Planet Football’s definitive best XI in world football: Rodri, Yamal, Kane but no Mbappe…

We’ve spent the past few weeks ranking the 10 best goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards in world football.

The next step was obvious. Using those rankings as a guide, we’ve selected one player for every position to create our ultimate world XI.

Here’s our pick of the best team in world football right now, arranged in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

GK: Thibaut Courtois

For us, there can be no doubt that Courtois currently ranks as the best goalkeeper on the planet.

The Belgian regularly pulls off some world-class saves, including several in big Champions League matches.

He always shows up on the big stage – Belgium only lost to Spain after he went off injured in the World Cup quarter final – and is undoubtedly the most intimidating goalkeeper to face.

RB: Achraf Hakimi

“ACHRAF HAKIMI. BEST RB IN THE WORLD. GOOD NIGHT GUYS. 👋🏽” posted Kylian Mbappe during the 2022 AFCON.

Same as it ever was.

We’ve got a whole series of these rankings. Strikers. Wingers. Centre-backs. In no other position was the No.1 spot so cut and dried.

Hakimi is head and shoulders above the rest. A back-to-back Champions League winner and a key part of Morocco becoming a genuine force in international football.

CB: Virgil van Dijk

Van Dijk’s positional intelligence and strong leadership in the backline reduce the impact of his advancing years at Liverpool.

There were one or two signs of decline last year, but the Dutchman was helped immensely by his natural one-on-one defending ability and complete aerial domination. And nobody came out well from Arne Slot’s last season at Anfield.

Van Dijk will be near impossible to replace. Liverpool haven’t even tried to yet.

CB: Pau Cubarsi

He doesn’t turn 20 until January, yet Cubarsi is already a fixture in Barcelona’s defence and a World Cup winner.

When was the last time you saw a defender look so composed at such a young age? Help us out here as we’re coming up completely blank.

Cubarsi was part of a Spanish defence that conceded one goal en route to World Cup glory. One. He’ll go far, this lad.

LB: Nuno Mendes

The case isn’t quite as cut and dried as with Achraf Hakimi on the opposite flank, but it was nevertheless a pretty easy decision.

Mendes and Hakimi have been integral to Luis Enrique’s PSG winning back-to-back Champions Leagues.

Their defensive ability is the starting point, with both excelling in one-on-one duels, but they are far from limited when it comes to supporting the attack. That all-round skill set forms one of the pillars of a remarkably effective set-up.

DM: Rodri

“I told him that after six, seven or eight months of absence, he cannot immediately return to the Rodri of the past,” Pep Guardiola told reporters last October.

“The time Rodri will reach his best form will be at the World Cup with the Spanish national team.”

Knows a thing or two about football, that guy. Who knew?

The prophecy came true. Rodri was back to his very best on the biggest stage of all. Return of The King.

Manchester City’s match-winner in the 2023 Champions League final. Player of the Tournament when Spain won Euro 2024. Golden Ball winner and captain when they won the World Cup.

Rodri is one of a handful of players in history who have completed football. The only player on this list to have won a Ballon d’Or. The pedigree is something else entirely.

We just question whether now is the time for a new challenge. Real Madrid are crying out for a tempo-setting midfielder.

Florentino loves a Ballon d’Or winner. He loves a World Cup star. They’re the natural home for Spanish poster boys. It just makes too much sense.

CM: Vitinha

Rodri has spent the past two seasons either on the treatment table or gradually getting back up to speed. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that coincided with Man City failing to win the title after claiming four in a row.

During that period, Vitinha stepped into the void as the undisputed midfield star of world football. Absolutely majestic on the biggest European nights for PSG, time and again setting the terms and dictating the tempo against elite-level opposition.

A minor black mark that he wasn’t able to replicate that influence for Portugal at the World Cup, where he went a bit missing.

FWR: Lamine Yamal

La Masia’s most talented graduate since Lionel Messi is now a World Cup winner. He’s been around for long enough now that we’ve become accustomed to him.

It’s three years since he made his debut, and he’s now racked up over 150 appearances for club and country.

Every so often it’s good to step back and remind ourselves that what he is doing a teenager is simply not normal. Messi and Ronaldo weren’t doing anything like this at the same age.

Use whatever metrics you want. Goals, assists, chances created, dribbles. Yamal is scarily good on all fronts but the data only serves to back up what we can see with our own eyes.

Quite clearly the best, most dangerous wide attacker in world football. After easing his way back from that hamstring injury, he grew into the World Cup and ended the tournament as the youngest winner since 1982.

If there was ever any doubt he would deliver on the biggest stage, it didn’t last long.

CAM: Jude Bellingham

For the second season running, Bellingham didn’t quite hit the heights expected of him. No major trophies. Fairly modest numbers. Questions over how he fits alongside Real Madrid’s other stars. And a growing sense of frustration amid the club’s wider issues.

It’s been a similar story for Kylian Mbappe, with the pair yet to fully click together at the Bernabeu.

But the World Cup offered a pretty clear explanation: the problem isn’t Bellingham or Mbappe. It’s Madrid. More specifically, it’s a midfield that still hasn’t adequately replaced Toni Kroos and Luka Modric.

Put Bellingham in a functioning system and he immediately reminded everyone what he can do. A devastatingly brilliant tournament, taking games by the scruff of their neck, he thrived in England’s best World Cup showing since 1966.

This was the same player who was a genuine Ballon d’Or contender a couple of years ago, driving Madrid to a Champions League and La Liga double. He hasn’t changed.

Madrid have an absolute superstar. Jose Mourinho needs to build a team that gets the best out of him.

FWL: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia

Forget the numbers.

We could compile a stats-led rundown of Europe’s wide men, observing that Kvaratskhelia’s output of eight goals and four assists in Ligue 1 last season is inferior to that of some bang-average footballers, but that would be boring.

Who cares if Kvaradona isn’t putting some French farmers to the sword every week if he can come on and do what he did against Chelsea and Bayern?

The tedious discourse around the death of maverick entertainers probably has some truth in today’s systemised game, but the Georgian is a wonderful outlier on that front.

We’re genuinely reminded of the likes of Ronaldinho, Georgi Kinkladze and Ricardo Quaresma when he has the ball at his feet. True ingenuity will never die.

NOTE: Kvaratskhelia only finished fourth in our ranking of the world’s best wingers, but he’s top for left-sided forwards. In the interests of balance, we’ve stuck him in ahead of Michael Olise and Ousmane Dembele.

ST: Harry Kane

Goals aren’t the be-all and end-all, but they go a pretty long way if we’re discussing centre-forwards.

And Kane scored 61 goals in all competitions for Bayern Munich last season. To put that in context, it’s more than Cristiano Ronaldo ever managed in his peak.

He claimed a second European Golden Shoe, and capped off the campaign scoring a hat-trick in Bayern’s DFB Pokal final victory. Six goals at the World Cup wasn’t a bad return either.

Not only did Kane outscore Haaland and Mbappe last season, but he did it while functioning in a collective context, facilitating play, and often dropping deep to spread balls about like a world-class playmaker.

Unlike Haaland, he hasn’t won the Champions League. Unlike Mbappe, he hasn’t won the World Cup. But it looks likely he’ll be the first of the three to get his hands on the