World Team of the 20th Century
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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 Side or Sides may refer to: Geometry * Edge (geometry) of a polygon (two-dimensional shape) * Face (geometry) of a polyhedron (three-dimensional shape) Places * Side (Ainis), a town of Ainis, ancient Thessaly, Greece * Side (Caria), a town of an ...
, 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 o ...
, 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
forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...
s.


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 the ...
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), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per ...
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 The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL, , or CSF; es, Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol; pt, Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol) is the continental governing body of football in South America (apart from Guyana, Suri ...
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 f ...
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 ...
al
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 ( ; typese ...
, 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 Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
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. It ...
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


See also

*
FIFA World Cup All-Time Team The FIFA All-Time Team is a fictive all-time association football team published by FIFA in 1994. It is an eleven-member side divided as one goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders, and three forwards. __NOTOC__ See also *FIFA 100 ...
*
FIFA World Cup Dream Team The FIFA World Cup Dream Team is an all-time FIFA World Cup all-star team published by FIFA in 2002 after conducting an internet poll of fans to select a World Cup dream team.FIFA 100 The FIFA 100 is a list of Brazilian footballer Pelé's choice of the "greatest living footballers". Unveiled on 4 March 2004 at a gala ceremony in London, England, the FIFA 100 marked part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the fo ...
*
FIFA Player of the Century FIFA Player of the Century was a one-off award created by FIFA to decide the greatest football player of the 20th century, announced at the annual FIFA World gala, held in Rome on 11 December 2000. Diego Maradona and Pelé were joint winners of ...
* World Soccer's Greatest Players of the 20th Century


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 "info ...
Sports Almanac''. New York City:
ESPN Books ESPN Books is a publishing company operated by ESPN Started in 2004, ESPN Books has published almost 20 books. ESPN Books also is in charge of producing ESPN's yearly sports encyclopedia. It also controls its own book club and in addition it ranks ...
and Hyperion (joint). .


External links


Analysis of the constitution of the world team in the
''
International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
''
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