The World Team of the 20th Century was chosen in 1998 to comprise the best association football players of the 20th century CE. The team comprises an eleven-member side, with one

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting ...

, four defenders, three

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

s, and three forwards.

History

The team was announced on 10 June 1998, in conjunction with the opening ceremonies of the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for th ...

in France. The team was selected in

plurality voting Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate, or candidates, who poll more than any other counterpart (that is, receive a plurality (voting), plurality), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects j ...

undertaken by a panel of 250 international football journalists from amongst the members of eleven-member sides styled as the ''South American'' and ''European Teams of the 20th Century'', selected previously by the same panel to be composed of players respectively to have represented principally member nations of the CONMEBOL and

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs foo ...

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

s. Similarly constituted teams for players from the nations of

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; types ...

, the

Confederation of African Football The Confederation of African Football, or CAF for short (french: link=yes, Confédération Africaine de Football, ar, link=yes, الاتحاد الأفريقي لكرة القدم, al-Ittiḥād al-Afrīqī li-Kurat al-Qadam), is the administ ...

, and collectively the Asian and

Oceania Football Confederation The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is one of the six continental confederations of international association football. The OFC has 13 members, 11 of which are full members and two which are associate members not affiliated with FIFA. I ...

s were chosen by separate, smaller juries of journalists situated respectively in North and Central America, Africa, and Asia and Oceania, and announced alongside the European and South American teams, but players selected to the former sides were not considered for selection to the world team.

Players

Notes

References

*Brown, Gerry, and Morrison, Michael (eds.; 2003). ''ESPN

Information Please ''Information Please'' is an American radio quiz show, created by Dan Golenpaul, which aired on NBC from May 17, 1938, to April 22, 1951. The title was the contemporary phrase used to request from telephone operators what was then called "inf ...

Sports Almanac''. New York City: ESPN Books and

Hyperion Hyperion may refer to: Greek mythology * Hyperion (Titan), one of the twelve Titans * ''Hyperion'', a byname of the Sun, Helios * Hyperion of Troy or Yperion, son of King Priam Science * Hyperion (moon), a moon of the planet Saturn * ''Hyp ...

(joint). .

External links

Analysis of the constitution of the world team in the
'' International Herald Tribune''
Enumeration of the European, South American, and world teams
by Infoplease
Ramos, Balboa named to MasterCard CONCACAF 20th Century team.
''SoccerTimes'' {{DEFAULTSORT:World Team Of The 20th Century Association football trophies and awards +World Lists of association football players

History

Players

Notes

See also

References

External links