Welcome to the Guardian’s choice of the world’s top 100 footballers for 2015. Led by Zico, Javier Zanetti and Gheorghe Hagi, our panel of 123 experts from 49 nations compiled a countdown of the greatest male players on the planet. Click on an individual to read more about their year.

Barney Ronay: Messi regains No1 position

How our judges voted: the complete statistics

Datablog: the numbers crunched

Video: the ten best footballers in the world



Read the full list of judges and top 100 rules

