The 100 best footballers in the world: why are they so good?

LONDON. January 3. KAZINFORM Welcome to the Guardian's choice of the world's top 100 footballers.

We asked our 11-strong international panel of experts to name their top 30 players in action today and rank them in order of preference. Once the lists were submitted, the players were scored on their ranking by each panellist: a No1 choice allocated 30pts, No2 29pts and so on down to selection No30, given one point. In a four-part series online and in print we will reveal the results, Kazinform has learnt from guardian. co.uk

Starting with No100 at the very end, click on the individual player in the interactive below for our writers' argument for their placing in the 100. And you can read here how we came to ranking the hundred and a blog on the top 10 here