The 30 greatest international teams of all time

England win the 1966 World Cup

England win the 1966 World Cup

20. Netherlands 1987-90

Points: 220

A fantastic team, but also a flawed one. Although Holland finally beat West Germany in the Euro 88 semi-final to banish many of Dutch football’s burdens, more remained.

They subsequently lost out to the same German side in the second round of 1990 World Cup – a match what was infamous for the, ahem, spat between Frank Rijkaard and Rudi Voller.

But such caveats also reflected the nature of the Euro 88 conquest. Although moments like Marco Van Basten’s devastating hat-trick against England lent it a unique sheen, they also covered over the cracks. The Dutch had been somewhat fortunate to win that game after Glenn Hoddle and Gary Lineker had each hit the frame of the goal and they had definitely been second-best to the USSR in the opening game. A semi-final place then quite literally came down to the rub of the green against Ireland as Wim Kieft’s header viciously span in past Packie Bonner.

The so-called ‘revenge’ match against the West Germans gave them a new focus as well as a new confidence for the final. And, by the end of that, Van Basten’s unforgettable volley made the iconic rather than exceptional.

Tournament record: Euro 88 winners, 1990 World Cup second round
Manager: Rinus Michels
Best XI: Van Breukelen; Van Aerle, Van Tiggelen, Koeman, Rijkaard; Vanenburg, Muhren, Wouters, Koeman; Gullit, Van Basten

 

19. Brazil 1997-99

Points: 224

A team that essentially became defined by their greatest trauma. Just as Ronaldo and Brazil looked set to take their rightful place among the country’s great World Cup winners, the striker had a seizure and the squad’s challenge utterly collapsed.

But then it’s worth remembering that their greatest failure was also a direct result of their many strengths. Looking back now after France’s crowning glory, it’s difficult to appreciate just how superior Brazil seemed to everyone else on the planet. A year before the World Cup, for example, they had utterly pummelled Peru 7-0 in the Copa America semi-final. Indeed, victory over France would have been their third tournament victory in the space of a year.

But that was probably part of the problem. Over two calendar years, Brazil played 58 games and won 43. Because of the glamour, everyone wanted a piece and the pressure only accumulated. At the Stade de France, something had to give.

The core of the side still kept together to claim another Copa America the following summer. And it’s often forgotten that Ronaldo scored five goals in it. But, thereafter, the hangover hit and the team entered a prolonged decline that only Felipe Scolari – and a revitalised Ronaldo – could fix.

Tournament record: 1997 Confederations Cup win; 1999 final; 1997, 1999 Copa America win; 1998 World Cup final
Manager: Mario Zagallo, Vanderlai Luxemburgo
Best XI: Taffarel; Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Aldair, Junior Baiano; Cesar Sampaio, Dunga, Leonardo, Rivaldo; Bebeto, Ronaldo

 

18. Argentina 1977-78

Points: 226

A highly contentious entry.

But, given the facts of their record in the year either side of the World Cup, all we can do is present the opposing arguments.

The evidence against:

  1. the fact they collapsed in the Copa Americas either side
  2. before the opening game, Hungary’s elderly manager Lajos Baroti told Brian Glanville that “everything, even the air, is in favour of Argentina”. Off the record, Baroti even feared the referee might give the hosts a couple of penalties. “The success of Argentina is financially so important to the tournament.” To somewhat vindicate Baroti after his team had been beaten 2-1 in the opening game, France then fell to Argentina because of two very dubious decisions – one for a penalty given, another for a penalty refused.
  3. the highly suspicious 6-0 win over Peru

But then the evidence for:

  1. Menotti had crafted a scintillating team who had enjoyed a superb record in the lead-up to the tournament
  2. players like Mario Kempes dramatically rose to the occasion, scoring a series of key goals
  3. Peru actually started that game strongly, hitting the post, but ultimately had nothing to play for.

Argentina were a team that may well have been pushed to victory – by junta hook or crook – or one that peaked at a remarkably opportune time.

Tournament record: 1978 World Cup win
Manager: Cesar Luis Menotti
Best XI: Fillol; Olguin, Tarantini, Galvan, Passarella; Ardiles, Gallego; Bertoni, Houseman, Kempes, Luque

 

17. Italy 2005-06

Points: 231

Surprised to see them so high? So were most of Italy after the Calciopoli scandal. For all the doubts though, their back-line was up there with any at a World Cup. With Fabio Cannavaro in particular putting in six career-best performances, Italy secured the competition’s second best ever defensive record. But that durability was a direct result of a full year unbeaten. By the time the competition rolled around, Italy’s beleaguered players had a focused sense of mission. It culminated in the last-minute heroics against Germany, when Fabio Grosso provided a moment to trump Marco Tardelli.

They may not have been the World Cup’s most exceptional winners, but they were exceptionally hard to beat.

Tournament record: 2006 World Cup win
Manager: Marcello Lippi
Best XI: Buffon; Zambrotta, Grosso, Cannavaro, Nesta; Gattuso, Pirlo, Camoranesi, Perotta; Totti, Toni

 

16. England 1965-70

Points: 232

Given the 45 years of hurt since, 1966 has arguably become as much a burden as a benchmark for England. But there’s a clear reason for the latter. That’s because the team enjoyed a five-year stretch – and not just a final – that most countries outside of Brazil and Germany would crave.

You can argue against home advantage, Alf Ramsey’s staid style and a curious, Pele-deprived tournament. But not a mere six defeats in five years.

In the middle of a decade in which top-level football evolved from ultra-attacking to ultra-cautious (note the average goals in international tournaments and domestic competitions at either end), Ramsey’s ‘wingless wonders’ formation struck just the right balance between dynamism and durability.

Tournament record: 1966 World Cup winners, Euro 68 semi-finals, 1970 quarter-finals
Manager: Alf Ramsey
Best XI: Banks; Cohen, Wilson, J Charlton, Moore; Stiles, Ball, B Charlton, Peters; Hunt, Hurst

 

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121 comments
quinnap
quinnap

 @SamHowlett Bayern München 2013 are not one of the greatest international teams of all time. Nor are they an international team. But maybe you mean they should be included on the club page.

quinnap
quinnap

Tiny point, there are only 10 players in the USSR 60-68 best 11. I vote for the inclusion of Mamykin because he sounds like a pet name for one's Mum. Or Chislenko, coz he sounds handsome. Although there are probably enough forwards.

SamHowlett
SamHowlett

Perhaps you are overrating Spain (2007-10). The 2nd  best team of all time? What happened to Argentina 86, Netherlands 74? So I’m watching the best soccer of all times when Spain plays? I doubt so with all due respect

MVirt
MVirt

I have to correct one thing: in 1970 Brazil didn't win 7 matches out of 7 because the tournament only had 16 teams and six matches for winners. That Brazil did however also win all their qualifying matches. 

Fluminense
Fluminense

Hey Hendrik what do you smoked? Nothing can be compared to Brazilian football...The best football was Brazil 70/73 ... after the Brazil 58-62 ... but ... Let´s compared the titles of Brazil 2002/2006 against Spain today:  see ...1 world cup unbeaten, two confederations Cup and more two American Cup ...The actuality of Spain does not compare with the facts, the statistics and the magic of Brazilian football ...

HendrikMartz
HendrikMartz

Spain has to be No 1. No other Team did what they did. Surely not pretty all time, but then again who plays pretty all time, eh?

Spain all the way. The best Team of all time. 

Sablicious
Sablicious

People who know football (beyond "oh! spain teh best, yo!") know 'The Golden Team' of Hungary c.1950s is the best team.  Not only for how long they stayed on top, but also who and HOW they beat them.

 

The only blemish is being robbed of the World Cup by Adi Dassler football studs.

vellhuan
vellhuan

this needs an update!

 

GuillaumeKosmala
GuillaumeKosmala

You're going to have to update the list with what Spain just did. Do you think they now deserve the top spot?

Filipe Guerra
Filipe Guerra

I've only seen the teams who missed out now. I have to agree!!! :(

Filipe Guerra
Filipe Guerra

But Portugal had a great side. One player doesn't do it all

Derek Hopper
Derek Hopper

I'm not sure they'd have beaten North Korea without Eusebio :)

Filipe Guerra
Filipe Guerra

How come the portugal 66 doesn't have space in the big 30? The qualification was great and the world cup fenomenal. There is also portugal 2000 - 2006. Surely one final and two thirds isn't easy to get!

Football Pantheon
Football Pantheon

Haha, know what you mean. Whatever way you dress it up though, they lost all three games to the teams who won their tournaments. That has to stand against them.

Derek Hopper
Derek Hopper

Last week I predicted Brazil '70 and the Mighty Magyar team to be numbers one and two. But having pored over the top ten as is I think you did really well. There is obviously a mathematical system to it but I can't help thinking the Dutch mid-70s team was hard done by with that tenth place finish!

Derek Hopper
Derek Hopper

Would Hungary have been further up the list if they'd won the World Cup in '54?

Derek Hopper
Derek Hopper

Good to see the Danish Dynamo team from the mid-eighties being acknowledged. They played some mighty football. I remember pretending to be Jesper Olsen when I got my first Man United shirt.

Al3x
Al3x

Cameroon not Colombia, sorry, and they didn't get past quarter finals either.

As for Euro '92, we never had much luck in the Euro competition, we finished 3rd in the qualification at that time, with 10p same as Switzerland, and Scotland was first with just 11p. As you can see it was a very close group and luck and misfortune decided the winners, not the players kill. We qualified for Euro '96 though, but we were in group with Spain and France and was very difficult eliminate one of them so we didn't get to quarter- finals. Bad luck was out the window in Euro 2000 when got passed the toughest group, Group A with Germany, England and Portugal but we found it once more with the allucky Italy and we lost 2-0 after a tense match. There you go! So... all in all I think you are just making excuses for you're choices! Peru won a very weak competition, once, and Scotland's first team was a unimpressive team who won nothing. I really don't understand you, you say Romania don't deserve to be there but some of you're facts are wrong, you can't justify you're choice and neither the choice for selecting these teams I showed you. So to say we won something, cause you say football isn't only about World Cups, I can say we won the Balkan Cup 4 times, a record. That was a small competition like CONCACAF and lasted until 1980 so we didn't with that with our '94 team. If this doesn't solve your negative retrospective of Romania 1990-2000 I don't know what will.

Al3x
Al3x

If you don't even know your facts why do you write about football??? Romania did not get knocked out of group stage in 1994, they made it to quarter-finals in 1994 ! They finished in Round of 16 in 1990 and 1998, all three ended with a draw and all lost on penalties! And your reasons are insufficient: Denmark didn't make it past quarter-finals and you put it twice, Peru stopped there too, Colombia only in last 16 and Scotland a crummy Round 1 as best performance, yet you still found a spot for them. They don't even come close to Romania '90-'98.

Al3x
Al3x

What about Romania '90 - '98, I seriously can't believe u didn't put it even on the teams that missed out !!! 2-0 URSS, 1-1 Argentina, 3-1 Colombia, 1-0 USA, 3-2 Argentina, 1-0 Colombia, 2-1 England. Trashing the top favorite teams to win in one sided matches even if the score doesn't suggest it, playing the most fluid football since Brazil 1970 and only missed out because of penalties and bad luck ! Most of those players had at least one UEFA Champions League Cup!

adamrhbrown
adamrhbrown

Again, cannot really argue against Brazil 1970 being the top choice, even if there is a strong case to be made for their immediate predecessors, who probably deserve to at least be second. Glad to hear this list will be expanded to 50 teams. Harder though to measure definitive results for international sides I'd have thought though. Look at the anomalies that even the definitive World Rankings throw up from time to time. Host nations go two years without playing a proper match for a start (and have that crucial advantage when they do).

And look at what that ONE defeat - coming after they'd been unfairly knackered by a World Cup draw born of timeless FIFA idiocy - does for the rating of that Hungary team! Defines the unfairness of ranking based on knockout football. Similar for Holland of the 70s.

Have to say that, for me, the best in my (brief) lifetime would be turn-of-the-millennium France rather than modern Spain, who may win all their games but lack the cut-and-thrust spark you really want to see (unlike the Barcelona team some of them play in I have to say). Hypnotism rather than exoticism. Though I was happy they won the 'double'. At least they know what to do with the ball.

dony
dony

Sorry, but are you serious? try to check player by player the top 3 teams, if you do not have a clue 5 out of starting 11 of the Brazilian team at WC 1958 are considered the best-all time in their position in Brazil, Gilmar, Didi,Djalma Santos, Pele and Garrincha ( Brazil never lost a match with Pele and Garrincha palying together), that national team won the WC 1962 without Pele!, and the Brazilian team without Pele was a fiasco in 1974!, also you are NOT really caring about the quality of opposition that Brazilian team destroyed the French team with Kopa and Fontaine, also was the only South American team which won a WC in European soil...................

diskomonkey
diskomonkey

The 1970-73 Brazil team probably was the best team of all time, but going on your scoring system, surely the 58-62 team is better?

Boydo
Boydo

Where does the Dutch side of 1992 - 1994 fit in. The arrival of Dennis Bergkamp and the young Ajax players makes it a different team than the 88 - 90 generation. WC Quarterfinal against Brazil in Dallas was 45 minutes of great football.

ChristianMohrBoisen
ChristianMohrBoisen

Nice. HOWEVER, you need to check the stats AND the reports/archives on Denmark 1981-86 once again. You need to read what Bobby Robson, Michel Platini, et al, have said, then and in retrospect, about this outstanding team.

adamrhbrown
adamrhbrown

 @SamHowlett The order is calculated by how dominant a team is in their given era, not necessarily where the authors think they'd be in a league table, and certainly not by how exciting they were to watch. As the site says, it's the only given that you can truly compare teams of 10/25/50 years difference with - their numbers.

 

Course, the best side doesn't always win a cup competition but there are so many variables that it's impossible to draw up a truly calculated list. And, being stats-based, this is probably still closer than someone's opinion. Probably.

SamHowlett
SamHowlett

Maybe you should add Bayern München 2013

QuangPham
QuangPham

 @MVirt But they won all 6 matches in the qualification (total 12 matches) which made them the only team to win every single match that involved with the World Cup. They were also unbeated for 3 yrs from 1970 to 1973 and only defeated after Pele and other players in squad retired.

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x You also seemed to have failed the grasp of 'cycles' in teams. Hoe exactly could we include Romania's Balkan Cup wins in with the sides from 1990-98... they were completely different teams, with different players and managers. Have you got any grasp of what this list is about at all? Did you not noticed the way there are a number of Brazil teams here?

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x By the way: you see the way you confused Colombia for Cameroon? That was the same way we confused 94 or 96. It was a momentary accident. We *knew* Romania got knocked out of the World Cup 94 in the quarter-finals. Our entire list is based on facts. Look through it properly.

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x Hang on a minute mate. Other than one comment which included a typo - and had absolutely nothing to do with how this list was ranked - absolutely none of our facts were wrong. They were all 100% right and we checked it.

I really don't see how a team who never got past a quarter-finals and never won an international tournament can be considered among the very greatest of all time.

Bear in mind, too, that those Peru and Scotland sides you mention are not in the list. They're in the teams that missed out.

And what, by the way, do you know about Scotland of the late 1800s, who you label as "unimpressive"?

And even if we had have included the Balkan Cup, it wouldn't have got Romania into this list.

And, once again, I'd like you to point out which of our facts are wrong? Go on? Tell us. Because I can assure, none of them in the actual ranking are.

Also, who said we were negative about Romania? They were a great team to watch. That's different to being one of the greatest ever though.

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x Plus, Romania didn't even qualify for Euro 92. International football isn't only about World Cups you know?

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x It was a typo mate. They got knocked out of the group stage in Euro 96.

MDelaneyST
MDelaneyST moderator

@Boydo The fact they "only" got to the quarter-finals in 1994 mitigated against them unfortunately.

MDelaneyST
MDelaneyST moderator

@ChristianMohrBoisen I have read everything they've said and they are one of my personal favourite teams of all time... but that doesn't alter the fact that they went out in the last 16 of the 1986 World Cup which heavily mitigated against them

Al3x
Al3x

@MiguelDelaney :)) Ok, I see what you are doing here. If you have some grudge on our team for some matches your team may have lost, although I don't know your national team, then my words are pointless. I did say Romania wasn't even on the teams that misses out you put in your list, and If you think we didn't even have the Team to consider WC '94 a miss then...

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x Peru actually won a tournament. We were talking about the first Scotland team, not their entire history.

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@MiguelDelaney As for "knowing our facts", it's an obscure typo in a massive list man. We stand by our knowledge, which I think you'll find is difficult to pick holes in beyond simple mistakes. Again, Romania don't deserve to be there.

And where did you get Colombia from? They appear nowhere in the list!

MiguelDelaney
MiguelDelaney

@Al3x Why would we have a grudge against Romania?? They were great to watch. But we were trying to decide the most successful international teams of all time. Romania were successful. But they were not among the most successful of all time.

Al3x
Al3x

@MiguelDelaney Cameroon not Colombia, sorry, and they didn't get past quarter finals either.

As for Euro '92, we never had much luck in the Euro competition, we finished 3rd in the qualification at that time, with 10p same as Switzerland, and Scotland was first with just 11p. As you can see it was a very close group and luck and misfortune decided the winners, not the players kill. We qualified for Euro '96 though, but we were in group with Spain and France and was very difficult eliminate one of them so we didn't get to quarter- finals. Bad luck was out the window in Euro 2000 when got passed the toughest group, Group A with Germany, England and Portugal but we found it once more with the allucky Italy and we lost 2-0 after a tense match. There you go! So... all in all I think you are just making excuses for you're choices! Peru won a very weak competition, once, and Scotland's first team was a unimpressive team who won nothing. I really don't understand you, you say Romania don't deserve to be there but some of you're facts are wrong, you can't justify you're choice and neither the choice for selecting these teams I showed you. So to say we won something, cause you say football isn't only about World Cups, I can say we won the Balkan Cup 4 times, a record. That was a small competition like CONCACAF and lasted until 1980 so we didn't with that with our '94 team. If this doesn't solve your negative retrospective of Romania 1990-2000 I don't know what will.

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