World's best footballers in 2013: Lionel Messi retains his crown
Baku, December 25 (AZERTAC). Lionel Messi has once again taken the top spot in the Guardian's ranking of the world's top 100 footballers, beating Cristiano Ronaldo for the second year in a row.
Lionel Messi has retained the top spot in this year's Guardian's choice of the world's top 100 footballers, which also sees Franck Ribery, Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez make impressive leaps into the top ten.
The second annual list by the Guardian enlisted the former Italy international Alessandro Nesta as the lead judge in a panel of 15 experts (up from 11 last year). The former England women's coach, Hope Powell, and retired USA goalkeeper, Kasey Keller, joined the selection of Guardian journalists on the panel.
So how exactly did they go about ranking players for the top 100? Stephen McMillan explains: “We asked each judge one simple question: who have been the 40 best players in the world in 2013? They ranked their answers in order, from 1-40. We awarded 40 points for a No1 choice, 39pts for No2, and so on down to one point for their 40th choice.”
The results, which have been unveiled in a countdown from December 20, are now published in full. You can see the top 100 listed in the table below with both this year's ranking and that of 2012. The spreadsheet also includes details of the points awarded to each player on the list.
Ronaldo remains in second place while Zlatan Ibrahimovic has climbed two places to third. There have been some impressive leaps into the top ten; Ribery up 24 places to fourth, Gareth Bale up 33 places to seventh and Suarez jumps from 21st place in 2012 to ninth in 2013.
Bayern Munich and Barcelona are the top represented clubs on the list with 11 players each, while Real Madrid have nine players in the top 100 - one fewer than last year. Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund have eight and seven respectively. Manchester City, who had eight players in last year's list, now have six in the top 100.
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