The world's top 50 footballers

The righteous London-based newspaper The Times has published a faulty selection of the world's top 50 footballers, shortlisted by an Italian journalist called Gabriele Marcotti. This one has come out as a very difficult list to put together as the article's pompous title was not defined accurately: is it the world's top or the European leagues' top? Are they the best footballers last year or their performance in previous/prospect years also count? Can only those playing in major leagues score high or leagues in Croatia, Holland and France mind as well?

Hundreds of comments have been posted showing the different views on football around Europe. However, thanks to the fact that TV stations in the European countries display similar events and, in particular in football, they are focused on the Premiership, La Liga and Il Calcio, Europeans hold not so different opinions as you could think beforehand. Most of the comments agree in few names whose rankings should have been different. For instance, according to the commentators, Giggs, Cannavaro (although ill-performing in La Liga), Kanoute, and Villa or Riquelme should have been included, whereas Torres, Shevchenko, Neville should have been left out. The ranking for other players would have also varied: Drogba and Van Nistelrooy scoring higher, Ballack and Lampard lower.

Due to the nationality of the journalist and the paper, the list seems biased towards Italian and Premiership footballers. Nevertheless, it gives a cue to the most interesting, innocuous, tough-battled discussion for a pub's night.