Lionel Messi retains his crown

Lionel Messi has once again taken the top spot in the Guardian's ranking of the world's top 100 footballers, beating Cristiano Ronaldo for the second year in a row. See the full list and how it breaks down by nationality, club and leagueLionel Messi has retained the top spot in this year's Guardian's choice of the world's top 100 footballers, which also sees Franck Ribéry, Gareth Bale and Luis Suárez make impressive leaps into the top ten.The second annual list by the Guardian enlisted the former Italy international Alessandro Nesta as the lead judge in a panel of 15 experts (up from 11 last year). The former England women's coach, Hope Powell, and retired USA goalkeeper, Kasey Keller, joined the selection of Guardian journalists on the panel.So how exactly did they go about ranking players for the top 100? Stephen McMillan explains:We asked each judge one simple question: who have been the 40 best players in the world in 2013? They ranked their answers in order, from 1-40. We awarded 40 points for a No1 choice, 39pts for No2, and so on down to one point for their 40th choice.The results, which have been unveiled in a countdown from December 20, are now published in full. You can see the top 100 listed in the table below with both this year's ranking and that of 2012. The spreadsheet also includes details of the points awarded to each player on the list.(theguardian.com)ANN.Az