Fast approaching its centenary, La Liga has long showcased some of the greatest midfielders to ever luminate a centre-circle.
Architects and geniuses all, these elite talents had the rare ability to alter La Liga odds with a throughball only they could see, and only they could execute.
Player Top Goalscorer - Jude Bellingham
They had magic in their boots and vision gifted from a generous deity. They reminded those fortunate enough to see them in the flesh that football – when perfectly crafted - can transcend the ordinary and take us up close to awe.
Picking out twenty such outstanding practitioners of that craft was easy. Narrowing it down to a top ten of sublime midfielders was difficult in the extreme.
10) Bernd Schuster
The Blonde Angel knew how good he was and took serious umbrage with anyone who wasn’t of the same opinion. Subsequently, his was a career strewn with fall-outs and controversies.
Still, on his day there were few better at bossing proceedings, dictating play for Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico, making it all look so easy until inevitably his relationship with another manager became strained.
The West German international arrived in Catalunya as a young player, spending eight seasons with Barca, and picking up a La Liga title along the way. He then won consecutive La Liga crowns with Real Madrid before swapping the Bernabeu for the Vicente Calderón.
Schuster notched a trio of top three Ballon d’Or finishes while in Spain and was twice named La Liga’s best foreign player.
9) Luka Modric
The chief conductor of four Champions League triumphs for Real Madrid, Modric is a Ballon d’Or winner, two-time La Liga champion and was included in the FIFPro World XI in five straight years.
This is a player who made the greats greater, all the while knitting together passages of play, doing so with a passing range that was unsurpassed.
The truly exceptional creators do not simply find a team-mate in space and play it to feet. They vary the angle and pace of a delivery to better facilitate what that player does next.
In the 21st century, there has been no better example of this skill-set than the brilliant Croatian.
8) Josep Samitier
A pre-war giant of Spanish football, Samitier is credited with essentially inventing the box-to-box role that is so commonplace today.
He started attacks and invariably finished them, scoring a remarkable 333 goals in 454 appearances for Barcelona. Only Paulino Alcantara and Lionel Messi can better that for the Blaugrana.
A couple of seasons at Madrid CF saw out a career that spanned two decades and so highly regarded was the man who later managed Atletico and Barca, he was afforded a state funeral on passing at the age of 70 in 1972.
Rather wonderfully, he was nicknamed ‘The Surrealist’.
7) Xabi Alonso
It’s a safe football bet that Alonso is destined for great things as a manager, presently guiding Bayer Leverkusen to an entirely unexpected German title.
What is interesting is that so many of the attributes on display as a coach were used to good effect as a player, first for Real Sociedad, then later for Real Madrid, with a successful spell for Liverpool in between.
Namely that comes down to class and intelligence, Alonso a master at making the right choices in possession, picking out the most impactful pass.
In his pomp at the Bernebau it was a treat to see him run the show, unquestionably one of the finest deep-lying playmakers the game has ever produced.
6) Pep Guardiola
Before Pep Guardiola managed Barcelona to absolute dominance and reinvented football for the better, he was integral on the field during Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team supremacy.
Guardiola was often the deepest midfielder in Cruyff’s all-conquering Barca teams, which won four league titles and the Champions League.
Without physical advantages, the future Manchester City boss relied on high-level anticipation and technical ability.
He could read the game better than anyone, snuffing out opposition attacks and picking pinpoint passes.
5) Sergio Busquets
It became cliché to say Sergio Busquets was underrated. Perhaps he isn’t any longer, but the Spanish holding midfielder was long overlooked in the brilliant Barcelona teams overseen by Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique.
Busquets is an eight-time La Liga winner and three-time Champions League winner.
Without crunching interventions often associated with defensive midfielders, Busquets’ interceptions, tackles and timely fouls were the safety blanket for those silverware-collecting Barca sides.
For several years running football predictions focused on who might come second to this extraordinary and extravagant Catalonian juggernaut. Busquets was an integral part of such dominance. The man at the wheel.
4) Zinedine Zidane
It took a world record fee of €77.5m to lure the French magician to Madrid from Juventus, and though Zizou only made 155 La Liga appearances, and won a solitary title, let’s not get hung up on quantity, or lack of.
The football that Zidane produced across four-and-a-half years in Spain was of a standard rarely witnessed.
There were tricks, flicks, and balls plucked for the sky, landing as if on a goose-feathered pillow and not on a size 11 Adidas boot. There were shimmering, mazy dribbles and nonchalant movement that made opposition players look downright silly.
The World Cup winner was nothing but a joy and that’s before we get to his magnificent Champions League final goal.
3) Luis Suarez
No, not that one.
The Uruguayan’s namesake was also his superior, an elegant Ballon d’Or winner, who orchestrated two league titles from the heart of Barcelona’s midfield in the late-Fifties.
Blessed with an eye for goal – 141 from 253 outings is an incredible return for a player who often sat deep and pulled the strings – Suarez also played a key role in Spain winning an early incarnation of the Euros in 1964.
By then he had moved to Inter for a world record transfer fee.
2) Xavi
Xavi was an important player for Barcelona in the early years of his career, but it was under Pep Guardiola that he discovered a whole other level of excellence.
The La Masia graduate was Barcelona’s heartbeat through the late-2000s and early-2010s; he found space, he recycled possession, and kept Guardiola’s formidable machine running smoothly.
A collection of Champions League and La Liga medals is only part of Xavi’s legacy. Just as Guardiola was the successor to Johan Cruyff, Xavi’s play was the embodiment of 21st century Barcelona.
Winner of World Soccer Player of the Year in 2010 and five times included in UEFA Team of the Year, Xavi’s CV can only be rivalled by a handful of midfielders over the last three decades.
1) Andres Iniesta
Statistics cannot do Andres Iniesta justice. The Spaniard was neither a prolific goal scorer nor assister, yet he’s unquestionably one of the greatest players to ever grace a pitch.
A graduate of La Masia, Iniesta was utilised in various roles at Barcelona but his best football came as the most attacking in a midfield three, with his threaded passes and mazy dribbling leaving defences bamboozled.
Indeed, on occasion you suspected there was another Iniesta, high in the stands, controlling his alter ego. So unerring was his appreciation of where every team-mate was positioned.
For season after season our La Liga tips backed Barca to be sensational and that was largely because of their sensational trio of Xavi, Messi and Iniesta. All diminutive. Each of them other-worldly.
We will never again see their like. Opposition players will never want to.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
