5 Ryan Giggs
963 appearances, 168 goals
13 League titles, 4 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, 2 Champions Leagues, 1 Intercontinental Cup, 1 Club World Cup, 1 Super Cup, 9 Charity Shields
The most decorated player in British football history; and a shining example of what a professional approach to a career, and a potential fulfilled and permitted to be fulfilled by the hands of fate, can look like.
It is popular in the modern age to dismiss Giggs’ ability because of his longevity. I’m here to set the record straight, thank me later.
The teenage Ryan Giggs was a sight to behold; rapier-like speed with and without the ball. The ability to have the ball under his command at that speed often left defenders embarrassed. He hadn’t been in the first team a year before the comparisons to George Best came in. But Giggs, like Best, was his own man. Sensational solo goals only poured oil onto the fires of comparison; it was rumoured that Italian side AC Milan wanted to break the world transfer record to sign him.
By 1996 Giggs had already demonstrated maturity and sense when it came to his career, taking caution with potentially problematic hamstrings that came as a consequence of his style of play. Eventually he would find solutions to combat this; on the field, he became more mature and economic with the use of his speed, and in the late 1990s this came to devastating effect.
For a while after the Brazilian Ronaldo suffered his injury issues, Giggs was surely the best player in the world — feared to the high heavens by Juventus and other teams on the continent, and unplayable at home. Ironically, the 98/99 campaign wasn’t his best domestically but he marked United’s treble year with a couple of vital contributions, most notably of course the semi-final replay goal against Arsenal in the FA Cup, which ranks in this writer’s humble opinion as the greatest goal ever scored.
His later-career reinvention as a more conventional midfielder was a success — what United would give for even a 37 year old Giggs in their midfield now — and it says everything about his quality that Giggs was a crucial part of United’s most recent generation of domination just as much as he was in the generation or two before.
The ability of Giggs to perform at the highest level over a generational gap where the biggest changes to lifestyle and diet in the sport have taken place is surely the biggest argument in the favour of how the great players of yesterday would fare in today’s game.
Those who like to define things by Opta statistics would probably wince at Giggs’ pass completion percentages but those who like to watch football with their eyes could only appreciate the creativity and penetration the Welsh legend’s vision provided.
For skill, great goals, great assists, contribution and trophies won, Ryan Giggs is one of the greatest of all time. There are others in this list above Ryan who didn’t achieve half of what he did in terms of medals for one reason or another – the Welshman is truly an example of fulfilling every bit of one’s potential.
