ESPN Ranks World Cup Players 1-50.

March 2nd, 2010 | by: chris | View Comments

The Global Leader In Sports jumps through hoops for the Globe’s Sport once every four years during the World Cup, often conveniently with parent company ABC holding the broadcast rights – at least until recently. After losing Champions League rights they acquired some Premier League and La Liga rights, while launching ESPN360, an all-sports outfit, but one which prominently features games from La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, Eredivisie and various other cup competitions on a weekly basis. They also moved abroad, launching ESPN in the UK last fall.

The reputation of the network, especially that of the website, hasn’t always been very good when it comes to the beautiful game, but they’re trying*, and it’s earning a bit of leeway (at least in these parts). So when ESPN’s 23-person panel announced the top 50 players going to the World Cup (bolding that so people can be yelled at for the inevitable ‘ZOMFG?!?!?! ZLATAN?!?!?! ARSHAVIN?!?!?!’ later), I went in with an open mind.

* – Their punditry and announcing is still aspiring to mediocrity, however.

It, much like any Top 50 list, will be polarizing and divisive; it’s not a night’s ride on a cobblestone street, but it’s not quite fresh pavement, either. A great deal of points seem to be handed out on reputation, past conquests or current team/league. (They may even do a bit of pandering to the English community, which of course ESPN has never, ever done.)

These lists are mighty difficult tasks – they’re easy to botch and impossible to get right – so while it’s not perfect, it’s fairly tough to cast stones as well…

Ah fuck it – if Craig Bellamy can do it, so can we. Off with their heads!

- On Saturday afternoon I was bopping around the interwebs checking football scores, Olympic finales and trying to find out just why nobody from Lagos will bother me for money through email. I’d vaguely paid attention to the Carling Cup final minute-by-minute at The Guardian, but hadn’t checked in since the 55th minute or so, when it was still 1-1. By the time I’d run through other leagues and alerted all of Nigeria to my mailing whereabouts, I caught that the game had finished 2-1, and I knew, without having to check the score and knowing he had not started, that Wayne Rooney had scored the winner. I just knew. And not in the ‘feel it deep in my soul because it’s what I subconsciously want and Miss Cleo told me‘ vein – I knew it like I know that 1+1=2, the sky is blue, grass green and that Francesco Totti is going to the World Cup. Such is his goal-scoring peerlessness right now.

I’ve wondered since then about the Ballon d’Or, but despite his staggering totals already, this is a World Cup year and we’re only one game into the Champions League kayos, meaning that, in the eye of the Bd’O voters, what Wayne has done up until now will count for roughly 8% – if that – toward their considerations in October.

And with that said, he belongs no further down this list, nor any list, than third.

- Michael Essien seems quite the stretch to me, as doo David Villa and Franck Ribery at 11 & 12, respectively – the latter two a stretch in the opposite direction, however. It’s been a few years since I’ve thought of either as anything but Top 10 in the world. Though maybe the problem is more I see about 15 players worthy of being Top Ten in the world…

Lesson learned: it’s always my fault.

- Elite keepers – all two of them – deserve more respect.

- When the @#$% is Kaka going to be judged on form and production rather than natural talents and mystique? It’s been years now. (And this from someone who thinks Kaka, when on form, might just be the reincarnation of that Jesus fella he’s always on about – which would really explain those t-shirts.)

- In fact going down the list it seems they’ve taken the better players from the better teams in the world’s best leagues rather than simply the best players in the world, which is something you’d expect from a certain four-letter acronym. Are Robin Van Persie and Gonzalo Higuain really two spots better than Diego Forlan, a veritable assassin and two-time Golden Shoe winner in his prime? Can’t somebody give the man a hand. Or where are the mighty phenoms playing under the radar right in everyone’s face, such as Mesut Ozil? It’s a young man’s game, after all.

- If anyone finds Andrea Pirlo’s Top 23 form, please postmark it next day to Coverciano. Much obliged.

- We’ll excuse the Landon Donovan bone to American readers at #50, what with ESPN being an American company and all.

Almost inevitably, I’m no fan of this list. An impossible task, yes…but not that impossible, right?