The world's best footballers: the top 100 list

The Guardian's choice of the world's top 100 footballers has been unveiled today with Lionel Messi topping the list at No1.

An 11-strong international panel of experts were asked by Guardian Sport to name their top 30 players in action today and rank them in order of preference. Players were then scored on their ranking by each panellist: a No1 choice allocated 30pts, No2 29pts and so on down to selection No30, given one point.

So how did the Guardian top 100 come about? Sports editor Ian Prior explains:

Compiling such a list requires a certain confidence, some may say arrogance of judgment. Guilty, if so. Not all may agree, but it is a personal belief that these pages are currently home to perhaps the finest collective of football writers and analysts in the English language. From Daniel Taylor to Sid Lowe, Jonathan Wilson to Michael Cox, Richard Williams to Raphael Honigstein, we are blessed with writers whose knowledge covers not only the English game but who offer a genuinely global perspective.

The ranking, which has slowly been revealed in a countdown from the 20 December, is now published in full and the world's top 100 footballers are listed below for you to view.

The choice of Messi at No1, beating Cristiano Ronaldo into second place, is explained below by Sid Lowe:

There was only one name and one position on which all 11 members of the panel were in unanimous agreement; the world No1, Lionel Messi. How could we not choose him?

The debate has moved to another plane: it is not so much a question of whether Messi is the best player in the world right now, as whether Messi might just be the best player there has ever been.

Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Radamel Falcao, Robin van Persie, Andrea Pirlo, Yaya Touré and Edinson Cavani make up the rest of the top 10.

Four English players make it onto the list; Ashley Cole (30th), Wayne Rooney (31st), Joe Hart (65th) and John Terry (86). Despite only a few English players making it onto the top 100, the Premier League is the best represented with 27 players, followed by La Liga with 23. The chart above shows the top five leagues by the number of footballers appearing in the list.

Barcelona is the best represented club with 12 players on the list followed by Bayern Munich and Real Madrid with 10 each. Chelsea and Manchester City each have eight players on the list.

The average age for the footballers appearing on the list is 26 years old. Stephan El Shaarawy, aged 20, is the youngest player in the top 100 whilst Javier Zanetti is the oldest at 39 years old.

So how does the list break down by nationality? 16 of the players are Spanish, 12 Brazilian and 10 German. There are 8 Argentinian players on the list and both Italy and France have seven footballers on the top 100.

If you're wondering which position is the most common amongst the top 100 players then we've also broken that down too: 36 are midfielders, 29 forward, 19 defenders. The full breakdown by nationality, club and position can be found in the downloadable spreadsheet.

The full list of the world's top 100 footballers can be found below along with information on each players club, position, nationality and age. Can you do something interesting with this data?

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