Michel Platini
Gerd Müller
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Gerd Müller leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Michel Platini at #11 and Gerd Müller at #12.
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The case for Michel Platini
The most dominant individual run of the 1980s: three consecutive Ballons d'Or from 1983 to 1985, a feat matched only by Messi and Cruyff at the time. An attacking midfielder with a striker's instinct for arriving late in the box, sublime vision and dead-ball mastery, Platini was the creative fulcrum of a golden French generation and of Juventus, whom he led to the 1985 European Cup — the trophy forever marked by the Heysel disaster that preceded it. His defining team achievement was Euro 1984 on home soil, where he scored an astonishing nine goals in just five matches, including two hat-tricks, a scoring feat at a major tournament never remotely approached. He finished with three Serie A top-scorer titles, around 350 career goals, and 41 in 72 for France, redefining what a midfielder could contribute to the scoresheet. His later career as a disgraced UEFA administrator clouds the legacy off the pitch, but on it he was, for three years, simply the best player in the world.
The case for Gerd Müller
Der Bomber der Nation — the most ruthlessly efficient goalscorer the sport has produced. Squat and unspectacular but impossible to mark in the six-yard box, Müller scored 68 goals in just 62 internationals for West Germany, including the winner in the 1974 World Cup final and the golden-boot-topping 10 goals of the 1970 tournament. His single-season Bundesliga record of 40 goals in 1971-72 stood for nearly fifty years, until Robert Lewandowski managed 41 in 2020-21, and his 365 Bundesliga goals remain the competition's all-time mark by a distance. He won the 1970 Ballon d'Or, the 1972 European Championship, and three consecutive European Cups with Bayern Munich from 1974 to 1976, finishing with over 600 goals in senior club and international football. Not a dribbler or a creator — a finisher of pure, remorseless instinct, whose economy in front of goal set the template every poacher since has been measured against.