I don't remember when exactly I made my mind up on Evra and Cole but it has indeed happened!

About Bastos. Definitely don't think he is a better fullback than Evra. Or anyone on the list I guess but when thinking about his versatility + what I believe is his effectiveness as a winger or attacking midfielder, despite sometimes being quite underwhelming if compared to other very good attacking players, I just had to put him ahead of Evra... shouldn't he then be ahead of Cole too? Well it's sooo close but all in all I'm going with Cole being an excellent defender just being enough to keep him ahead of what is still (Bastos) a non truly outstanding attacking player.

I'm somewhat of a Robinho hater so it's possible he would be even lower despite all his talent. I think the World Cup actually helped his ranking.

The Tottenham Berba would have been very high I think and like I talk about in his writeup, ironically he is the same player as then, but I guess some of his limitations have just come to the forefront. So ranking him as high as I think I would have back then would have been a mistake.

I don't know if a year ago I had my out-there ideas about central defenders and where to rank them fully in place and ready to execute, but their internal order would have been close to the same and Vidic definitely top 2. I guess with a less injury plagued Ferdinand at that time it would have been between those two. Making it a MAN U double at the top.

Chiellini still had something to prove in my eyes then. Not anymore really, though I'm sure he still does for many people which is understandable.

Terry I think would have been around the same. I haven't really weighed all the outside stuff as much of a factor. Carvalho is more talented but there must be value in Terry playing so much more than he has in recent years.

I think Rio would have been the number one last year and the year before CB. Vidic number 2 or 3. Now Rio will have dropped down quite a bit but Vidic should still be up there in the top 2.

Whenever I've seen Vidic he's getting tooled on by either Kaka, Torres, Drogba or Eto'o or crushing against le Arse. He think he suffers too much against pacy and skillful forwards too much to be considered the best CB.

He has destroyed Drogba... Drogba only 2 goals against Man Utd in the whole time he has been at Chelsea iirc.

and one of them was a good yard offside

There is no CB I have seen that hasn't 'been crushed' against certain strikers. Forwards are fast and skillful and will find away to get past and score vs even the GOAT defenders some of the time.

Who do you rate higher?

A yard is a under statement.

Good writeups... enjoyed it as always.

I think Evra should be higher and perhaps Bastos a little lower but obviously there are always going to be slight disagreements, and of course if you're ranking players with the ability to play multiple positions higher than that makes sense.

Bastos <<< Evra at LB ldo, but I'm sure you'd concede that as well.

Really glad to see Zanetti so high, I feel he so rarely gets the credit he deserves, and he's such an amazing player.

I'll even go so far as to say that if you went back in time 15 years and got to pick players with which to build a successful club, that there are not a whole lot of players that I would want before him.

I like Nesta, Ricardo Calvalho, Pepe, Pique and Puyol better as defenders, though Vidic's goalscoring is really valuable and almost irreplaceable. He's certainly the best of that big strong kick-everyone CB-type, but he really suffers more than anyone listed above against top quality forwards even if he dominates inferior forwards.

I think him being rated as one of the best is one of the by-products of the 4-5-1 that nearly everyone in the EPL plays against United.

None of these are better than Vidic come on. Nesta WAS. Thats it.

agree to disagree, I don't think I can possibly rate a guy who in the CL final gets sat on his arse by a simple cut inside from Eto'o as the best CB.

It's kinda of a cognitive dissonance here, either he is:

1. one of the best BUT handles himself poorly against the best players, or

he isn't one of the best BECAUSE he handles himself poorly against the best players.

I'd be happier with any of the above CBs against someone Messi or CR or Torres or Robben than Vidic in isolation situations.

Small sample sizes for the loss. Vidic the best defender on the best defense in Europe, makes two mistakes a season. But one was in CL oh noes.

I think I could play CB for Barca and look good

Preemptive bump for update later today.

Since it will in all likelyhood be the last one till at least late August or early September (have to entertain visitors and then there is some traveling) I was hoping this would be a massive update. And it still might be since I intend to not stop writing until late today. But one writeup did get really long and another quite complicated resulting in wasting way too much time, so while it will indeed be long it isn't covering as many placings as hoped.

But oh well, the tags so far (with more to come) are:

Clichy, Gomez, Coentrao, Misimovic, Cissokho, Cole, Baggio,Benzema, Milan, Pirlo, Ronaldinho and yes also some specific penis if anyone should be drawn to that (you never know! Anything to get readers!)...

Eh... what?

Clichy? Over Evra? Surely not...

Tags on his blog (I think)

Yup he didn't make the list and is buried somewhere (with just a few lines to his name) in this entry among the honoraries.

Just tagged him because of some round up discussion and ranking of all the fullbacks that I wasted time on. As I talk about there though I would include him now since after some rustiness featuring some worrying performances, he did end up coming back strong.

Oh ok, that makes sense. I was scared for a second!

Heh, for a second there I thought you had lost your mind.

lol I should probably go for a level entry at some point. The ultimate one would of course have been goat Peter Crouch.

Though maybe it's too high up the list now for anyone from way out leftfield to just not look too much out of place.

Then again there are so many good players (or just very talented ones) and so many you actually can make a case for along the way over x individual (including Crouch over some!). In fact I'm sure the ranking of for an example Mario Gomez with the very varying opinions people have of his game can seem way out there to some. But no he is not a level.

oops I posted the entry but went to bed without updating it here.

The list so far:

200-101 + honorary mentions

100: Jose Bosingwa
99: Andre Pierre Gignac
98: Andres Guardado
97: Ricardo Carvalho and Rio Ferdinand
96: John Terry
95: Mark Van Bommel


94: Alejandro "Chori" Dominguez - Valencia - Argentina
93: Claudio Marchisio - Juventus - Italy
92: Michael Carrick - Manchester United - England
91: Darren Fletcher - Manchester United - Scotland
90: Miralem Pjanic - Lyon - Bosnia-Herzegovina
89: Santi Cazorla - Villarreal - Spain
88: Samir Nasri - Arsenal - France
87: Luis Suarez - Ajax - Uruguay
86: Mario Balotelli - Inter - Italy
85: Alberto Gilardino - Fiorentina - Italy
84: James Milner - Aston Villa - England
83: Mikel Arteta - Everton - Spain


82: Thierry Henry - Barcelona - France
81: Thomas Müller - Bayern München - Germany
80: Ivica Olic - Bayern München - Croatia
79: Branislav Ivanovic - Chelsea - Serbia
78: Nemanja Vidić - Manchester United - Serbia
77: Giorgio Chiellini - Juventus - Italy


76: Marcos Senna - Villarreal - Spain
75: Lass Diarra - Real Madrid - France
74: Francesco Totti - Roma - Italy
73: Antonio Di Natale - Udinese - Italy
72: Emmanuel Adebayor - Manchester City - Togo
71: Mirko Vucinic - Roma - Montenegro
70: Antonio Valencia - Manchester United - Ecuador
69: David Pizarro - Roma - Chile
68: Dimitar Berbatov - Manchester United - Bulgaria

67: Juan Manuel Vargas - Fiorentina - Peru
66: Robinho - Manchester City - Brazil
65: Patrice Evra - Manchester United - France
64: Michel Bastos - Lyon - Brazil
63: Seydou Keita - Barcelona - Mali
62: Javier Zanetti - Inter - Argentina

new:

61: Ashley Cole - Chelsea - England
60: Andrea Pirlo - Milan - Italy
59: Mario Gomez - Bayern München - Germany
58: Karim Benzema - Real Madrid - France
57: Zvjezdan Misimovic - Wolfsburg - Bosnia
56: Rafael Van der Vaart - Real Madrid - Netherlands

Tags for the writeups:

Well I think this turned out to be a long read at your own risk entry.

VdV especially, half asleep I was, turned into rambling about Guti instead! If I'm brave enough to ever read that again I will correct errors and maybe even add some more content actually about Van der Vaart...

Overall this had the most sidetracking for an entry in a while but if nothing else at least it gives some variation.

Elsewhere and everywhere the order was very difficult.

Pirlo I still don't know how to compare to the players around him and where to rank.

Gomez and Benzema could look strange to some but I quite like their rankings and think especially Benzema with a good season could take a large jump up the list.

I also had an issue with VdV's rank which is discussed early in his writeup.

Cole basically had his worst game ever after I did my writeup for him and that's never fun (now I have good reason to hate him as well!) but not too big of a deal I definitely don't think.

nice writeups

some quick points:

definitely disagree with Abidal and Filipe not among the best 200 players in the world, unless we're placing injuries as an issue with Abidal. Filipe is basically wrong as you even conceded with low sampe size, and he is reasonably solid defensively and exemplary in offering a very limited Deportivo attacking width. A Kolorov that defends much better, if you will.

Great job listing the problems facing Pirlo at Milan, but there's kind of a cognitive dissonance in both explaining Milan and his poorer showings and then ranking him at 60. I still think Pirlo is the best passer in terms of range and speed of execution in the world so you are really punishing him for Milan being rubbish. Do you Milan finish think 1st or 2nd with Xavi in place of Pirlo? I think there's just no solution to how Leonardo sets out the team XI, the absoloute inability of Ronaldinho/Boriello/Pato/Huntelaar to do any meaningful pressing/defensive work and the consequent regular 60m gaps between attack and the Milan's first line of defence and I was beyond angry after the tactical humiliation of the first derby where Leo lined up a flat midfield line in a 4-4-2 against Inter's more physical and athletic players in a 4-2-3-1.

Such is Leo's tactical naivety and the players Milan had at her disposal, I simply had to bet on Man Utd win for a pretty big sum @ the San Siro. I've never bet against Milan before fwiw.

Sorry for being a bit rambly.