The World’s Best Midfielders

The fol­low­ing list of elite mid­field play­ers in the world will exclude the likes of Lionel Messi, Cris­tiano Ronaldo and Kaka since they some­times play as for­wards or as sup­port strik­ers depend­ing on the strat­egy deployed by their team. Kaka has pre­vi­ously played as a sec­ond striker dur­ing his spell with Milan while both Messi and Ronaldo have played in var­i­ous attack­ing posi­tions for their club (mostly on the wing though).

The list below does not com­prise all of the world’s best mid­field­ers but focuses on those who have made next summer’s World Cup:

Cesc Fab­re­gas: The young Spaniard is already Arsenal’s cap­tain after being handed the arm­band just over a year ago and has been a men­ac­ing threat for oppo­nents from his cen­tral mid­field posi­tion. His main con­tri­bu­tions come in the form of assists to his team­mates as well as being a key par­tic­i­pant in the build-up of most of the club’s attack­ing moves. This sea­son he has already scored six goals and amassed 10 assists in Arsenal’s first 10 league games. Fab­re­gas has three goals as well as three assists in five Euro­pean appear­ances for the Lon­don side.

Daniele De Rossi: The defen­sive mid­fielder is one of the Azzurri’s most impor­tant play­ers and is one of the first names in the start­ing lineup under coach Mar­cello Lippi. With aging enforcer Gen­naro Gat­tuso suf­fer­ing from lack of form and injuries, De Rossi’s role has become even more impor­tant. While sta­tis­tics may not do the Roma mid­fielder jus­tice, it is known that his influ­ence for the Gial­lorossi and the national team is quite immense. One inter­est­ing fact is Daniele has scored eight times for Italy and his coun­try has won all eight of those games!

Marek Ham­sik: The Slo­vak inter­na­tional is a cor­ner­stone of his club Napoli and his national team. He is renowned for his dan­ger­ous posi­tion­ing and for pop­ping up from the out­side the area to score goals. Though dif­fer­ent from England’s Frank Lam­pard, he does share some sim­i­lar traits and at the age of 22 he obvi­ously has many years ahead to mature into one of the world’s most effec­tive and dan­ger­ous cen­tral mid­field­ers. (Please refer to pre­vi­ous piece titled Best Start­ing 11 Today dated Novem­ber 16, 2009)

Steven Ger­rard: The Eng­land inter­na­tional has been used as a sec­ond striker and in sup­port of striker Fer­nando Tor­res yet he fea­tures on this list because he has mostly been used in var­i­ous mid­field posi­tions over his career. To most Liv­er­pool fans, Gerrard’s name should be the first on any of the team’s start­ing 11 in offi­cial matches. The club tends to suf­fer and miss that extra impe­tus when Ger­rard is not play­ing. Liverpool’s losses often coin­cide with his absence through injury or sus­pen­sion. Ger­rard will play a key role for Eng­land under the lead­er­ship of Fabio Capello.

Xabi Alonso: The mid­field gen­eral was quite influ­en­tial in Liverpool’s drive for the title last sea­son. His depar­ture to Real Madrid has led some, includ­ing Cap­tain Ger­rard, to rue his exit from Anfield and to praise his con­tri­bu­tions to the Eng­lish club. He recently scored a brace in Spain’s 2–1 vic­tory over Argentina. He is begin­ning to set­tle down for Los Galac­ti­cos will surely be deci­sive if the cap­i­tal side are to dethrone la Liga’s cham­pi­ons Barcelona (Please refer to the Best Start­ing 11 Today arti­cle for more infor­ma­tion on Alonso).

Frank Lam­pard: The Eng­lish mid­fielder has set the bar so high that crit­ics have begun to ques­tion whether he is on a decline because he has had a slow sea­son so far by his own high stan­dards. Lam­pard will be key for Fabio Capello and his plans to lead Eng­land to the lat­ter stages of the World Cup in South Africa. Lam­pard scored a brace in the 5–1 demo­li­tion of Croa­tia which basi­cally sent a clear mes­sage to the rest of the world about England’s intent to com­pete come next summer.

Hon­or­able men­tion must go to both of Barcelona’s mid­field­ers Andres Ini­esta and Xavi Her­nan­dez. Ini­esta has recently recov­ered from injury but was quite deci­sive last sea­son and Chelsea fans cer­tainly remem­ber his goal which sent their club pack­ing in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­tion. Ini­esta must not be very pop­u­lar with Eng­lish fans since he went on to play an instru­men­tal role in Barca’s tri­umph over Man­ches­ter United in the Cham­pi­ons League Final as he assisted on the goal by Samuel Eto’o’s.

Xavi is Iniesta’s part­ner with the Cata­lan side and the national team with both being deci­sive in the tre­ble achieved by Barca as well as Spain’s tri­umph in Euro 2008. Xavi was actu­ally named best player by UEFA dur­ing the suc­cess­ful cam­paign which yielded a pre­cious tro­phy for the Spaniards dur­ing Euro 2008. Xavi and Ini­esta clearly com­pli­ment each other on the club and inter­na­tional level. Spain will be dan­ger­ous next sum­mer with such a skilled and deci­sive midfield.

Tagged as: Alonso, Arsenal, Barcelona, C. Ronaldo, Capello, Chelsea, De Rossi, Fabregas, Gerrard, Kaka, Lampard, Liverpool, Manchester United, Messi, Napoli, Real Madrid, South Africa 2010