“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. Guardian: 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

“On Wednesday, 23 December at 10am (GMT) we will publish the #IBWM100 for 2016 – our list of the most exciting young* players in world football. As always, we’ve stuck with the format that served Don Balon so successfully for many years; 100 names and details of where each player is from. We’ll revisit the list in twelve months’ time and assess how the year has panned out for each of the players concerned. The process we use for selection remains exactly the same. We talk to scouts, coaches, players, journalists, fans and bloggers from around the world to get a clear a picture of exactly who we should be watching and why. Across the year, we monitor each player on our long list to see how things are going while considering what the future is likely to hold for them. Eventually our long list becomes the #IBWM100 – nothing definitive, just the players that we believe will really soar in 2016.” In Bed With Maradona – INTRODUCTION, In Bed With Maradona – 100 2015: Our twelve month review of the class of 2015

“Watford’s success has been nothing if not understated. Like waking up to find the sun bright outside one’s window in the middle of winter, Watford’s success invites a slight smile but no small amount of bemusement. For a team whose solid consistency and durable success belied the extent to which they by no means set the Championship alight last season, à la Bournemouth, the Hornets could perhaps have been expected to struggle. Yet in a Premier League reminiscent of the End of Days, where Jamie Vardy scores for fun and Chelsea sit just two points clear of the relegation zone, Watford have proven a balm of consistency.” backpagefootball

“Waterford has had its share of visitors over the centuries, ever since the Vikings first set up shop there back in the 9th Century. The football team have been no different, whether it was former World Cup winner Bobby Charlton, Polish international Piotr Suski or the Coventry born duo of Johnny Matthews and Peter Thomas who would enjoy great success down on the south coast, all playing in the blue of the city at one stage or other. In his recent, meticulously researched history of soccer in Munster, David Toms goes into some detail in the development of the sport in the southern province and he focuses especially on developments in urban centres like Cork, Limerick and Waterford.”backpagefootball

“12 months ago the expectation was that Pierre-Emile Højbjerg was on the verge of breaking into the Bayern Munich first team. We felt sure that the young midfielder would start to feature more regularly after a handful of Bundesliga and Champions League appearances to end the year had gone reasonably well. Instead he has spent 2015 on loan at Augsburg and currently Schalke, and admittedly he is a better player for it even though he’d clearly have preferred to have had the same experiences with his parent club.” In Bed With Maradina – Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Pione Sisto, Etc.

100 2015