Best Football players

Cristiano Ronaldo leads the Football ranking with 1456 ELO points over 769 duels, ahead of Antoine Griezmann and Thierry Henry.

The podium features a 42-point gap between Ronaldo and Griezmann, while Griezmann edges out Thierry Henry by just 18 points for second place. Both French players share identical 68% win rates despite their ELO difference, suggesting closely matched performances across their respective duels. The sharpest divide appears further down: Michel Platini holds fourth place with a commanding 100-point advantage over Wayne Rooney in fifth, the widest separation in the ranking and a clear marker of distinct tiers within the top five. At the bottom, Alan Shearer trails in tenth with 953 ELO points and a 27% win rate across 715 duels, suggesting the community reserves its harshest judgment for certain names despite their storied careers.

This ranking draws from 3603 duels and 166 players who weighed in on their favorite footballers across 10 contenders, last updated on 10 October 2026. The vote remains open: compare your own preferences head to head, challenge the current order, and see how your choices shift the standings as the community continues to shape this ranking.

Updated on October 10, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →