Soccer 100

By: The Athletic, Oliver Kay, James Horncastle

Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2025-11-18

<p>A celebration of the beautiful game and its 100 greatest players, from the pre-World War II exploits of Dixie Dean to the modern-day genius of Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi</p> <p>These players left legacies, redefined the game with trademark skills, and grew into national icons. They have their stats--the goals, the wins, the trophies--but, more importantly, they have their stories.</p> <p>One World Cup winner owned a nightclub that briefly transformed a corner of industrial Germany into one of the hippest places around. An Austrian forward's death is still shrouded in mystery. A striker who might have become a telephone technician had he not been spotted playing soccer was eventually elected president of his country.</p> <p>And there are unanswered questions. How did Pelé's Brazil shirt from the 1958 World Cup quarterfinal go missing in a Welsh school? Which goalkeeper was so good that one opponent considered scoring against him akin to "winning a trophy"?</p> <p>Through extensive research and interviews, The Athletic soccer staff, led by Oliver Kay and James Horncastle, discovered angles and tales that shine a new light on the sport's most compelling characters.</p> <p>They faced an impossible riddle, too: Of the thousands of players to hit the pitch, who is the best? Their efforts to find the answer took the foremost sports newsroom on a journey, and what emerges is more than a ranking. Through all-new, vivid portraits of each athlete, The Soccer 100 is a tribute to the greatest players to have ever graced the most popular sport on the planet.</p>