The GOATs right now
Closest races
On the move
New contenders
Greatest footballerof all time?
Who's the greatest footballer of all time? Nobody leads yet.
Tap a photo or use the ← → keys. The next matchup loads on its own.
The table
Rating ± certainty · updates live
| Pos | Contender | Rating | Win % | Week | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 
Lionel Messi
8 Ballon d'Or, 2022 World Cup |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 2 | 
Cristiano Ronaldo
All-time top scorer, 5 Ballon d'Or |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 3 | 
Pelé
Only player with 3 World Cups |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 4 | 
Diego Maradona
Won the 1986 World Cup almost alone |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 5 | 
Ronaldo Nazário
2 Ballon d'Or, 2002 World Cup top scorer |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 6 | 
Johan Cruyff
3 Ballon d'Or, father of Total Football |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 7 | 
Zinedine Zidane
1998 World Cup, 3 Champions Leagues as coach |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 8 | 
Kylian Mbappé
2018 World Cup, hat-trick in the 2022 final |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 9 | 
Franz Beckenbauer
World Cup as captain and as coach |
1,500 ±350 | 50% | ||
| 10 | 
Alfredo Di Stéfano
5 straight European Cups |
1,500 ±350 | 50% |
Ratings use Glicko, a version of chess's Elo that also tracks how sure we are (the ± figure). Beat a higher-rated rival and you gain more, and the less sure we are about a contender, the more one vote moves them. On the real site the official table is recalculated from all votes every few minutes, so a matchup that gets voted on a lot doesn't count extra. Why a chess rating and not upvotes?
Missing someone?
Nominate a contender or back someone else's nomination. When 500 readers back the same name, it joins the field after a quick check.
Fair play
Nobody picks matchups by hand. Every visitor gets their own stream, drawn by a matchmaker that spreads votes across the whole field.
- Least-seen first. Contenders with few matches come up more, so new entries get rated fast.
- Unsure ratings first. The bigger the ± on a rating, the more often it gets tested.
- Close contests. Evenly matched pairs tell us more than mismatches.
- Wildcards and no repeats. One matchup in seven is fully random, and you never see the same pair twice.
Your matchups so far
Who gets shown: 1,000 visitors × 10 matchups
Perfectly even split
The Sci-Fi Cup
In association with [Streaming partner] · Sponsored
The sponsor's name goes on the cup. Results come from votes only.