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Not for nothing is football known as the beautiful game. Beyond the goals, wins, losses, ecstasy, and agony, lies the sheer joy that the intangible aesthetics of football engenders in millions of followers around the world and helps maintain the game's status as the most popular sport in the world.
In football's storied history, many players have graced the stage and won countless hearts with their prowess to entertain and provide magic on the field. Hence, creating a list of only the ten best entertainers will inevitably leave many fan favourites out.
Ten most entertaining football players of all time:
While conceiving this countdown, we have tried to focus on players who entertain mostly with their skills and sometimes with their antics as well. Owing to a careful balancing of both attributes, someone like a supremely-talented Mario Balotelli misses out on this list for too much of the latter.
Ultimately, we have tried to compile a list of the ten players who have enthralled with their dexterity and audacity and made us remember why we fell in love with football in the first place. The list has been ranked in ascending order.
So, without further ado, let's get started.
#10 Rene Higuita
We have gone for the most entertaining goalkeeper of all time with our first selection. His nickname, El Loco (the madman), tells you enough about the custodian's personality and the audacity he brought to a football pitch.
His scorpion kick, in which he saved a goal-bound shot by using his legs in a backflip (it can only be felt in its full glory when seen), is a legendary move. But Rene Higuita was also a great goalkeeper and a pioneering sweeper-keeper ranked highly in many lists of all-time South American greats.
The Colombian, who won many honours with Atletico Nacional, also graced the FIFA World Cup stage.
#9 Dennis Bergkamp
The original Picasso of football, Dennis Bergkamp was an artist through and through and lit up Highbury (Arsenal's previous home stadium) with his touches, flicks and passes. He was also a scorer of great goals and often linked up with his teammates to devastating and breathtaking effect.
An Arsenal legend, Dennis Bergkamp won a lot of silverware with the club (he was not so lucky with the Netherlands), but most importantly, he won the hearts of legions of fans.
#8 Ronaldo Nazario
There was a time when there was only one Ronaldo. The Brazilian was arguably the greatest centre-forward in the game in his prime and scored his goals with some style too.
He was a part of probably the last great Brazil team that epitomised jogo bonito ('beautiful game' in English) and won the FIFA World Cup in 2002 (more on that later), with his close-control and dribbling being particular sights to behold.
#7 Cristiano Ronaldo
Yes, he is a perennial GOAT contender who continues to amaze with his physical prowess and longevity, but Cristiano Ronaldo ranks a little lower on the entertainment scale because of the machine-like precision that sometimes imbues his skill-moves.
That does not mean he is not one of the all-time entertainers of the game; his bicycle kicks and impossible headers serve as a testament to his entertainment quotient.
#6 Pele
Pele burst on to the world stage as a precocious teenager in the 1958 FIFA World Cup by scoring a hat-trick.
It marked the start of something special and the ascent of possibly the greatest footballer of all time. He won three FIFA World Cup titles with the Selecao, all while scoring beautiful goals that still make up the highlight reels in World Cup history.
His skills included signature moves such as the drible da vaca and many feel he intrinsically portrayed all that is beautiful in the game.
#5 Zinedine Zidane
A footballer who could literally make the ball do whatever he wanted to with it, Zinedine Zidane, fondly called 'Zizou', is the greatest footballer to have come out of France and one of the greatest of all time.
Zizou's dribbling and passing left one awe struck, but he also came up with key goals in big games, and many of them were beautiful as well. A World Cup and Champions League winner, Zidane not only won trophies for his team but won them while playing the 'beautiful' game.
#4 Lionel Messi
We will not venture into the perennial Ronaldo vs Messi debate about who is the better player between the two, but there is something about the way Lionel Messi dribbles that is transcendent from an aesthetic point of view.
His solo goal against Getafe at a very young age is a case in point. For many, Cristiano Ronaldo is a more complete player: the better header of the ball, the better athlete, strong with both feet, etc.
Messi's ball control, vision, passing and finishing are magical. His success with Barcelona not only brought trophies but epitomised why this game is beautiful, even as a team game as well when Messi linked up with his fellow gladiators to weave magic.
#3 George Best
The first veritable superstar of the sport, George Best is often considered the best player ever. That's because the Fifth Beatle possessed the biggest repertoire of skills the game has seen till date and was a true stylist of the game.
Whatever the Northern Irish and Manchester United winger did, he did with style. Best was not all style no substance, though. He helped Manchester United win their first European Cup back in 1968.
The hallmark of Best, a brilliant winger who could both create and score, was his pacey dribbling. He was also well known for his good looks and celebrity lifestyle, as well as his quips.
Sample Best's take on David Beckham:
“He cannot kick with his left foot; he cannot head a ball; he cannot tackle, and he doesn’t score many goals. Apart from that, he’s all right.”
Best is also often termed the best player never to have played in the FIFA World Cup.
#2 Diego Maradona
Diego Maradona features higher on this list than his perennial rival Pele because of the zing and saltiness the former brought to the game apart from his breathtaking skills.
Only Maradona could have scored the 'goal of the century' and a blatantly illegal goal in the same game (1986 FIFA World Cup against England). Only he could have called it the intervention of God, terming it the 'Hand of God' goal at the end of the game.
Another player who married footballing genius with controversy and indiscipline, Maradona, a World Cup winner with Argentina, also rejuvenated Napoli with his prowess on the field. He will undoubtedly go down in history as both a GOAT contender and the most colourful footballer the game has ever produced.
#1 Ronaldinho
For many, Ronaldinho Gaucho is the greatest exponent of the samba style, the uniquely dance-like form of football that the best Brazilians play, who, it is said, are born with this ethereal skillset that cannot be taught; looking at what Ronaldinho could do on a football field, one can hardly disagree.
Part of the same group of jogo bonito purveyors as Ronaldo who won the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the ever-smiling Ronaldinho set pulses racing in Barcelona as well with his flicks, tricks and overall magic.
He also scored some of the greatest worldies the game has seen. The greatest proof of his entertainment quotient? The standing ovation he got from fans of Barcelona's bitter rivals Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu in 2005 for a characteristically magical performance.
Honourable mentions:
Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Garrincha, Socrates, Roberto Baggio.
