Africa has provided the world with some of football's finest players this century, but who have been the best of the best?
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African football has reached another level since the turn of the millennium. You can find players from the continent scattered all over the world's best and most competitive teams.
The stars of Africa have also given the game some of its defining, iconic moments. Roger Milla and George Weah kick-started the revolution in the 1990s, and their legacies are in good hands even today.
But who are the best African players? Who are the ones most deserving of the world's adoration? As we reach the quarter-mark of the 21st century, GOAL has ranked the top 25 to this point:
Follow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱AFP25Asamoah Gyan
Asamoah Gyan isn't the best African player of the 21st century, but he may very well be among the most important. His heroics during Ghana's run to the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals inspired the entire continent and ought to have ended with the Black Stars becoming the first African team to ever advance to the semi-finals had Luis Suarez not got himself involved.
At club level, Gyan enjoyed fruitful spells in Italy, France and England, before playing out the second half of his career largely in Asia, with time in Turkey and his homeland scattered in between.
AdvertisementGetty Images Sport24Youssef En-Nesyri
In 20 years, people are going to look back at Morocco's 2022 World Cup run while watching compilations of Youssef En-Nesyri and decree that he was a one-of-a-kind striker. He jumped over nine feet in the air to score the goal which knocked out Portugal in the quarter-finals that winter, for crying out loud.
As is the case with every storied striker, En-Nesyri spent a good chunk of time at Sevilla and won a couple of Europa Leagues for his troubles. Nowadays, he's trying to relight the fire of Jose Mourinho's Fenerbahce, though somehow goals seemed to come easier to him in Spain.
Getty Images Sport23Sulley Muntari
Imagine playing so well for prime-Barclays era Portsmouth that after one season, Jose Mourinho wants to sign you for an Inter team that would eventually win the treble. That just so happened to one of Ghana's finest ever, Sulley Muntari.
His energy and physicality made Muntari a typical Mourinho player, someone who wasn't afraid to dig in deep and do the dirty work when necessary in the name of victory. He was dependable, despite his penchant for picking up a needless booking here and there. That rarely mattered to Muntari's teams, nonetheless.
Getty Images Sport22Yassine Bounou
You can take all of Yassine Bounou's accomplishments, all his accolades, and all his medals regardless of their colour and make a compelling case that he is the best African goalkeeper of all time.
The bottom line is very, very few men from Bounou's home continent have been considered among the world's best the way he was in his pomp at Sevilla and with the Morocco national team. It's that simple. He was and is a fantastic goalie, no questions asked.
