Steven Gerrard tops list of most overrated footballers of all time

Is Liverpool icon Steven Gerrard really the most overrated footballer of all time? European football fans seem to think so.

As we’re sure most of you know, at AceFootball we love to get into the nitty gritty of football – whether its looking at the stats behind who is truly the GOAT, or whether the Arsenal Invincibles would beat last season’s Liverpool team – we want to answer the big questions.

One of these questions which always seems to come up amongst us fans, is which players are overrated. Whether they’re a past great who people don’t think lived up to their reputation, or a youngster who might have just a little bit too much hype – there are hundreds of players who are deemed ‘overrated’ by football fans around the world.

So, we decided to end the conversation, and asked football fans to nominate their pick for the most overrated player of all time. We then boiled the list down to 20 candidates and one again asked our users to pick as many as they liked from the list of nominees – making up our definitive list of the most overrated players of all time.

Here is what we found…

We surveyed 6,121 football fans across Europe and they’ve decided to crown former Liverpool F.C. and England captain Steven Gerrard the most overrated player of all time. Yes Liverpool fans, you read that right – Steven Gerrard has been voted THE most overrated player of all time. But, if it makes you feel any better, he was followed by closely by Manchester United and France international Paul Pogba and Brazilian legend Pelé – so at least he’s in elite company!

France superstar Kylian Mbappé, and Argentine legend Diego Maradona came in at fourth and fifth on the list.

Below are the twenty most commonly picked players from the nominees, ranked by the percentage of fans that voted for each player:

Steven Gerrard – 23,5% (of respondents selected Gerrard in the multiple-answer survey)
Paul Pogba – 22%
Pelé – 20%
Kylian Mbappé – 19%
Diego Maradona – 18%
Ryan Giggs – 16%
Mohamed Salah – 15,5 %
David Beckham – 15%
Cristiano Ronaldo – 14%
Lionel Messi – 13%
Virgil Van Dijk – 11%
Jordan Henderson – 10%
George Best – 9%
Edin Dzeko 8%
Alexandre Pato – 7,5%
Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang – 7%
Paul Scholes – 6,5%
Robin Van Persie – 6%
Ledley King – 5%
Frenkie De Jong – 5%

Some of the names on there are extremely surprising – however if you’re considered one of the best, then of course the door opens up to be considered ‘overrated’.

Arguably Liverpool’s greatest ever player, Steven Gerrard spent the entirety of his professional career playing for Merseyside red, becoming team captain in 2003. He went on to play 504 games for the club across 17 seasons, scoring 120 goals. In his career however, despite winning the Champions League, Gerrard was never able to win a league title and captained the England team during two of their worst World Cup campaigns in 2010 and 2014.

Widely spoken about as one of the greatest players of all time, Pelé was a Brazilian midfielder who famously scored 1279 goals in 1363 games, a Guinness World Record. However, in recent years it has been revealed that many of these goals were scored during preseason games, or charity friendlies – leading many to question the integrity of his legacy (calling Messi a one trick pony didn’t help his cause either…)

After moving to Juventus from Manchester United in 2012, Paul Pogba went on to become a 4x Italian Champion with the club, being named as the Serie A POTY in the 13/14 season. After moving back to Manchester in August 2016, Paul Pogba has won two League Cups with the club, as well as winning the World Cup with the French National Team in the same period. However, the Frenchman has often come under fire during his time at Manchester United, with many believing his desire to play for the club has diminished.