The English newspaper "Daily Mail" sparked a lot of controversy about the best players in the history of football, due to surprising choices in the list.

Argentine star Lionel Messi, the American football striker for Inter Miami, topped the list of the best players in history, in the report published by journalist Oliver Holt.

The newspaper added that Lionel Messi’s leadership of the Argentine national team to win the World Cup in 2022 has removed doubt that he is the greatest football player ever, according to Russia Today.

But what is strange is that the author of the report placed his traditional rival, Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of the Saudi club Al-Nasr, in tenth place on the list after surprising names.

Cristiano Ronaldo's occupying last place in the list of the top 10 players sparked widespread controversy among the fans, especially since he is the all-time top scorer in football and the all-time top scorer in the most prestigious tournament, the European Champions League.

The Daily Mail's main headline about that report was, "Cristiano Ronaldo... Look away now."

While the author of the report apologized to many names such as Gianfranco Zola, Luis Suarez, Gabriel Batistuta, Michael Owen, Sergio Aguero and others for not being on the list of the top 100 players, he did not do the same with the Portuguese legend.

Oliver Holt explained: “By the way, I will not apologize for Cristiano Ronaldo being in tenth place. I do not see this as controversial. Ronaldo is the second best player of his generation after Lionel Messi. I think most football fans accept that, and this list is derived from From many generations."

The following is a list of the 10 best players in the history of football, according to the “Daily Mail”:

1- Argentine Lionel Messi

2- Brazilian Pele

3- Argentina's Diego Maradona

4- Dutchman Johan Cruyff

5- Frenchman Zinedine Zidane

6- The Spanish Alfred Di Stefano

7- Brazilian Ronaldo Nazario

8- Brazilian Garrincha

9- Brazilian Zico

10- Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo.