Andres Iniesta names his 5 favourite players of all-time: No Messi or Ronaldo…
Former Barcelona, Manchester City and Arsenal stars are among Andres Iniesta’s favourite football players of all time.
During a recent event in Qatar, the former Barcelona star was asked to name his five favourite players of all time and neither Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo made the cut.
Instead, these were the five players that Iniesta named as his personal favourites.
Michael Laudrup
Iniesta joined the Barcelona academy in 1996, just two years after Laudrup had left the club.
As a kid growing up in the nineties, it’s no wonder that a player like Laudrup caught his imagination.
The Danish star was renowned for his passing, vision and technical skills – all the sort of attributes that Iniesta himself would master at a later date.
“Michael Laudrup is my idol from childhood,” Iniesta said during a separate interview from last year.
“His technique and his beautiful play style, the way he attacked as a midfielder. I’ve been trying to be like him since I was a kid.”
Xavi
Only Messi made more appearances alongside Iniesta than Xavi did. The Spanish duo played a total of 486 games together and won countless trophies in that time.
Getting the ball off either of them during their prime was pretty much an impossible task.
“I played with Xavi for a long time and I’ve watched him a lot on television,” Iniesta said during an interview last year.
“He is my ideal player because of how he can control games. He has the ability to provide quality passes in the right places and he is also a leader. He really is an ideal midfielder for me.”
Pep Guardiola
Guardiola had a substantial impact on Iniesta as a coach and he was also a role model for him during his playing days.
While Iniesta never got the chance to play alongside Guardiola at Barcelona, he was someone who he looked up to during his days at La Masia.
The pair still have a good relationship with one another today and in a similar vein, Guardiola holds Iniesta in incredibly high esteem.
“People think the manager helps the players but in a few cases, Andres is one of them, he helped me to understand the game better,” Guardiola said in 2018.
David Silva
One of the most technically gifted players the Premier League has ever seen, Iniesta also named Silva as one of his personal favourites.
While the pair never played together at club level, they did make 87 appearances alongside each other on the international stage.
Both Silva and Iniesta shared plenty of similar traits from their elite passing range to their distinctive dribbling style.
“For me, I have always liked Silva very much. David Silva,” Iniesta said during an interview in 2023.
Football isn’t quite the same now that both of them have hung their boots up.
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Santi Cazorla
A somewhat left-field shout from Iniesta, but we absolutely love this pick.
Cazorla is one of the most unique players we have ever seen in the Premier League and Arsenal fans still hold him in incredibly high regard today.
The diminutive Spanish playmaker was always looking to make things happen and he made everything look so effortless in the process.
Impressively, the 40-year-old is still playing professional football today, currently playing in the Spanish second division for Real Oviedo.
In 20 appearances in 2024-25, Cazorla has chipped in with five goal contributions, proving he’s still got some magic left in his boots yet.