Romario snubbed Mohamed Salah when naming his picks for the three best footballers in the world right now. It's been quite some time since the man Johan Cruyff famously dubbed the "genius of the goal area" hung up his boots, but he remains one of Brazil's greatest-ever players.
A World Cup and two-time Copa America winner, the 59-year-old’s golden years aligned with some of Brazil’s finest moments between 1987 and 2005. With 784 goals in 1,002 official games, Romario is the ninth-highest goalscorer in football history. Now a prominent political figure, he’s someone whose opinion still carries serious weight - in or out of the beautiful game.
That said, his choices for the top three footballers of the next generation may raise a few eyebrows. All three play in La Liga, meaning not only does Salah miss out, but so too do the likes of Harry Kane and Ousmane Dembele - the current frontrunner for the 2025 Ballon d'Or after winning the Champions League with Paris Saint-Germain.
20 Best Footballers in the World (2024) Related
25 Best Footballers in the World (2025)
We rank the best 25 footballers in the world right now - in order.
Lamine Yamal
Barcelona & Spain
Although he wasn’t asked to rank his top three in order during a recent interview with ESPN, Romario seemed to jump the gun by naming Lamine Yamal as the best of the bunch. “In first, at the moment, I’d go Lamine Yamal, because he’s made a difference playing for Barcelona,” he said. Having already played over 120 games for club and country before his 18th birthday, many are now asking the question of whether even Lionel Messi was this good at the same age?
Yamal made history as the youngest player to debut and score for both Barcelona and the Spanish national team, while also becoming the youngest ever to feature in a European Championship. On the international stage, he not only became Spain’s youngest goalscorer but also the youngest to appear in a major tournament, having scored in the semi-final as La Roja went on to win Euro 2024.
Raphinha
Barcelona & Brazil
Formerly the poster boy of Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United, Raphinha has silenced the critics with his combination of firepower and trickery, becoming all too much for defenders in the Spanish top tier and, additionally, at Europe's top table, as the 28-year-old finished as the Champions League top goalscorer last season. Eyebrows were certainly raised when Barcelona, one of the biggest teams in the world, forked out for the Brazilian.
But it has been Hansi Flick and his entourage who have enjoyed the last laugh with Raphinha hitting incredible numbers throughout the entirety of the 2024/25 campaign, having scored 34 goals and produced 25 assists in 57 outings. Of course, there may be a hint of bias towards Romario's choice of his compatriot, but there is no doubt the winger has gone above and beyond with the great expectations he set himself, and he will be part of an even more frightening Barcelona team next season if the transfer rumours fluttering around Camp Nou are anything to go by.
Kylian Mbappe
Real Madrid & France
The reason Romario chose Kylian Mbappe as his third and final pick was “because he’s always a lethal player," hinting at the struggles he's faced in the last 12 months. While the Frenchman finally made his dream move to Real Madrid last summer - only to be dropped from the national team and face an impatient barrage of criticism for a slow start at the Bernabeu as he familiarised himself with the centre-forward role - he has once again been sensational when you look at his 2024/25 season as a whole.
Los Blancos may have had a relatively unsuccessful campaign, missing out on all domestic honours to their Catalonian rivals and exiting the Champions League early thanks to Declan Rice's brace of free-kicks for Arsenal, but Mbappe still managed to score 43 goals in 56 appearances. He claimed the European Golden Shoe award and that alone proves the World Cup winner still has plenty to offer in his pursuit of being the world's best in Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi's absence, even if he's not the young gun he used to be at 26 years old. Watch Romario's full interview below:
All statistics courtesy of Transfermarkt (correct as of 20/06/2025)