Sportskeeda's list of 50 best players playing currently: 20-11

Gonzalo Higuain’s move to Juventus was one of the biggest news in the summer

To break into the upper echelons of football royalty, one must blend passion with temperament, focus with desire and, ultimately, must maintain top form throughout the most part of their career. New talents are being scouted as we speak and it can, therefore, be challenging to take a snapshot of the football landscape as it is now… but that’s exactly what I have done.

In a, frankly, subjective piece, which it is impossible to gain unanimous agreement with, I have sprinkled my search for the greatest fifty players in the world with a pinch of objectivity by using weighted averages to determine who comes out on top.

Each player was allocated a score out of 100 for their ‘Overall Ability’ (technique, goal-scoring records / defensive records), their ‘Success’ (team and individual trophies won during their career, relative to their age and time in the game) and their ‘Recent Form’ (how they’ve performed throughout this calendar year, injuries etc. have been taken into account).

The former was attributed with a weighting of 40%, the most important aspect to consider, while the other two categories were each given a 30% weighting. An average was then taken and other factors such as potential and importance to their team were taken into account. So if you have any serious qualms with the choices made, remember that statistics have been used to back-up the views in this article.

With too much eye-watering detail to cram into a single piece, this is a ‘Sportskeeda Series’. Now towards the business end of rankings, here’s a look at those positioned from 20-11…

#20 Gonzalo Higuain

The 29-year-old has been among the most sought-after frontmen in world football in the past few years, and for good reason too. Dangerous in the air, clinical in one-on-one situations and able to hold up the ball or run off the shoulder of a fellow forward, it is a combination of intelligence and versatility which earned Higuain his €90-million move to Turin this summer.

In his time with Real Madrid, Higuain won three La Liga titles, scoring more than 100 goals in the process. And so far this season, he is Juventus’ top scorer this term with 10 goals, double the number of the club’s second leading goalscorer this season, Miralem Pjanic. Higuain’s success in terms of trophies is minimal compared to others on this list, having won only the Coppa Italia and Copa del Rey along with his trio of Spanish top division titles, while he finished as a World Cup runner-up with Argentina in 2014.

That said, he boasts a handful of personal accolades, including places in the Serie A Team of the Year two years ago, as well as having broken the record for the most goals in a single Serie A season, with 36 last campaign.