\u201cThe best attribute you can have is that your team-mates can always count on you and he\u2019s always there \u2014 he never lets us down,\u201d Alexander-Arnold added. \u201cMaybe people will start talking about it now, but he\u2019s been in that top bracket of midfielders for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is Alexander-Arnold right? Is Valverde the most underrated player in men\u2019s football? And who else is crucial to their team but rarely receives the praise they deserve?<\/p>\n
Here, our writers give their nominations. The list is far from definitive, so please leave your suggestions in the comments.<\/p>\n
Federico Valverde (Real Madrid)<\/p>\n
Valverde has played 364 times for Real Madrid, won 71 caps for Uruguay, and has claimed a host of trophies, including two Champions League and three La Liga titles.<\/p>\n
But the 27-year-old has never received the same plaudits as other Madrid midfielders, including former team-mates Toni Kroos and Luka Modric. That could be because Valverde, nicknamed \u2018little bird\u2019 as he rose to prominence<\/a>, has at times lacked the self-confidence and self-promotion seen from Madrid\u2019s high-profile galacticos.<\/p>\n Last week\u2019s hat-trick against City showcased everything Valverde can do \u2014 particularly his athleticism, but also his technical excellence, which has not always been as well recognised.<\/p>\n That treble could now push him forward to the status he truly deserves. His confidence certainly looked high as he curled in another fine strike in Saturday\u2019s league win against Elche.<\/p>\n Dermot Corrigan<\/p>\n Harry Maguire (Manchester United)<\/p>\n Look, I\u2019m not going to argue that he\u2019s one of the best defenders in the world. Maguire is, however, a much better player than many (most?) people give him credit for<\/a>.<\/p>\n He is good at the unglamorous bits of his job: he\u2019s strong in the tackle, good in the air and constantly talks. He pops up with big goals. He is also fine in possession \u2014 not stylish, sure, but calm and adept at carrying the ball forward.<\/p>\n Maguire gets overlooked \u2014 and often ridiculed \u2014 because of physical traits beyond his control. He has a big head. He isn\u2019t very quick. He\u2019s a bit cumbersome. Fair enough. But the 33-year-old has been a reliable, sometimes very good Premier League player for a decade now. He deserves much more praise than he gets.<\/p>\n Jack Lang<\/p>\n Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)<\/p>\n Picking a three-time Ballon d\u2019Or nominee who has six Premier League winners\u2019 medals for Manchester City and 107 caps for Portugal might seem to be against the spirit of this exercise.<\/p>\n But Bernardo is underrated. His contribution to City\u2019s success under Pep Guardiola has never been as strikingly obvious as those from Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne or David Silva \u2014 or perhaps even Ruben Dias, Rodri or Phil Foden, who have all won major individual awards in recent seasons \u2014 but it is enormous.<\/p>\n \n Does Bernardo Silva get the praise he deserves? (Richard Pelham\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n He is such an intelligent, hard-working and immensely talented player, one of the few who has retained Guardiola\u2019s trust week after week, season after season. He is not as dazzlingly effective at 31 as he was a couple of years ago, but his range of abilities will be hard to replace when the time comes.<\/p>\n Oliver Kay<\/p>\n Joao Neves (Paris Saint-Germain)<\/p>\n It is not often you hear Neves being discussed among the greatest midfielders in the world \u2014 or not often enough, anyway.<\/p>\n He is the player who links up everything in the Paris Saint-Germain side who won four trophies last season and blitzed Inter 5-0 in the Champions League final. Ousmane Dembele took most of the individual accolades, including the Ballon d\u2019Or, and it was easy to understand why after his 35-goal haul for Luis Enrique\u2019s side.<\/p>\n Yet it almost always starts with Neves in midfield, moving the ball on, winning tackles, always playing the right pass<\/a>. Oh, and he also scored this hat-trick during PSG\u2019s 6-3 win against Toulouse in August:<\/p>\n O hat-trick mais lindo da hist\u00f3ria do futebol \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf9 pic.twitter.com\/fEeSCzk0lz<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ligue 1 Portugu\u00eas (@Ligue1_POR) August 31, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Daniel Taylor<\/p>\n Harry Kane (Bayern Munich)<\/p>\n You\u2019ve probably heard of him \u2014 but seriously, do we put enough respect on this guy\u2019s name and achievements?<\/p>\n Kane could have more than five more years in the game (he\u2019s 32) and has already scored more career goals than Alan Shearer (who scored 410) and Jimmy Greaves (466), having recently reached the 500 mark<\/a> for club and country.<\/p>\n Shearer and Greaves are considered among the archetypal greatest centre-forwards in the English game, but that accolade now solely belongs to Kane, whose goalscoring achievements in England and Germany are remarkable.<\/p>\n If he were a \u2018superstar\u2019 and had a brand, the former Tottenham Hotspur striker would be better appreciated, but his low-key nature<\/a> sees him played down and, yes, underrated.<\/p>\n Tim Spiers<\/p>\n Stanislav Lobotka (Napoli)<\/p>\n I guess this depends on what we mean by underrated. Some players are foolishly not rated. Many observers seemed to diminish Domenico Berardi because they could not understand why he started the delayed 2020 European Championship in Federico Chiesa\u2019s place. Presumably, they hadn\u2019t seen Berardi score nearly 100 goals in Serie A.<\/p>\n Other players are viewed with perplexing scepticism. Take Manchester City\u2019s Gianluigi Donnarumma and the odd foot fetish his critics displayed in their evaluations of him<\/a>, despite his talent for keeping the ball out of the net.<\/p>\n Looking at this list, there are Champions League winners and former top scorers who have cost up to \u20ac70million (\u00a360m; $80m). Evidently, their clubs and the market rated them. The best kind of underrated player is the one people sleep on, and they\u2019re usually deep-lying midfielders. A couple of years ago, I would have said Hakan Calhanoglu, but even he was hyped as a teenager in Hamburg.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I\u2019m going for Lobotka. The 31-year-old ticks all the boxes. A double scudetto winner with Napoli from a small football nation in Slovakia. He really should be a Barcelona player.<\/p>\n James Horncastle<\/p>\n Michael Olise (Bayern Munich)<\/p>\n No doubt plenty of people out there rate Olise as highly as they should, but I wonder if any of us are paying enough attention to the France winger\u2019s numbers at Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n After the brief hiatus that allowed Bayer Leverkusen to win the Bundesliga title, Bayern\u2019s traditional dominance is gripping Germany again and in that climate, their attacking players are liable to post exceptionally good stats \u2014 but Olise\u2019s data is off the charts.<\/p>\n He has 27 assists this season, the same number of goals St. Pauli\u2019s entire squad have scored. Add on the 15 times he has added his name to the scoresheet and we have 42 goal contributions in 38 appearances \u2014 equivalent to the level of output you get from his Bayern team-mate and fellow member of this list, Kane.<\/p>\n \n Michael Olise has sparkled for Bayern Munich (Marco Luzzani\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Pound for pound, at a transfer fee of about \u00a360million ($80m) from Crystal Palace, there probably isn\u2019t a more dependable player in Europe. And though he\u2019s widely admired, Olise should probably be spoken about in more reverential terms. The France international has definite star potential at this summer\u2019s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n Phil Hay<\/p>\n Aleksandar Pavlovic (Bayern Munich)<\/p>\n It\u2019s not so much that people don\u2019t rate Pavlovic or recognise that he\u2019s a good player, more that they are yet to appreciate how good he is and how important for Bayern Munich and Germany he could prove to be.<\/p>\n People in Munich think the 21-year-old is the successor to Kroos. It\u2019s heady praise, but not undue. Pavlovic is unflappable in possession, sees the game around him with such clarity already, and has every chance of becoming a global star. Next time you have the chance to watch him, notice how well he passes forward and how he always seems to find a gap.<\/p>\n Pavlovic isn\u2019t just popular because he\u2019s homegrown in a city where that matters<\/a>. More broadly, he\u2019s a star in the making.<\/p>\n Seb Stafford-Bloor<\/p>\n Domenico Berardi (Sassuolo)<\/p>\n If loyalty is an underrated quality in the modern game, then Berardi should be on this list for that alone. He is an Italy international who has played more than 400 games across 14 consecutive seasons for Sassuolo, even sticking with them as they dropped into the second tier last term.<\/p>\n Berardi\u2019s longevity should be admired. He has been a constant thorn in the side of Serie A\u2019s biggest teams and a tireless talisman for an often mid-table club. For context, his rate of 0.72 goals or assists per 90 minutes across all competitions \u2014 over 14 years, remember \u2014 represents a similar level of output to Vinicius Junior\u2019s career at Real Madrid (0.71).<\/p>\n Now 31, entering the final stages of an injury-hit career, Berardi is not the explosive, goal-out-of-nothing winger he once was. But rest assured, he will keep popping up with big moments for Sassuolo until he hangs up his boots.<\/p>\n Thom Harris<\/p>\n Daley Blind (Girona)<\/p>\n It is a minor miracle that Blind can even play football. In December 2019, while playing for Ajax, he suffered a cardiac arrest during a Champions League match against Valencia. During his recovery, he was diagnosed with the heart condition myocarditis and fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.<\/p>\n Yet Blind recovered from that and enjoyed more fruitful years at Ajax. At 36, he plies his trade in La Liga with Girona and continues to display an unflashy technical security. He is comfortable at left-back and centre-back, and has previously played in defensive midfield.<\/p>\n The Netherlands and Ajax have both struggled to progress the ball from deep since parting ways with Blind, his country\u2019s fifth-most-capped player (108 senior appearances). Premier League fans will argue he was underwhelming during his four years at Manchester United. But Blind is just one of several players who ended up at the \u2018wrong\u2019 Manchester club in the 21st century.<\/p>\n Carl Anka<\/p>\n Malick Thiaw (Newcastle United)<\/p>\n The workhorse of Europe\u2019s busiest team, Thiaw has been a defensive stalwart during an exhausting season that has stretched and depleted Eddie Howe\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n Since starting his first match for Newcastle on September 21, the centre-back has been ever-present, barring the second leg of the Champions League play-off against Qarabag, for which he was suspended.<\/p>\n In other words, he has started 43 of Newcastle\u2019s last 44 games in all competitions, an astonishing display of availability and reliability. There has been the odd mistake as fatigue has crept in, but amid the angst and difficulties of Newcastle\u2019s other, expensive summer signings, the 24-year-old Germany international has settled quickly.<\/p>\n Quiet, unassuming and top-notch.<\/p>\n George Caulkin<\/p>\n \n The tireless Malick Thiaw (Nathan Stirk\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Mikkel Damsgaard (Brentford)<\/p>\n There\u2019s never much of a fuss around Damsgaard, which is probably just the way he likes it (he was nervous about doing a speech when he won Brentford\u2019s supporters\u2019 and players\u2019 player of the year awards last season).<\/p>\n The Brentford midfielder registered 10 assists in the Premier League in the 2024-25 campaign \u2014 only Mohamed Salah, Jacob Murphy and Anthony Elanga had more. You may not have realised that, just like it\u2019s easy to forget that it was Damsgaard\u2019s brilliant 25-yard free-kick that opened the scoring against England in the Euro semi-final at Wembley five years ago.<\/p>\n If you like technicians on a football pitch, Damsgaard, who grew up idolising Barcelona and Spain legend Andres Iniesta, will be right up your street. \u201cHe oozes class,\u201d Brentford head coach Keith Andrews told reporters after Damsgaard scored twice and set up another in the 4-3 victory over Burnley last month.<\/p>\n Stuart James<\/p>\n Eric Garcia (Barcelona)<\/p>\n You might remember Garcia for his unconvincing early days at Guardiola\u2019s City, or some unfortunate performances with a struggling Barcelona side from 2021-2023, which led to their coach, Xavi, losing trust in him and Garcia joining Girona on loan.<\/p>\n But Garcia returned to Barca last season and has evolved into a whole new player. The 25-year-old is the most trusted lieutenant in Hansi Flick\u2019s side \u2014 no Barca player has played more than his 3,208 minutes this season.<\/p>\n A centre-back who has also featured at right-back, left-back and holding midfield, his multi-functional skill set qualifies him for this list. When Garcia rejoined Barca in the summer of 2020, Guardiola said he would become the club\u2019s captain for the next decade. Now, he is finally delivering on that potential<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pol Ballus<\/p>\n Victor Osimhen (Galatasaray)<\/p>\n A celebrated striker? Yes, but Osimhen is too good to be playing in the Turkish Super Lig for Galatasaray.<\/p>\n Since breaking through with Belgian side Royal Charleroi, the Nigeria international has scored goals. He helped Napoli win their first scudetto in 33 years. He has 35 goals in 52 games for his country, two shy of Rashidi Yekini\u2019s record.<\/p>\n He is technically adept, effective on the counter-attack and a deadly finisher \u2014 in the air or on the ground. There are valid concerns about the 27-year-old\u2019s attitude and he is often left out of the conversation of Europe\u2019s best centre-forwards because of the league he plays in.<\/p>\n But among world-class forwards, he is not far behind the elite of Haaland, Kane and Kylian Mbappe, and deserves to be recognised.<\/p>\n Nnamdi Onyeagwara<\/p>\n \n Victor Osimhen: too good to be playing in Turkey? (Isabella Bonotto\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Jordan Pickford (Everton)<\/p>\n Yes, he made a (rare) costly error in last weekend\u2019s defeat at Arsenal, but the facts still speak for themselves.<\/p>\n Pickford was statistically the best shot-stopper in the Premier League last season, based on goals prevented<\/a>. The 32-year-old has kept a record 10 successive clean sheets for England, and was a key part of the teams that reached the 2018 World Cup semi-final and the Euro final five years ago.<\/p>\n His jaw-dropping stop from Newcastle United\u2019s Sandro Tonali last month<\/a>, meanwhile, will almost certainly win the Premier League\u2019s Save of the Season award. Pickford turns up in the big moments.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever we have discussions about the best goalkeepers, he doesn\u2019t crop up,\u201d Gary Lineker said on The Rest is Football podcast after that Tonali save. \u201cI think he should.\u201d<\/p>\n Patrick Boyland<\/p>\n Unbelievable reactions from Jordan Pickford \ud83e\udd2f\u26a1\ufe0f<\/p>\n \ud83d\udd35 @Everton<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/n1WZz5JGHP<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2266518475-scaled.jpg\")
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