Who’s your 5 best Serie A midfielders of All Time? Platini? Pirlo? De Rossi? Baggio? Seedorf? I can go on and on with names of brilliant midfielders that have graced the Serie A. And I am sure you can too. These names also bring a lot of nostalgia with them. They take your minds back to the 90s and 2000s when Italian football was at its best. Some would argue that the Serie A was the ideal league for any great midfielder.
However, we are not here to revel in the glory days of Italian football. Instead, we are here to pick out 5 of the very best of the very best Serie A midfielders of all time.
We are going to focus more on the individual quality of these players and less on their achievements. Don’t get me wrong, team accolades are great but sometimes, they skewer the conversations of who is better than who. Now, let’s jump right into the 5 best Serie A midfielders of all time.
1.) Diego Maradona
You don’t take a Napoli team languishing in mid-table to a league title and not get the number one spot. There are shrines all around Naples that are dedicated to the worship of Maradona. I don’t think this needs a lot of explanation but for the unbelievers, I would do some explaining.
This man came into a mediocre Napoli side and had the team competing for titles solely on his abilities. He was a one-man army. In the history of Serie A, I don’t think many players performed at the level of Maradona at Napoli. Another attacking midfielder who had everything. El Pibe de Oro won two Serie A titles, a UEFA Cup, and two Balon d’Ors in his time at Napoli. It was a no-brainer when Napoli chose to retire his number 10 jersey in his honour. What a footballer he was.
Without any doubt, Diego Maradona deservedly tops this list of 5 best Serie A midfielders of all time.
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2.) Roberto Baggio
Just as Pirlo represented one generation of Italian football, Baggio represented his generation of Italian football. And whilst he played further forward in midfield as opposed to Pirlo, his ability and influence were out of this world. And like Pirlo, who is the Regista role personified, Baggio personified the Trequarista role. He was an attacking midfielder that could do it all. He could get you goals by the bucket, and also create chances for others effortlessly.
He won the Balon d’Or in 1993 and led the Italians to a World Cup final in 1994. ‘The Divine Ponytail’ as he was called set the Serie A on fire for Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan, Inter, and Bologna and retired at Brescia. He is a figure worshipped in the folklore of Italian football and his footballing abilities brought nothing but joy to viewers.
3.) Andrea Pirlo
With long flowing hair, masterful ball distribution, and being arguably the greatest Regista of all time, Andrea Pirlo ticks all the boxes of an all-time great Italian midfielder. He played football at his own pace; he sped things up or slowed them down whenever he wanted. It was almost as if he was a superior life form who could control time and space.
Although one could argue that Zidane was a better footballer Pirlo’s influence on build-up and playmaking from deep cannot be underestimated. Players like Toni Kroos, Jorginho, Marco Veratti, and Joshua Kimmich are all off-shoots of Andrea Pirlo. Plus, he played in the Serie A for a longer period and was the best player for the Juventus side that dominated Italian football and went unbeaten in the league in the 2011-12 season. He also won the World Cup in 2006 for Italy and won the UCL twice with AC Milan.
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4.) Zinedine Zidane
It breaks my heart to have Zidane this low on my list. Easily one of the most gracious footballers of all time. Whether he was playing as a deep-lying playmaker or a proper attacking midfielder that he was, he was gorgeous to watch. Since his unceremonious retirement, the Serie A has seen a lot of attacking midfielders, but none like the Frenchman.
Winning the Serie A Player of the Year for the 2000-01 season, The Balon d’Or in 1998, leading Juventus to two Serie A titles and two Champions League finals, Zidane was unstoppable during his time in Italy. He spent 5 seasons at Juve before moving for a world record fee to Real Madrid, where he solidified his legacy as a footballing great.
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5.) Clarence Seedorf
It is so sad that the compartmentalization of midfield roles in modern-day football has robbed us of all-action midfielders of Seedorf’s ilk. He could do it all. He was a box-to-box midfielder, with incredible technique and press resistance, could get you goals, could screen a backline, an aggressive tackler, and an incredible passer.
In terms of his quality as a footballer, I believe he is ridiculously underrated. That’s why he gets into my top 5. Playing just shy of 400 games in the Serie A for Inter, Sampdoria, and AC Milan, he is a name that often gets left out of conversations of this sort. But not under my watch. I have to add that he won two Scudetti titles and two UEFA Champions League trophies. He was a machine and I would love to see more of his types of midfielders in modern-day football.
