11 Best Passers in World Football (2024)

Once cast aside as a desperate last resort when the mass of bodies in the way was too much for even the best dribblers, passing is a cherished asset in the modern game. The obsession with possession has subsided from the peak of 2008-2012 when Spain and Barcelona amassed a glut of trophies and even more passing disciples.

The rise of pressing mercifully dispelled the single-minded determination to keep the ball without any intention of using it to score a goal. This seemingly anti-pass approach inadvertently created the demand for a new kind of passer, one who could pick out a teammate between the blur of limbs.

The modern game is littered with press breakers and chance creators, needle threaders who can find time and space in an era when the sport is played at a higher pace than ever before. Here is a closer look at the best passers in world football right now.

Ranking Factors

• Creation – The final pass before a goal or a shot is the most important in football.
• Retention – Beyond simply looking at a player’s pass completion rate, judging their control of the ball and the team’s overall approach through sustained possession is key.
• Competition – Those who can pick holes in the backlines of the best teams in the world will be ranked higher.
• Expression – Beyond the blunt numbers, the style of a player’s passes is considered.

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11

Kirian Rodriguez

Las Palmas

When it was put to Kirian Rodriguez that he could – or perhaps should – have been in Spain’s triumphant squad for Euro 2024, the Las Palmas midfielder simply laughed. According to the humble deep-lying playmaker, “there are a thousand players in the midfield” to choose from, yet none of them attempted or completed more passes in last season’s Spanish top flight than Rodriguez.

The Canary Islands club have the third-smallest budget in La Liga, but only Barcelona boast more of the ball – thanks almost entirely to the composure and control of their cheerful leader. “He wants every ball,” the former Las Palmas boss, Garcia Pimienta, has said of Rodriguez, “he never hides.” The Spaniard’s unrivalled influence over proceedings is all the more incredible when some context is applied.

The 2023/24 campaign was the 28-year-old’s first season of top-flight football and came just a year after he revealed his cancer diagnosis. “What kept me awake was not dying,” Rodriguez later revealed, “but the possibility of not being able to play football again.” The smiling conductor is not only back, but better than ever before – even if he won’t admit it.

10

Granit Xhaka

Bayer Leverkusen

The endless reams of praise for Xabi Alonso’s influence on Bayer Leverkusen’s record-breaking Bundesliga title are richly deserved, but plenty of credit should also go to the players. Arguably no individual was more important to that unbeaten campaign than Granit Xhaka, Alonso’s embodiment on the pitch.

The Swiss holding midfielder led the Bundesliga in attempted passes, completed passes, touches and pre-assists – the pass before the pass that creates a goal. Now into his early 30s, the hot-head Arsenal fans tried to whistle out of the club has matured into a fiercely dedicated professional, who can channel that feverish desire to win into the team’s overall improvement.

9

Luka Modric

Real Madrid

Real Madrid lost one legendary passer to retirement over the summer in the form of Toni Kroos, but his long-serving teammate, Luka Modric, who is half a decade older than the German, is still available to dictate play when needed. The veteran Croatian smuggles two feet into his right boot. Modric’s mastery of striking the ball with the outside of his foot is infectious.

After slicing through Girona’s backline with a pass his teammate would have been proud of, Jude Bellingham explained: “I’ve been watching Luka every day for about three months.” The prodigious Englishman would be the first to admit that he, or most other players on the planet, doesn’t have quite the same ability as Modric.

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8

Ilkay Gundogan

Manchester City

Ilkay Gundogan’s evolution into a reliable finisher during the autumn of his career can distract from his supreme ability to knit the game together outside the penalty box. It wasn’t until the COVID year of 2020/21, a campaign in which he turned 30, that the German technician scored more than six league goals for the first time in his career as Pep Guardiola moulded him into Manchester City’s false nine.

Philipp Lahm, another player shaped by the hand of Guardiola, had previously hailed Gundogan as “the perfect Pep player” thanks to the midfielder’s ability on the ball. Guardiola’s first signing at City back in 2016 proved to be just as effective during his solitary season at Barcelona – creating more chances than any other La Liga player – before he excitedly accepted the offer to return to Manchester in August 2024.

7

Rodri

Manchester City

A university graduate who has to understand the game to enjoy it, Rodri is the brain of every team lucky enough to call upon his illustrious set of skills. “The perfect computer”, to use the words of his national team manager Luis de la Fuente, runs through countless calculations each game, shaping the flow of the contest with a constant flurry of passes.

The Ballon d’Or candidate not only lubricates City’s buildup play, but has increasingly crept forward, ensuring that his influence isn’t so subtle with a pile of direct goal contributions. Rodri racked up more Premier League assists during the 2023/24 campaign than his attacking teammate, Phil Foden, the PFA Player of the Year.

6

Vinicius Junior

Real Madrid

Vinicius Junior’s bulging array of beguiling attributes clouds his status as an elite passer. The fleet-footed forward is almost unrecognisable from the raw teenager who arrived at Real Madrid in 2018. Toni Kroos had to point out the runs he wanted Vinicius to make, frantically waving his index finger during the middle of a past Clasico when he set up his teammate’s first goal against Barcelona.

Now it is the Brazilian who dictates most of Madrid’s forward forays. Adept with either foot, Vinicius is a dual threat in the final third, just as happy nestling the ball into the bottom corner as rolling it into the stride of a teammate. No wonder the winger has been caught telling himself in the middle of a game: “I’m so good, madre mia, I’m so good!” He’s got a point.

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5

Lionel Messi

Inter Miami

As he proved throughout the first 20 years of his career, Lionel Messi can look a step above the best players on the planet. It’s unsurprising, then, that he should bamboozle Major League Soccer’s less lofty figures. After Inter Miami’s talisman teed up two assists on his first trip to Los Angeles, LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo sniffed: “Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing.”

The Argentine took on the mantle of scoring shortly after arriving in Miami when his most effective partner upfront was Robert Taylor, a Finnish forward who had previously struggled for game time in England’s 10th tier. Following Luis Suarez’s arrival ahead of the 2024 season, Messi eased back into his familiar creative role, rapidly racking up a double-digit assist tally during his first full season in MLS. As Cherundolo shrugged: “What did you think he was going to do when he came here?”

4

Bruno Fernandes

Manchester United

Bruno Fernandes has only one setting – full throttle. The almost manic midfielder roves around the pitch in constant search of the ball, before flinging it forward as soon as the opportunity presents itself – and often when it doesn’t.

Despite playing for one of the biggest clubs in world football, Fernandes is captaining a Manchester United side at a historically low ebb in the establishment’s history. Erik ten Hag’s side finished eighth last season and were outscored by almost half the division, despite their skipper’s best efforts. Fernandes is the only player on the continent to have created more than 100 chances over the last two seasons and would have a far larger stack of assists had his teammates not squandered so many of the openings he fashioned.

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3

Martin Odegaard

Arsenal

As a six-year-old, Martin Odegaard could supposedly generate a 40mph strike. Over the subsequent two decades, the rejuvenated prodigy has learned to have a softer touch. Arsenal’s skipper is so often faced with a wall of flesh camped on the outer edge of the opponent’s penalty area that he doesn’t so much touch the ball as tickle it through the blockade for the likes of Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli to scamper onto.

Odegaard is Arsenal’s tireless schemer, leading the press to win back possession before launching another assault on goal. The Norway captain slipped 130 open-play passes into the box during the 2023/24 campaign – no other player in Europe’s top five leagues managed more than 89.

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2

Trent Alexander-Arnold

Liverpool

The legendary Italian forward Gianluca Vialli used to reason that the right-back was often the worst player in any team. Even the left-back had the allure of individuality by being left-footed. It would have to be some side for Trent Alexander-Arnold to rank as the least talented individual.

Liverpool’s outrageously gifted defender has every type of pass available to him. The only obstacle to success for Alexander-Arnold is deciding how he wants to skewer the opposition. “The skill set he has for being influential in possession, for a right-back, is mad,” Jurgen Klopp once remarked. “I don’t know if we ever saw a right-back like this.” Few players in any position have ever been able to match Alexander-Arnold’s passing ability.

1

Kevin De Bruyne

Manchester City

Kevin De Bruyne’s status as the best passer in world football right now is not a controversial claim. But if the quality of a player’s passing ability was judged solely on their success rate, De Bruyne would rank outside the top 200 in the Premier League alone. Sheffield United’s no-nonsense centre-back, Anel Ahmedhodzic, found his teammates more regularly than De Bruyne while getting relegated during the 2023/24 campaign.

Some Premier League coaches have held pass completion rate statistics in high regard – Don Hutchinson would regularly “have rows over it” with his West Ham manager, Harry Redknapp – but De Bruyne is justifiably dismissive of “one of the most wasteful stats”. The Belgian’s unrivalled manipulation of the ball is more accurately captured by his status as the second-most prolific assist provider in Premier League history.

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Stats via FBref. Correct as of 26th August 2024.