Best women’s soccer players of all time: Ranking the Top 10 footballers in the history of the game | Sporting News

As the 2024 Summer Olympics arrive from across France, the global football world readies for another month of great goals, iconic moments and superstar players.

The hosts are amongst the favorites for the gold medal, but there are plenty of contenders. The United States, with their four gold medals and storied history, are hoping to bounce back from a disappointing showing at last summer’s Women’s World Cup, while reigning FIFA champions Spain hope to continue rocketing towards the top of the international pantheon.

While the current talent pool has ballooned, with great players scattered over more of the world than ever before, those currently playing have a long way to go to reach the heights of those who came before.

The Sporting News looks at the greatest players in the history of women’s soccer, with individual awards, team titles, great moments and career longevity all factors in determining who makes the list. In addition, further below, The Sporting News details those who were close to making the list, but just barely missed out.

MORE: Complete 2024 Summer Olympics schedule for the tournament in France

Top 10 women’s soccer players of all time

The Sporting News ranks the Top 10 women’s soccer players of all time in reverse order, touching on multiple contributors from across the history of the sport.

10. Sun Wen (China)

Across a 16-year career for the Chinese national team, Sun was the first true global icon of Asian women’s football. Her accomplishments elevated her to icon status as a member of the early days of women’s football globally.

Debuting internationally in 1990 as a 17-year-old, Sun was one of just three players to appear in all of China’s first 15 Women’s World Cup matches, reaching the final in 1999 where they would fall to hosts United States on a penalty shootout. Despite the heartbreaking defeat, Sun would be awarded the tournament’s Golden Ball for best player, as joint-top scorer with seven goals.

Toward the end of her career, Sun was nominated for the first two FIFA Women’s Player of the Year awards in 2001 and 2002, finishing second and third respectively. As a nod to her career achievements, she was nominated for FIFA’s Player of the Century award in 2002, when she finished second to Michelle Akers.

9. Carli Lloyd (USA)

A good chunk of Carli Lloyd’s career flew under the radar while playing on a team full of exceptional players, but with it all said and done, Lloyd stood tall as one of the most consistent big-game performers in the history of the most successful national team in the world. The New Jersey-born star scored 134 international goals in 316 appearances, and while those alone are enough to leave her near the all-time lists, she was always on hand to provide a critical moment when her team needed it the most.

Lloyd has been front and center in some of the most iconic triumphs in U.S. women’s soccer, including scoring the game-winning goals in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympic gold medal matches as well as her sensational hat-trick in the 2015 Women’s World Cup final, the last of which came from midfield and was nominated for that year’s Puskas Award. That 2015 performance secured her the Golden Ball as best player in the tournament, 

She was nominated for the FIFA Player of the Year in 2012 before winning the award in 2015 and 2016 and being nominated again in 2017. Her club career was less successful, named a finalist for the MAC Hermann Award trophy while with Rutgers and winning the the FA Women’s Cup in 2016/17 with Man City, but that doesn’t remotely take away from her giant status within the U.S. international landscape.

8. Alex Morgan (USA)

With the eighth-most goals in women’s international football history, Alex Morgan undoubtedly holds a place amongst the pantheons of all-time greats. Even as her career begins to fade, left off the 2024 Summer Olympic roster after an underwhelming 2023 Women’s World Cup, Morgan is an unquestioned legend of women’s football.

Morgan has won nearly all there is to achieve in women’s football. At the international level, she’s won two Women’s World Cup titles, an Olympic gold medal, three CONCACAF continental titles, six SheBelieves Cup titles, three Algarve Cup titles, and the inaugural Gold Cup. She also won the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2008 as a budding superstar, a goal shy of Sydney Leroux for the Golden Boot.

At the club level, she’s had less consistent success, but still holds multiple titles in the trophy case. She has one NWSL titles with the Portland Thorns in 2013, and one regular season crown with the San Diego Wave in 2023. She won a Champions League with Lyon in 2017 as well as the domestic double in that same season.

Her 123 international goals in 224 USWNT caps speak to Morgan’s sheer dominance on the field for a long and fruitful career, and her achievements off the field may be even larger. As a towering figure amongst the USWNT fanbase, she led the equal rights battle as an outspoken leader of the players union and squad. Morgan’s place amongst the women’s football pantheon is rock-solid. 

7. Homare Sawa (Japan)

Japanese legend Sawa is largely considered the greatest Asian women’s player of all-time, and she has the career accolades to back it up on both an individual and team level. While the most notable accomplishments of her career are goals, she was also a spectacular midfielder.

Making her international debut at just 15 years old in 1993, she would go on to become one of the most consistent presences at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, appearing in six FIFA tournaments across her career, second-most of all time.

Sawa was at the heart of Japan’s greatest performance on the women’s football stage, when they won the 2011 Women’s World Cup title in one of the greatest games in the history of the sport, beating the United States on penalties after Sawa’s 117th minute equalizer earned a chance in the shootout. She was the tournament’s top scorer with five goals and would win the 2011 FIFA Women’s Player of the Year award as a result.

The next year, she would help Japan back up that result with a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics, and after she briefly retired, she would return for the 2015 Women’s World Cup, where she again led her team to the final, falling to the U.S., who secured revenge. At the club level, Sawa won 11 Japanese league titles with her two club teams Yomiuri/Nippon TV Beleza and INAC Kobe Leonessa, cementing her place among not just Asian women’s football, but the global greats as well.

6. Michelle Akers (USA)

The career of U.S. legend Michelle Akers came just a hair too early in the growth of women’s football to see her enjoy the popularity and accolades that she deserved, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t earned her place among the all-time greats in the history of the sport.

Her most notable accomplishment was her insane 10-goal haul in the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, a total that earned her the Golden Boot and still stands as the highest total ever scored in a single FIFA tournament. Half that total was collected in one match, scoring five goals in the 7-0 quarterfinal victory over Chinese Taipei, a Women’s World Cup single-game mark that has been matched only once, by Alex Morgan in 2019.

That wasn’t the only first of Akers’ career, however. She is known for winning the first women’s MAC Hermann Trophy as the best collegiate player in the nation, earning the prestigious award in 1988 while at UCF. She became known for her recognizable poofy hair, and would go on to win an Olympic gold medal in 1996 and a second Women’s World Cup in 1999. Had it not been for knee injuries suffered in that last World Cup journey, she likely would have had an even longer career, but was instead forced to retire.

Named Player of the Century by FIFA in 2002, Akers’ position as one of the all-time greats was cemented.

5. Christine Sinclair (Canada)

While Sinclair’s career has largely been spent trying to lift Canada into the top echelon of women’s football, her status as the most prolific goal scorer in the history of international football is undeniable. Finally calling time on her career after the 2023 Women’s World Cup at 40 years old, Sinclair is one of just three players ever across both men’s and women’s football to score at five different editions of the FIFA tournament.

Sinclair’s 190 international goals and 331 caps (No. 2 and No. 1 all-time) are her most notable career highlights, but she’s so much more than just her play in front of net. Sinclair has been a versatile player throughout her career, capable in midfield and also as a No. 10.

Sinclair’s career exploded at the start, as she scored 23 goals as a freshman at the University of Portland to lead all first-year students across the nation. She would lead Portland to two NCAA titles during her collegiate career, and it would kickstart her international exploits that would culminate with the 2021 Olympic gold medal, easily Canada’s greatest women’s soccer triumph. She was also at the heart of Canada’s fourth-place finish at the 2003 Women’s World Cup, still the nation’s best result at the competition to date. A legendary career that included titles, goals, records and longevity.

4. Abby Wambach (USA)

As the most prolific goal scorer in U.S. history and second-most in international football all-time, Wambach earned her place near the top of this list on the field. Among her 184 international strikes are some of the most famous and iconic goals in U.S. history, including a 122nd-minute equalizer against Brazil in the 2011 Women’s World Cup quarterfinals that remains one of the most famous goals in the tournament’s history.

Through the prime of her career, she was nominated for four straight FIFA Women’s Player of the Year awards, winning once in 2012. That year she topped the list, she didn’t even play for a club team, winning it solely on her international accomplishments.

Wambach’s bulldozer style made her a force in the penalty area, able to score with any method, but she was a monster in the air and an expert of off-ball movement. It benefited her — and her teams — at every stage, helping the Florida Gators to their first NCAA championship in 1998 and going on to win one Women’s World Cup title and two Olympic gold medals. On a personal level, she won the Silver Ball for second-best player at the 2011 World Cup and was the first soccer player awarded AP Athlete of the Year, alongside her World Player of the Year accomplishments. A true legend of the game in front of goal.

3. Birgit Prinz (Germany)

German striker Prinz is possibly the most gifted goal scorer the game has ever seen, and while her best career form didn’t have the longevity of Abby Wambach’s or Christine Sinclair’s, her prime was unlike any striker in the history of the game. Prinz utterly dominated everywhere she went until retirement at 34 years old.

Prinz finished her club career with an outlandish 282 goals in 282 matches, but it’s her international accomplishments with Germany for which she’s best known. She won two Women’s World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007, the first of which saw Germany defeat hosts USA, 3-0, in the semifinals in one of the nation’s greatest results. She won three consecutive FIFA Player of the Year awards from 2003-2005, and finished second to Marta in four straight years from 2007-2010.

At the club level, wherever Prinz went, titles followed. She won two Bundesliga crowns and two German Cup titles with Frankfurt in the mid-’90’s, before moving to Frankfurt in 1998, where she would go on to win seven Bundesliga titles and eight German Cup titles through a period of utter domestic dominance. Prinz would finish as the league’s top scorer four times, three of which came in a title-winning effort. If that wasn’t enough, she took a two-year hiatus from German football to play for the NC Courage in the United States, winning a WUSA title in 2002. Few players in the history of the game have a more stuffed trophy case than the German legend.

2. Mia Hamm (USA)

Hamm is the greatest player in the history of the greatest nation in women’s soccer, a do-it-all player who could score goals and create goals for teammates. Yet her abilities on the field are only part of her story, as she became a leader not only in the locker room, but also in the public eye, inspiring generations of American women to help build the sport in the United States for years to come.

Hamm is first in U.S. soccer history with 305 goal contributions — made up of 158 goals, which puts her second on the all-time U.S. goal-scoring list, and 147 assists, which is miles clear of anyone else.

Her legendary career started at just 15, debuting for the U.S. national team in 1987, and she would be an early riser on the global stage, scoring the winning goal in a 3-2 victory over Sweden in the first U.S. Women’s World Cup match in 1991, just 19 years old at the time.

Hamm would be front and center of many iconic moments throughout her career, vaulting her into the public eye as a face of not just women’s soccer, but all of women’s athletics in the country, winning everything along the way. She is one of the greatest college soccer players ever, winning four NCAA championships in five years at North Carolina and being named alongside Michael Jordan as the greatest UNC athletes of the last 50 years. At the international level, she would win two World Cup titles and two Olympic gold medals, becoming one of the most decorated players in the game.

On an individual level, her accolades matched that of her team silverware, highlighted by her two FIFA Women’s Player of the Year awards in 2001 and 2002, the first two years the award was active — had it been created earlier, she likely would have won many more. Hamm would be selected by FIFA as one of three greatest players ever before her career was even over, placing third in the voting for Player of the Century in 2000, behind just Michelle Akers and Sun Wen.

1. Marta (Brazil)

The greatest player in the history of women’s football is the Brazilian legend Marta. While she never won a Women’s World Cup, finishing runner-up in 2007, she still shined on the biggest FIFA stage, becoming the all-time leading goal scorer at the Women’s World Cup with 17 career strikes, and possibly more to come.

She won FIFA Player of the Year six times in her career, including an incredible five straight from 2006-2010, establishing her dominance through the prime of her career. She nearly single-handedly dragged her global glory but just could not get over the hump, settling for two Olympic silver medals in addition to the Women’s World Cup near-miss.

Yet those failures on the team front do nothing to diminish her claim to this throne. She showed her ability from a young age, winning the Golden Ball for best player at the 2004 U-19 Women’s World Cup despite Brazil’s finishing fourth, and she would go on to fulfill the immense potential she displayed. She won the Golden Ball in the 2007 tournament, finishing as the competition’s top scorer.

At the club level, Marta, now 37, has played largely in the United States, dominating for a three-year stretch in the now-defunct WPS with the Western New York Flash, winning the championship in 2011. She spent a few years playing in Sweden before returning to the U.S. and playing for the Orlando Pride since 2015, currently sitting as the career appearances and goals leader for the club.

Honorable mentions

With so many legends out there, it was simply impossible to include them all in a Top 10 list, and many incredible players deserve mention.

The two individuals first off the list were cap heroes Formiga and Kristine Lilly, who are known as global women’s soccer icons for their career longevity.

Lilly has the most caps of any player in the history of international football, playing for the United States 354 times across her incredibly lengthy career spanning 25 years. While Formiga managed “only” 234 caps for Brazil, she is the only player in football history to appear at seven World Cup tournaments, and she also managed to compete in all seven Olympic tournaments as well.

Very close to cracking the list are a number of players from this current generation of Spain stars, including Alexia Putellas, Aitana Bonmati, and Jennifer Hermoso. Putellas is right on the cusp, but injuries have stunted her career recently and she was only a bit-part player in her country’s run to the 2023 Women’s World Cup title. Bonmati is on a meteoric rise, but at just 26 years old, has to put together a larger body of work. Hermoso is 34 years old, and thus may be up against Father Time in her bid to accumulate enough important goals and trophies to reach this level.

Another in the current generation of players just outside the top 10 is Sam Kerr, who is unquestionably one of the most talented players in recent memory, but like Putellas has been held back by injuries in recent years.

No goalkeepers made the list, but Hope Solo of the United States and Nadine Angerer of Germany have claims as the best at that position, with careers full of global accolades and accomplishments.

While Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd managed to do enough on their own to reach the Top 10 list, international teammate Megan Rapinoe falls just short, but remains a titan of the sport that deserve mention in the conversation. Unfortunately, during an era of U.S. dominance on the global stage, there just aren’t enough iconic moments to go around to see her stand quite high enough.

Two other current players, Brazilian forward Cristiane and Norwegian icon Ada Hegerberg, also could have more memorable moments. Hegerberg especially, at 29 years old, could have much more to come, having already won two Ballon d’Or awards, but her long absence from the national team hurts her resume and Norway’s failure to reach the Olympics consistently also holds her back.

Finally, while goals are often the most direct route to legendary status, the current game has seen defenders also rise on the list of top stars. As far as central defenders go, French legend Wendie Renard is ready to captain her side at another FIFA tournament this month, already as one of the greatest at her position. Meanwhile, England boasts Lucy Bronze, who is quickly establishing herself as the greatest full-back to ever play the game, and at 32 could have much more to come.