All-Time Best Serie A XI: Legends Who Defined Italian Football

Serie A has long been one of the most prestigious and tactically rich leagues in world football. From the defensive rigidity of catenaccio to the artistry of the fantasista, Italy’s top flight has showcased some of the most iconic players in football history. The league’s unique blend of tactical discipline and technical brilliance has helped shape modern football on both domestic and international stages.

This all-time Serie A XI brings together legends who not only amassed impressive accolades but also embodied the spirit and evolution of Italian football. Spanning eras and styles, this lineup honors players who defined Serie A with leadership, innovation, and unforgettable moments, representing the perfect balance of defense, midfield creativity, and attacking flair.

Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Buffon

• 657 Serie A appearances (all-time record)

• 10 Serie A titles

• 2006 FIFA World Cup winner

• Nearly 300 clean sheets in Serie A

No player in Serie A history has made more appearances than Juventus (and Parma) legend Gianluigi Buffon, and no goalkeeper has recorded more clean sheets either.

Buffon defined multiple decades of Italian football, and while he couldn’t quite capture the Champions League title for all of Juve’s brilliance in the 2000s and 2010s on an international scale, the shot-stopper was very much a central figure in his country’s 2006 triumph at the World Cup in Germany.

Juventus were the biggest force in Italian football during the 2010s, and while that was very much the back half of Buffon’s career, he was still one of Europe’s best, carrying on the legacy of the greatest goalkeeper in Serie A before him, fellow Juve icon Dino Zoff.

That Buffon has almost unequivocally surpassed Zoff’s legacy is a testament to his brilliance. He was a record signing as a young goalkeeper from Parma, and even if you adjust for inflation, he was still, in hindsight, a bargain for the Bianconeri.

One of the most influential leaders in modern football, Buffon is a reminder that the best goalkeepers are the pure shot-stoppers who think ten steps ahead, psyche out attackers as they are about to shoot, and have an almost clairvoyant sense of where to be and where the ball is going to go.

With a career spanning from 1995 to 2023, starting and ending at boyhood club Parma, Buffon is the epitome of longevity and was the bedrock by which the great Italian and Juventus defenses of those decades were built on.

Right Back: Cafu

• 2 Serie A titles (Roma 2000–01, Milan 2003–04)

• 2 FIFA World Cups (1994, 2002)

• Most international caps for Brazil (142)

• Champions League title in 06/07 with Milan

The first name that comes to mind when most football fans are asked who the best right back of all time is, Cafu’s legacy goes beyond Serie A but is undeniably Serie A, given the Italian top flight was the only major European league that the Brazilian legend plied his trade in.

Cafu was a maverick at the right back position with arguably the most impressive stamina in modern footballing history. He shuttled up and down the flank tirelessly, blowing by defenders with the ball time and time again while running back to shut down the opponent’s best attacking threat.

He changed Serie A forever while at Roma and AC Milan, shedding light on the utility of an attacking fullback, especially when said fullback wasn’t a defensive slouch either.

Cafu could take defenders on like a winger, create like a midfielder, and even dictate play. He was a rare talent for Brazil as a two-time World Cup winner, but he was also instrumental in bringing Roma a rare Serie A title and then later for Milan in helping the Rossoneri become the biggest club in Europe.

Center Back: Franco Baresi

• 532 Serie A appearances—all for AC Milan

• 6 Serie A titles

• 3 European Cups (now Champions League)

• Italy’s 1982 World Cup winning squad member

From 1977 to 1997, Franco Baresi graced the pitch for AC Milan and only AC Milan, highlighting the unique bond Rossoneri players forge with their clubs, becoming legends almost as grand as the game itself.

Baresi is perhaps less recognized by new football fans as his defensive counterparts in Milan Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini were, but ask a good portion of the old-timers who watched him play and they will tell you that Baresi was the best pure defender of all them.

A libero by trade, Baresi is the last true master of the sweeper position that Franz Beckenbauer created, and with his elegant mannerisms and deep tactical understanding of the game, Baresi arguably perfected the position before putting it to rest.

Baresi was an adept player technically, but, like the other great Milan defenders, he won with his mind. He had almost a sixth sense of the offsides flag, and with his understanding of the game, he imparted great wisdom to Maldini and the others on how to suffocate a striker without having to be the one to make the tackle.

Of course, though Baresi led by example, including in the tackle. He was as tough as they came when it was time to win possession, and it was rare that the Milan captain got caught out or made a rash challenge.

Center Back: Alessandro Nesta

• 300+ Serie A appearances

• 4 Serie A titles (2 with Milan, 2 with Lazio)

• 2 UEFA Champions League titles, 2006 World Cup winner

• 4 Serie A Defender of the Year awards

If you asked a large number of football fans who the greatest center back of all time is, you’d probably get too few responses in favor of Alessandro Nesta compared to how great he was, because he was very much in the conversation, with contemporaries at rival clubs like Marco Materazzi singing the ultimate praises for the former Milan man.

Nesta appeared in hundreds of Serie A matches and won multiple titles at both Lazio and Milan, with the center back’s career at the capital club largely going overlooked.

He started his career at Lazio as a local boy from Rome even though Roma discovered him first, as his father was a lifelong Lazio fan. Nesta would go on to lead the Biancocelesti’s best run in modern football with those two Scudetti and a Coppa Italia, even scoring the winning goal in the Final against future employers Milan.

In fact, Nesta was Serie A Defender of the Year three times in a row at Lazio, winning his fourth honor of the kind in his first season with Milan. Nesta was impervious under pressure and the natural heir to Baresi, standing neck-and-neck with the Milan giant as the greatest pure defender in Serie A history.

Nesta dominated Serie A just as much at Milan as he did at Lazio, but his legacy took an additional level of remembrance with two Champions League titles at Milan as Nesta showed the world he was cut from a different cloth on the international stage with the Rossoneri.

Left Back: Paolo Maldini

• 647 Serie A appearances (all for AC Milan)

• 7 Serie A titles

• 5 European Cups / Champions League titles

• Played over 20 seasons at the top level

Like Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini was a pillar of the undefeated Milan team of the early 90s, a team twice as good as the early 2000s “Invincible” Arsenal but receiving half the recognition from the wider footballing world simply because they were in Italy and not England.

And like Maldini, Baresi defined multiple eras of greatness for Milan, playing 25 years from 1984 to 2009 for the Rossoneri, scarcely losing a step along the way while playing into his 40s before calling it quits.

Not many players in the history of this sport have Maldini’s trophy case, and the versatile left back and center back is on the shortlist of the all-time greats at both positions, such is the rarified era he entered.

Maldini is an example to all modern defenders on how to lead and how to stay relevant for 25 years by winning with your mind, even as, at his peak, Maldini was as athletic as any player in world football at any position.

Throughout his career, Maldini made four Serie A Teams of the Season, three European Champions Teams of the Tournament, two UEFA Teams of the Year, and even two Ballon d’Or podium finishes despite being a defender whose main claim to fame was keeping himself out of headlines with his lockdown defending.

Central Midfield: Andrea Pirlo

• 2 Serie A titles with Milan, 4 with Juventus

• 2 UEFA Champions League titles

• 2006 FIFA World Cup winner

• Known for 101 career assists in Serie A

There is no question that Andrea Pirlo is one of the most aesthetically pleasing footballers in the history of the game and someone who redefined the very way midfielders play and even how they are evaluated with his transition into the regista role full-time as one of the centerpiece players of a star-studded AC Milan side in the 2000s.

As Pirlo evolved and aged gracefully, he became a more refined and archetypal deep-lying playmaker, in the sense that, well, he created that very archetype that players like Toni Kroos and now even Inter Milan’s Hakan Calhanoglu have built on.

Pirlo is one of the smartest players to have ever stepped foot onto the pitch, finding creative passes from range that nobody else could have, delivering wicked set piece goals and crosses with an almost innate sense of ball-striking that left goalkeepers and opposition defenders dumbfounded on the pace and direction of his shots and crosses.

The World Cup hero defined a position but did so in a way that nobody in Italian football has come close to replicating. Pirlo was a rare breed who could produce jaw-dropping, highlight-reel plays while still controlling the entire pitch like a puppetmaster quietly pulling strings undetected behind the dark velvet curtain.

Central Midfield: Daniele De Rossi

• 615 Serie A appearances—all for Roma

• 2006 FIFA World Cup winner

• 2009 Serie A Footballer of the Year

• Captained Roma after Totti

There are definitely bigger names who have played in the midfield in Serie A like Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Pavel Nedved, Gennaro Gattuso, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Clarence Seedorf, Lothar Matthaus, and still plenty of others, yet Daniele De Rossi’s grit, leadership, and understated technical and tactical brilliance as a loyal servant to Roma for decades defined Serie A even more than those big names of yesteryear.

De Rossi was criminally underrated in his time as a player for Roma, but every Italian football fan understood that he was every bit as world-class as the more celebrated names who were his contemporaries.

A steely defensive presence steering the Roma ship, De Rossi never won a Serie A title, but he won two Italian Cups, a World Cup, and multiple individual awards that most background-driven, unselfish, industrious No. 6’s would never touch.

De Rossi was the man supporting the creative genius of Francesco Totti in Roma, as well as the countless of other attacking stars for the Azzurri. Yet De Rossi himself was capable of supplying a handful of goals per Serie A season with his underappreciated ball-striking and ability on set pieces.

In many ways, De Rossi was a combination of Roy Keane and Steven Gerrard in midfield for Roma, and it says a lot that when he replaced Totti as captain, there was no question that this was a natural succession and that De Rossi was also a special legend to the city.

Attacking Midfield: Gianni Rivera

• 501 Serie A appearances for AC Milan

• 4 Serie A titles

• 2 European Cups

• First Italian Ballon d’Or winner (1969)

Decades before Ricardo Kaka achieved deity status, Gianni Rivera was setting up a legacy as a playmaker for AC Milan – one that not even the Brazilian would be able to surpass despite his arguably more impressive peak.

The first ever Italian to win the Ballon d’Or, Rivera spent two decades for Milan and won everything possible, setting up the Rossoneri as the second dynasty in world football after Real Madrid, a position they haven’t yielded since despite a rough patch over the past decade.

Rivera was the first great 10 in Italy and ahead of his time as a skilled playmaker with an eye for the spectacular and an ability to turn games on their heads with just one touch or shot from his golden right foot.

Described by Michel Platini as one of the best passers in history, Rivera brought the magic to the Fantasista role, using his flair and creative genius more than his physical tools to carve up defenses and leave them dumbfounded, epitomizing what it means to be a point guard on the football pitch with his pass-first mentality. Without him, Milan doesn’t become one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Right Wing: Roberto Baggio

• 205 Serie A goals

• 1987 Ballon d’Or runner-up

• Over 500 Serie A appearances

• Scored 21 Serie A free-kicks

Roberto Baggio was a second striker and attacking midfielder who played as a 9.5, but his versatility and tactical intelligence made him capable of starting on either flank, which is where he ends up in this Serie A all-time XI in order to accommodate the other ideal entries into the team.

There’s no doubt that Baggio is the quintessential Serie A star of the 90s and the face of the league from an attacking perspective. His style of play sums up the league beautifully with his deadly aim from set pieces, creative passing, and awe-inspiring shooting and volleying technique.

Like so many others in this team, Baggio was easy on the eye with how he played the game, and his iconic hair and mannerisms have made his legacy live on as one of the faces of Italian football and someone who brought beauty to the game for a handful of Italy’s most revered clubs, including Juventus.

Striker: Francesco Totti

• 250 Serie A goals (Roma’s all-time top scorer)

• 619 Serie A appearances

• 2006 FIFA World Cup winner

• 2007 Serie A Capocannoniere (top scorer)

• Serie A Title 2006/07, two Coppe Italia with Roma

Although Francesco Totti was more of a playmaker than a scorer, the World Cup winner was an elite goal-scorer in his own right and has a Capocannoniere trophy to show for it, as well as another season with 20 goals and 13 total seasons with at least 12 Serie A goals – including nine in a row at his peak.

And Totti’s peak was quite long indeed. Totti was the perfect mix of peak execution and longevity, lasting nearly 25 years in the Italian top flight through injuries and ups-and-downs all for the same club, Roma, where he won three major trophies to forever entrench himself in club lore as the star man in their richest period in the 2000s.

Totti helped usher in the role of the false nine worldwide, showing that a leading man could also tuck in and create for others, bringing a more artful and intricate playing style to the position while donning the 10 jersey.

The man was a leader and simply a footballer. He could play anywhere and was willing to do anything to help his team win, producing some of the finest moments of passing and goal-scoring magic this league has ever seen – and this is a league that has seen Ronaldo Nazario, Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldinho, David Beckham, Lothar Matthaus, and Kaka.

Left Wing: Alessandro Del Piero

• Juventus’s all-time top scorer with 290 goals

• 6 Serie A titles

• 1 UEFA Champions League title

• Scored 52 free kick goals

Zinedine Zidane. Michel Platini. Cristiano Ronaldo. Roberto Baggio. Many of the best players in the history of world football have worn the iconic Zebra stripes of Juventus over the years, yet every single fan of the club will tell you that the undisputed greatest player in the club’s history is none other than Alessandro Del Piero.

A man of great class and integrity on the pitch, Del Piero’s loyalty to the Old Lady is the stuff of legend, as he stayed by the club’s side through the embarrassment of the Calciopoli scandal, which included a demotion to Serie B.

One of the biggest big-game players in Italian football history, Del Piero brought his “A” game every single match for both club and country, and whenever Juventus needed a moment of genius in the last 10 minutes to rescue them, Del Piero was there, whether it was a goal or an assist.

Del Piero was so good that even Diego Maradona viewed him as a superior player to Zizou, which is just about the highest priase you can get. He was massively underrated as a dribbler, terrorizing defenses in a playmaker role, as a forward up front next to David Trezeguet, or, maybe most dangerously, drifting out wide off the ball to collect before cutting inside.

An elite player on the counter but also incredibly dangerous in tight spaces, Del Piero mastered the art of off-ball movement and one-two play, as he was a great goal-scorer who also had the gift of making all those around him better with his presence. The modern hybrid inverted winger and second striker role partially goes to the way Del Piero played and dominated the 2000s Serie A.