For the 8th consecutive year, The Guardian have compiled their list of the 100 best players in women’s football. The 2025 edition of the list was voted on by a wide range of figures within the women’s game. These included former players such as Lieke Martens, Sam Mewis, Ada Hegerberg and Mana Iwabuchi, current coaches such as Renée Slegers, Casey Stoney and Joe Montemurro and journalists such as The Guardian’s own Suzy Wrack.
The voting process works as follows. As set out by The Guardian:
“The No 1 choice of each judge was awarded 40 points, No 2 given 39pts, down to 1pt for their No 40 choice. All the votes were added together to give a raw score. To minimise the influence of outliers in the list, the highest score awarded to a player was then deducted to give a final score.”
With any list of this nature, points of contention are guaranteed. With a panel of 127 judges for a wide range of background and experiences, a truly accurate verdict verges on the impossible. Each person involved may not only have personal understandings of the players on the list, due to previous and current working relationships, but also differing values as to why a player should be on the list.
For example, Arsenal and Sweden forward Stina Blackstenius ranks 31st on the 2025 edition on the list. During her three and a half years at the club, Blackstenius has firmly establishedherself as a cult figure amongst Arsenal fans. Her cult status was sent into the stratosphere after scoring the winner in Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over Barcelona in the 2025 Champions League final. However, does one goal, or more specifically, the importance of one goal, make you the 31st best player in the world? Blackstenius did score three goals at the 2025 Euros following the Champions League final but is that enough for such a high ranking?
Lyon’s Tabitha Chawinga, who was ranked in 39th place, scored more goals than Blacksteniusin the 2024/25 season and won the Première Ligue. Chawinga has had a more consistent 2025 but ranks lower. Erin Cuthbert, who albeit plays in a different position, produced another stellar season, winning the domestic treble with Chelsea but just about cracked the top 70, finishing in 69th place.
If the panel deemed that delivering on the biggest stages as the defining factor for a high ranking, its number one ranked player, Aitana Bonmatí may not fit in that description. Of course, Bonmatí, who is the first player either male or female to be ranked 1st for three years in row, was nothing short of brilliant in 2025.
She scored 15 goals in all competitions and lead Barcelona and Spain to both the Euros and Champions League finals respectively. Even more impressive was that she was diagnosed with Viral meningitis just two days before Spain were due to fly out to Switzerland for theEuropean Championship and still managed to play and score in Spain’s semi-final victory over Germany.
Yet both those teams did not deliver in those finals. The same argument was levelled against Bonmatí winning this year’s Ballon d’Or with many suggesting that Arsenal’s Mariona Caldently should have walked away with football’s most prestigious individual honour due to their Champions League win. Bonmatí’s ranking has created a compelling debate as to what matters most when deciding the best players in the sport.
Furthermore, players based in Europe have dominated this year’s rankings as well as previousiterations. In the 2025 rankings, only one player, Kansas City Current’s Temwa Chawinga, placed in the top ten. For the rest of the list, 23 players out of the 100 played in leagues outside of Europe. Out of those 23, only four did not play in the NWSL.
Chawinga herself had a strong case to place higher than her sixth-place finish. She won her second consecutive MVP and Golden Boot award in the NWSL, leading the Current to the 2025 NWSL Sheild. Whether her placing in the list is due how Eurocentric both women’s football and football in general is a point worth considering. If Chawinga have had the same season for a European team, would she have placed higher? In previous years, The Guardian have ranked players outside of Europe highly. In 2018, the first year the list was compiled, the top ten feature three players outside of Europe and 32 in total, ten of whom did not play in the NWSL.
Although there is current and historic representation of non-European leagues, it does beg the question as to whether it is enough to truly represent women’s football. Leagues with the greater depth of media coverage will evidentially lead to the most attention from fans and pundits alike. On the other hand, it does put into view the financial advantages that European clubs have over the rest of the world. To simplify, the best players will go to clubs that will pay them what they are worth. These lists have proven that this is currently in Europe.
Any form of player rankings will lead to endless discussions on a myriad of reasons as to why players have or have not ranked in certain positions. Football, however, is a game of opinion and debate. Try as they might, no panel of judges will ever be able to truly satisfy.
