total Football ideas of Ajax and the national team. Nicknamed the Second Johan, he was the best possible partner for Johan Cruyff, covering ground for the maestro and feeding him with countless balls.
Unsurprisingly, Neeskens moved to Barcelona in 1974, a year after his friend and having won three European Cups in a row at Ajax. He also followed Cruyff to the NASL, starring for New York Cosmos.
Career highlight: Neeskens is best remembered for scoring a second-minute penalty in the 1974 World Cup final against West Germany, which sadly for the Dutch wasn't enough in the end.
64. Gunnar Nordahl
With 210 Serie A goals, Nordahl is the greatest Milan scorer of all time, and nobody – not even Andriy Shevchenko – could ever come close to his achievement. The powerfully built Swede was the top scorer in Italy five times during the six-year period between 1950 and 1955 – also an unprecedented feat.
Such was his initial success that Milan signed two of his compatriots, Nils Liedholm and Gunnar Gren. Together they formed the famous Gre-No-Li partnership, one of the best footballing trios ever. Nordahl won the championship title twice with Milan and remains the top-scoring foreign player in the history of Italian football.
Career highlight: Nordahl was brilliant for his national team as well, with 43 goals in 33 games. His contribution was crucial when Sweden won gold at the 1948 Olympics.
63. Dixie Dean
Scorer of 379 goals in 437 league games, Fixie Dean (real name William), is arguably the greatest of all English centre-forwards.
Muscular and athletic, Dean survived both a motorcycle accident and the loss of a testicle early in his career to crash home goal after goal for his beloved Everton and England. No mean feat in the era of the heavy ball.
Career highlight: In 1927/28, as Everton rampaged towards the First Division title, Dean plundered a barely credible 60 goals, dismissing those who claimed the reformed offside law had made his job easier as “buffoons”.
62. John Charles
Do you know, whenever I look at John it feels as though the Messiah has returned.
Jimmy Murphy
In 1997, Il Buon Gigante – the Gentle Giant – pipped both Zinedine Zidane and Michel Platini to the title of Juventus fans’ greatest-ever foreign player. A world-record £65,000 signing from Leeds in 1957, Charles scored 108 goals in 155 matches for Juve. He also won two league titles in Italy, while demonstrating that big men (he was 6ft 2in and 14 stone) could indeed possess a sublime touch.
Danny Blanchflower reckoned Charles, who also represented Wales at the 1958 World Cup, was the “most instinctive player I ever saw”.
Career highlight: Charles served notice of his extraordinary versatility at Leeds when, after being converted from an outstanding centre-half into a centre-forward during the 1952/53 season, he went on to score 42 goals in 1953/54.
61. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
An excellent dribbler who could crash in shots with virtually no backlift, the powerfully built Rummenigge was arguably the most effective forward in Europe during the late 1970s and early '80s.
His fruitful partnership with midfielder Paul Breitner (Bayern Munich were nicknamed ‘FC Breitnigge’) helped bring shedloads of silverware to Bavaria, including three European Cups in succession. Rummenigge starred on the international stage as well, winning the European Championship in 1980.
Career highlight: In the World Cup's first ever penalty shootout, Rummenigge stayed typically calm, netting his spot kick against France in an infamous semi-final to help send eventual runners-up West Germany into the final.
