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It’s become a cliche at this stage but, in Italy, football really is like a religion. It provokes a level of hysteria and adoration that is both thrilling and terrifying, with fanatics to be found in every single walk of life – which sometimes even results in politicians attacking one another over contested calls and stolen Scudetti.
Fair to say, then, that when it comes to romance, controversy and quality, Serie A has always been in a league of its own. It’s had its ups and downs over the past 25 years, going from the centre of the footballing universe to an alleged retirement home for ageing superstars, but has enjoyed such a remarkable renaissance over the past few seasons that it’s now second only to the Premier League in UEFA’s official rankings.
Throughout it all, Italy has never failed to attract some of the game’s biggest names – but who are the best players to have graced Serie A since the turn of the century? GOAL lists its top 25 below, based on talent, trophies, longevity and impact…
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Getty25Thiago Silva
Alessandro Nesta quickly realised that the 2009 arrival of Thiago Silva at AC Milan wasn’t just a positive for the club, but also his career. “He’s going to extend my life!” the veteran defender quipped. Nesta wasn’t wrong, as he continued playing alongside the classy but combative Brazilian centre-back until 2012.
Silva helped Milan win the league in just his second season at San Siro – by the end of which he was being widely lauded as the best defender in the world. “It’s difficult to identify where he can still improve,” the legendary Franco Baresi admitted. “He has already proven himself to have everything.” Bottom line: if Silva hadn’t left Italy after just three years, he’d be a lot higher up this list.
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(C)Getty Images24Paulo Dybala
It’s a long time since Paulo Dybala has been compared to Lionel Messi, and while the link was always tenuous, it was at least understandable for a while. Just like his fellow Argentine, ‘La Joya’ was a fantastic dribbler with a wonderful left foot and he even managed to upstage Messi on occasion in the Champions League.
Back then, Dybala was a truly top talent, featuring in the Serie A Team of the Year four times in five seasons between 2015 and 2020. Injuries eventually led to Juventus letting Dybala leave for Roma, but he showed once again during his second season at Stadio Olimpico that he remains a tremendous talent and, at the time of writing, he has 125 Serie A goals to his name.
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Getty23Antonio Di Natale
Antonio Di Natale didn’t make his Serie A debut until he was 25 and even then, he was more of a winger than a centre-forward. What followed, though, was one of the most remarkable and romantic rises to the pinnacle of Italian football. Indeed, the diminutive but explosive striker ranks sixth on Serie A’s all-time leading scorers’ list, with 209 goals. That 191 of those strikes came for Udinese only makes his tally all the more incredible.
It’s also genuinely insane that he was twice crowned Capocannoniere while playing for the provincial outfit – and only Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo bagged more league goals than the veteran forward between 2009 and 2011. He could have won trophies elsewhere, but Di Natale, one of the game’s good guys, never regretted his decision to remain in Udine. “I’d do it all over again,” he proudly declared.
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Getty22Gonzalo Higuain
A lot of football fans still have a problem with Gonzalo Higuain. Some Argentinians blame him for some of the country’s most painful defeats, while you’d be hard pressed to find a Neapolitan that has forgiven him for joining Juventus at the height of his popularity in the city. However, what’s beyond dispute is that for at least a couple of years there was no better centre-forward in Italy – and maybe even the world.
Higuain finished in the Serie A Team of the Year three times in four years and, in 2015-16, broke the goal-scoring record for a single season by netting 36 times in just 35 games. He’d also argue that three Scudetti justified his decision to leave Napoli for Juve and, when Higuain retired, Leonardo Bonucci paid tribute to “one of the greatest No.9s in football”.
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Getty Images21Ciro Immobile
Unfortunately for Ciro Immobile, he never managed to prove himself at Champions League or international level – but there’s simply no questioning his status as one of the finest strikers Serie A has ever seen. Only Gunnar Nordahl (five) has finished as the competitions’ capocannoniere more times than Immobile (four), who also won the European Golden Shoe in 2020 after equalling the single-season record for goals (36).
The Lazio legend also currently sits eighth on the all-time rankings (201 goals in 353 games) and could yet add to his tally if he decides to return to Italy’s top-flight from Turkey before retiring. Regardless, his place in the record books is already assured. As former Lazio boss Maurizio Sarri once put it, “Ciro is a goal animal!”
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Getty20Clarence Seedorf
Zlatan Ibrahimovic says Clarence Seedorf is the most complete midfielder he’s ever seen – and it’s a view shared by several other players and pundits. Because of his mix of physique and technique, the Dutchman was almost impossible to dispossess. However, was also outstanding from a tactical perspective, like so many other Ajax academy graduates, and Inter’s decision to allow him to join crosstown rivals Milan in 2002 (in exchange for Francesco Coco) ranks as one of the biggest transfer gaffes in football history.
Seedorf was a key member of one of the finest midfielders ever assembled and won two Serie A titles during his 10-year spell with the Rossoneri. “I honestly consider it a privilege to have been able to play alongside such a player and a person,” Ibrahimovic said.
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Getty19Leonardo Bonucci
Bonucci obviously benefitted enormously from being flanked by two legends like Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini, but he was a fine defender in his own right, as underlined by the fact that he not only won eight Scudetti with Juve, he was also named in the Serie A Team of the Season four times, and was named Footballer of the Year in 2016.
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Getty18Pavel Nedved
In Italy, Pavel Nedved was known as ‘Furia Ceca’ (Czech Fury) – a pun on his nationality and the word for blind (‘cieco’). It was a fitting nickname. Nedved was as aggressive an attacker as the game has ever seen. Effectively signed by Juventus from Lazio in 2001 as a replacement for Zinedine Zidane, Nedved was nothing like the Frenchman as a player, but he was just as influential. He not only created and scored goals, he also worked tirelessly for his team and was named Serie A Footballer of the Year in 2003 before then landing the Ballon d’Or.
The fact that Nedved was suspended for the Champions League final loss to AC Milan didn’t count against him in the voting, but it still kills ex-Bianconeri boss Marcello Lippi: “If I had to pick a player for the most important patch of my life, it would have been Nedved!”
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Getty17David Trezeguet
Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet formed one of the most exciting attacking partnerships of the 1990s at Monaco, but while the former’s move to Juventus proved a disaster, the latter became an idol in Turin. Trezeguet was tall but extremely agile and very elusive. “He moves easily, like a fish in water,” former Bianconeri boss Fabio Capello said, “and he has got extraordinary finishing ability. He reminds me of Paolo Rossi: if you leave him free for just a moment, he punishes you.”
The French forward – who was named Serie A Footballer of the Year in 2002 after winning the Capoconnoniere award – scored 123 times in 214 Serie A appearances. However, he also helped the Old Lady get back into the top-flight after its demotion to Serie B in 2006, which only further endeared him to the fans who had nicknamed him ‘Trezegol’.
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Getty16Nicolo Barella
It was obvious from the moment that Nicolo Barella forced his way into the first team at Cagliari that he was something special. ‘The Sardinian Steven Gerrard’ was an all-action No.8, a box-to-box midfielder who could win the ball, use it intelligently and stick it in the back of the net. At Inter, Barella unsurprisingly took his game to a whole other level and the two-time title-winner is now one of the most coveted midfielders in world football.
“Nicolo is a great champion, who has been proving his worth for years now,” Inter coach Simone Inzaghi pointed out. Indeed, at just 27, Barella has been included in the Serie A Team of the Year a joint-record five times. “He has vision, stamina, quality and pace,” Fabio Capello said recently. “He does everything right.”
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Getty15Alessandro Del Piero
Alessandro Del Piero made his Serie A debut for Juventus in 1993, meaning we unfortunately have to overlook a significant chunk of his trophy-laden time in Turin because of the parameters involved in compiling this list. Indeed, Del Piero was arguably never quite as exceptional as he was before suffering a serious knee injury in 1998. He remained an outstanding attacker, though, one of the last great No.10s in fact.
Juve’s all-time leading goal-scorer and appearance-maker won three of his six Scudetti after the turn of the century (two were eventually revoked due to Calcipoli) and even finished as Capocannoniere in 2007-08. Del Piero was such a beloved and influential figure that even had a type of goal and an area of the field named after him, while Diego Maradona even rated the Italian fantasista above Zinedine Zidane!
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Getty14Fabio Cannavaro
Fabio Cannavaro once admitted, “I was not like Cristiano Ronaldo or Leo Messi, with a lot of qualities, with a lot of skills.” At just 5’9 tall, he was also unusually small for a centre-back – and yet Cannavaro was a player of enormous stature, “a model footballer”, as Italy coach Marcello Lippi called him, because of the way in which he made the absolute most of his attributes.
“He has incredible concentration, inner strength, and a superb physical condition,” former AC Milan attacker Leonardo explained. “So, while he is not very tall, he is rarely beaten in the air because he jumps so high.” Cannavaro won two Scudetti with Juve (both later revoked) and was named Serie A’s best player in 2006 – the same year he also received the Ballon d’Or thanks in no small part to leading Italy to World Cup glory.
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Getty Images Sport13Lilian Thuram
Lilian Thuram was an almost flawless footballer, a defender so accomplished that he was simultaneously one of the best centre-backs in the world and one of the best full-backs in the world. The Frenchman had every physical attribute required to deal with the biggest of No.9s and the quickest of wingers. However, he was also incredibly intelligent and so comfortable in possession that he was a tremendous outlet down the right flank for Juventus, and could even step into midfield when required.
Thuram was a part of four title-winning teams in Turin (though two were taken away after Calciopoli). “He had such power and aggression in his play,” Gigi Buffon said, “but he was always so classy.”
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Getty12Cristiano Ronaldo
Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was stunned by Juventus’ decision to pay €100m (£89m/$116m) for Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer of 2021, and the wisdom of investing so much money in a 33-year-old forward is still debated today – not least because it resulted in transfer market guru Beppe Marotta leaving Juve for Inter. However, what’s beyond dispute is that Ronaldo held up his end of the bargain. He was bought to boost the Bianconeri’s profile and score goals – and that’s exactly what he did.
Ronaldo scored an incredible 81 times in just 98 appearances in Serie A, won two Scudetti and was also named Footballer of the Year twice. “What has been written will forever remain,” Juve stated when Ronaldo left for Manchester United.
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Getty11Andrea Barzagli
Juventus’ unprecedented era of dominance owed much to bargain buys, so it’s significant that former president Andrea Agnelli deemed Andrea Barzagli “the best signing we ever made”. The Bianconeri paid Wolfsburg just €300,000 (£250,000/$316,000) for the centre-back in January 2011, but as part of the famed ‘BBC’ defensive trio alongside Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini, he went on to win eight Scudetti, and was named in the Serie A Team of the Season on four occasions.
A quiet, unassuming character that went about his business with the minimum of fuss, Barzagli didn’t get anything like the same credit as his colleagues, but he was a purer defender than both, almost impossible to beat in one-on-ones. “He is our professor,” Chiellini once admitted, while Bonucci labelled him “an example to all”.
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Getty10Alessandro Nesta
During his first few seasons in Serie A after coming out of the Lazio youth sector, Alessandro Nesta was touted as the new Franco Baresi. By the time the Roman had joined AC Milan after winning a historic title with his hometown club, Baresi was actually to feel as if the comparison flattered him! Nesta was tough, strong, intelligent and his timing in the tackle was impeccable. However, he was also quicker than Baresi, and even the fantastically stylish Rui Costa was taken aback by the Italian’s elegance in possession.
Injuries prevented Nesta from matching Baresi – at least in terms of trophies and longevity – but he won three titles in total and, at his peak, was the best centre-back in the world, winning Serie A Defender of the Year for four successive seasons between 1999 and 2003.
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Getty9Andriy Shevchenko
When AC Milan’s Ariedo Braida went to sign Andriy Shevchenko in 1999, he brought the Ukrainian a Rossoneri shirt and told him he’d win the Ballon d’Or while wearing it. Braida was spot on. Shevchenko took Serie A by storm, finishing as Capocannoniere twice as he went about becoming the second-highest scorer in Milan’s history before joining Chelsea in 2006. Injuries blighted Shevchenko’s time in London, meaning he was no longer the same player when he rejoined Milan on loan in 2008, but he was a force of nature at his peak, a ridiculously hard-working and multi-talented forward that scored all kinds of goals.
For a few years, he really was in a class of his own, with Carlo Ancelotti even claiming ahead of Shevchenko’s 2004 Ballon d’Or triumph, “If Andriy doesn’t win it this year, the award risks losing all credibility!”
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Getty8Kaka
When Carlo Ancelotti saw Kaka for the first time, he wasn’t convinced. The Brazilian looked far too prim and proper. He reminded him of a clean-cut university student. “But then he stepped onto the field,” the Italian wrote in his autobiography, “and the heavens opened!”
Kaka really was a divine footballer, blessed with a celestial elegance and the quintessential deceptive turn of pace that made it look as if he were gliding rather than running by opponents. The fresh-faced attacking midfielder helped Milan win the Scudetto in his first season at Milan, scored 77 Serie A goals in total for the Rossoneri and was twice named the league’s Player of the Year. “For two or three seasons, he was the best player in the world,” Andrea Pirlo said of the 2007 Ballon d’Or winner.
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Getty Images Sport7Giorgio Chiellini
Just like all of his Juventus team-mates, Federico Bernardeschi felt privileged to play alongside Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus, but when asked if everyone always wanted to be on the Portuguese’s team even in training, the attacker replied, “It’s actually better to have Chiellini!” Why? Because facing Chiellini was a nightmare. “It’s like being put in a cage with a gorilla,” Alvaro Morata explained, “and you have to try to steal his food!”
Chiellini has always been a gentleman off the field, but he was a self-confessed “son of a b*tch” on it, the stereotypical Italian defender, the quintessential master of the dark arts. He was also a winner, claiming nine Serie A titles in total. Fair to say, then, that he fully deserved his ‘King Kong’ nickname!
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Getty6Javier Zanetti
Antonio Cassano once joked that Inter’s iconic captain Javier Zanetti was so good and, more importantly, took such good care of himself, that the Argentine would continue playing professional football until he was 60. Had it not been for a serious Achilles injury, he may well have done. Zanetti was one of those rarities within the game: a universally revered figure, a consummate professional respected by everyone because he was a class act, on and off the field.
The man known as El Tractor, because of the way in which he went up and down the field, covering every blade of grass along the way, won five Scudetti in total and also racked up more appearances in Serie A than any other overseas player before eventually retiring to widespread acclaim at the age of 40.
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Getty5Zlatan Ibrahimovic
What more can you say about Zlatan that Zlatan hasn’t already said about himself? The Swedish striker has always talked a great game, but he’s also played a great many – particularly in Italy. Ibrahimovic had four separate spells in Serie A, with three different clubs, and never failed to deliver. He struck 156 times in the Italian top-flight and many of his goals were breath-taking, with Ibrahimovic capable of scoring any type of goal imaginable as he was something of a freak of nature, a physically imposing centre-forward who was also incredibly agile (practising taekwando helped!) and in possession of a wondrous first touch.
Despite his cartoonishly arrogant public persona, Ibrahimovic was actually very unselfish on the field, meaning he constantly created opportunities for team-mates and became a real leader in his later years with AC Milan. When he finally retired at 41, San Siro simply said, “God-bye!”
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Getty4Paolo Maldini
If we were taking entire careers into account, Maldini would be top of this list, as we’re talking about the finest defender in history. But then, part of that is down to the fact that during the time frame in question (2000-onwards), Maldini reinvented himself as one of the best centre-halves in the world, having previously been the game’s greatest left-back, and continued playing until 41.
Of course, it helped that the AC Milan icon possessed every possible attribute. He was such a “complete defender”, as Zlatan Ibrahimovic put it, that he usually won the ball so easily from attackers with his combination of speed, strength and intelligence that he viewed tackling as a last resort. Oh, and he could also play too. “What was so impressive about Maldini,” Ronaldinho said, “is that when he was on the ball, he didn’t look like a defender, but rather an elegant midfielder.”
Getty3Andrea Pirlo
Just like everyone else, Gigi Buffon was astounded when AC Milan decided against renewing Andrea Pirlo’s contract, thus allowing him to join Juventus. “The first thing I thought was, ‘God exists!’ A player of his level and ability, not to mention that he was free, I think it was the signing of the century!” He’s probably right, in fairness. Pirlo’s move from Milan to Juve altered the course of Italian football history, the key move in allowing new coach Antonio Conte to immediately transform a team coming off successive seventh-placed finishes into champions.
Pirlo had already proved himself a world-class playmaker at Milan, with whom he claimed two Scudetti, but football’s effortlessly cool answer to a quarterback arguably took his game to another level at Juve, winning Serie A Player of the Year in all but one of his four, title-winning seasons in Turin.
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Getty2Francesco Totti
Rudi Garcia once pointed out that Rome has only ever had three kings: the Pope, the crime boss ‘Libanese’ and Francesco Totti. The latter’s reign remains the only one worth celebrating. A true 10, Totti was a product of a different era that thrived in the modern game. He could prise open defences with perfectly-timed, no-look passes or merely dribble through them in his distinctive languid style. Whether chipping goalkeepers or beating them with volleys from ridiculous angles, everything just seemed to come so naturally – and easily – to him.
Totti, who scored 250 Serie A goals for Roma in total, could have lifted countless trophies with Real Madrid, who repeatedly tried to sign him, but none of them would have compared to the title he won with his hometown club in 2001. Totti is a one-club legend and, in the words of Carlo Ancelotti, “immortal”.
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Getty1Gigi Buffon
Our No.1 is the No.1, the greatest goalkeeper of all time, Gigi Buffon, the man that even Iker Casillas admitted all others should be judged. “He is the benchmark,” the Real Madrid icon said – and with good cause. Buffon was no ‘sweeper-keeper’, merely the ultimate guardian of the goal – and one without any weaknesses. Tall, strong, athletic and acrobatic, Buffon was almost unbeatable at his best and, here’s the thing; he was his best for two decades.
By the time he left Juve in 2021 to play for childhood club Parma, he’d racked up more Serie A appearances than any other player in history and won 10 Scudetti. As former team-mate Fabio Cannavaro said, “Gigi is the Maradona of goalkeepers.”
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