English Paper on Top Ten Football Players in the World
As of (April 1, 2016)
Introduction
Football or soccer enjoys the greatest popularity in the world compared to other sports. Almost every country nurtures football talents through soccer league and national team football teams and their academies. In the recent decades, soccer has become a multi-billion dollar making industry leading to most of the highest paid athletes in the world emerge from it.
Methodology
In this study, I decided to explore the world of football to figure out who is the top soccer player in the world. Therefore, ten most common footballers have been chosen from different teams for clubs or countries as ranked by soccer expert Stewart Coggin in his column ‘Best Soccer Players in the World’ on About Sports online sports magazine. Variable distinctions include club loyalty, creativity, speed, shooting, work rate, strength, and a number of career goals indices, to show their character and successes in the field. Other distinctions are; player of the year awards received, and net worth shows the recognition they have received for their efforts, and their person success and development. It is important to note that in the study, Manuel Nuer is a goalkeeper, so his distinctions are replaced as follows; creativity for positional sense, ball control for shot stopping, speed for reflexes, shooting for kicking, and work rate for command of the box.Portraits of the footballers used in this study are:
- Messi C. Ronaldo L. Suarez Neymar Jr. Kun Aguero
- Neuer G. Bale A. Robben A. Iniesta Z. Ibrahimovic
| Club Loyalty Index | Creativity Index | Dribbling/ball control Index control | Strength | Speed Index | Shooting Index | Work Rate Index | Player of the year Awards (FIFA Ballon d’Or)
|
Net Worth (millions) | # of career goals | TOTALS | |
| Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini (Leo) | 10.0 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 7.5 | 5 | 280 | 545 | 891 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo Dos Santos Aveiro (CR7) | 6.0 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 7.5 | 9.0 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 4 | 375 | 557 | 991.5 |
| Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz | 4.5 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 8.0 | 6.5 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 0 | 40 | 360 | 452.5 |
| Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (Neymaravilha) | 7.0
|
9.0 | 8.5 | 7.0 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 6.5 | 0 | 148 | 275 | 477 |
| Sergio Leonel Agüero (Kun) | 7.0 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 7.0 | 6.5 | 0 | 70 | 304 | 425.5 |
| Manuel Neuer | 8.0 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 10.0 | 7.5 | 0 | 52.8 | 0 | 109.3 |
| Gareth Bale | 7.0 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 6.0 | 0 | 90 | 146 | 290 |
| Arjen Robben | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 | – | 9.5 | 7.5 | 7.0 | 0 | 80 | 212 | 337 |
| Andrés Iniesta Luján | 10.0 | 8.5 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 6.5 | 1 | 86 | 72 | 214.5 |
| Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Ibracadabra) | 5.0 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 0 | 160 | 460 | 673 |
Sources: goal.com; worldsoccer.about.com; topendsports.com; espn.com; moneynation.com; therichest.com
Discussion and Conclusion
From my research, I can conclude that Cristiano Ronaldo is the leading footballer in the world with a whopping 991.5 of the ten variable distinctions created beating his closest rival by almost 100. He has been given nominations several times as the FIFA Player of the Year and he has won 4 times, just one shy from Lionel Messi. His formidable form in the past decade has seen Cristiano Ronaldo reach an illustrious landmark of goals whereby he has scored about 575 total career goals for clubs and country hence the best goal scorer in the list. Only Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimović follow him closely with a significant number of career goals. The great number of goals scored and several awards ad nominations indicate the huge success the player has achieved in the football history.
Cristiano Ronaldo has a total net worth of an estimated 375million dollars putting him above the rest of the footballers. This reveals that he is the richest athlete in the list leaving the second, Messi, with a difference of $95 million. The money possibly comes from the huge sponsorship deals Ronaldo is associated with plus hefty pay packages from his club, Real Madrid, and the national team, Portugal. From the study, we can also see that CR7’s riches could almost be equal to the accumulated net worth of the rest of the players in the list leaving out Messi and Ibrahimović.
Considering the players’ abilities in the field: creativity, dribbling, strength, speed, and work rate Ronaldo still appears to be excellent with a total of 49.5 though he is toppled to the second place by Messi who has a whopping 51 out of possible 60. His pace comes second to Arjen Robben who has a 9.5 index making him the fastest player in the field. However, CR7’s creativity is on par with Suarez and Neymar Junior at 9.0. In addition, CR7 has a good ball control ability of 9.0 although he is beaten by his close competitor in the list, Messi who has 9.5.
The variables used to rank the top ten players in this research can be considered to be good areas of comparison. Five of them show their abilities in the field while awards, career goals, and net worth show the players’ personal achievements and development. However, club loyalty seems to be weird variable to assess the players on but it still shows how the footballers are dedicated to their contracts or teams.
In conclusion, Cristiano Ronaldo is an excellent footballer with a huge talent just like the rest of the players he has toppled over to take the number one spot in this study. He is at the peak of his career hence we can expect more things to come from him. May he and the rest earn more awards and achieve huge career successes.