Pernille Harder crowned best female footballer on planet in turbulent year | Rich Laverty | Football

I started last year’s piece by saying 2019 had been a momentous year for the women’s game and in reality, nobody could have foreseen the bumps in the road this year would bring off the back of the global success of the 2019 Women’s World Cup.

Women’s football, though, as so many times before, overcame adversity to restart after the enforced Covid-19 break and is now raring to go in 2021.

The football may have been stopped for several months but there was enough action before and after to be able to run our top 100 female footballers of the world in 2020 and I am delighted we did so.

We have a new winner, Pernille Harder dethroning Sam Kerr to become the first player to have won the award twice. The Dane came in almost 150 points clear of Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema, who moved into the top three for the first time.

Harder moves up from an eighth-place finish in 2019 to regain the number one spot, with the top three positions held by Women’s Super League players. Harder, who started the year with Wolfsburg but moved to Chelsea in the summer, and Miedema are followed by Manchester City’s Lucy Bronze in third.

Harder won with 3,051 points, with 29 of our 88 judges voting her the best player on the planet, with 22 selecting Miedema as their top pick. The main challengers to the top three came from the European champions, Lyon, with Wendie Renard coming home in fourth, her highest ranking, followed by Amandine Henry and Dzsenifer Marozsán, the latter returning to the top 10. Last year’s winner Kerr dropped to seventh.

Chicago Red Stars’ Julie Ertz was the top USA player in ninth and some of her international teammates, such as Sam Mewis, Lindsey Horan and Crystal Dunn, also ranked highly, but it was a year in which many of them struggled to find regular game time, with the usual full NWSL season not able to take place because of the pandemic.

There were some tough decisions to be made this year off the back of such a hole in the women’s football calendar, with Europe less affected in the timescale of games we take into account when judging the top 100. Harder, though, is a deserved winner. The Denmark international ended last season’s Bundesliga as by far and away the top scorer in the league, helping Wolfsburg to another league title and a Champions League final.

Harder joined Chelsea in the summer and it will be exciting to see how she develops in 2021 with a new team in pursuit of finally getting hold of Europe’s biggest club trophy.

As I said last year, people will debate the list in both positive and negative ways and it is great to see that year on year people look forward to the publication of this list and at least appreciate the effort that goes into it.

It cannot be perfect and this year more than ever I know some of our judges struggled with the fact some players played so little football throughout 2020. While major tournaments are becoming more visible, the reality is many domestic leagues remain largely invisible unless you are based in that country.

That led to a lot of top talents and players who ranked highly in previous editions being left out of the top 100 this year, but it deservedly paved the way for some exciting young talents who probably would not have made the list otherwise.

It was really pleasing to see the likes of Germany’s Klara Bühl and Sydney Lohmann, as well as some of the best talents from the top division in Sweden, Damallsvenskan, including Anna Anvegård and Natalia Kuikka, the latter of whom will join Portland Thorns next year, and of course England’s Chloe Kelly for the first time.

Many players deservedly shot up the rankings. The England and Chelsea forward Beth England was the biggest mover, going from 89th to 26th, a difference of 63 from 2019. Marie-Antoinette Katoto made the top 20 after finishing in 75th last year, while there were also big moves up the list for Magdalena Eriksson, Kadidiatou Diani, Alexia Putellas, Mapi León and Rachel Daly among others, and it was good to see players gaining more recognition for their performances even in a year where women’s football was possibly less visible than in recent years.

Lena Oberdorf and Formiga once again listed as the youngest and oldest players respectively, while the likes of Kristie Mewis and Shea Groom gain recognition for their part in Houston Dash’s Challenge Cup success.

I should spare a mention too for the unlucky few who finished just outside the top 100, with PSG’s Paulina Dudek 101st, Zambia’s exciting young forward Barbra Banda in 103rd with Germany’s Kathrin Hendrich in between.