According to FIFA’s official ‘Castrol Index’ ranking of the players in Brazil, the top man is one David Luiz, with a 9.79 rating, whatever that might mean.
Rodriguez is in second place, Karim Benzema is third while Neymar is down in sixth, below Belgium‘s Jan Vertonghen who is ranked fifth.
Messi is not even in the top 10, but Swiss defender Johan Djourou is. That’s the same Lionel Messi who has won the man of the match award in all four of the games he has played.
The FIFA website said: “Neymar may be the poster boy of this Brazilian World Cup but the reasons for the hosts’ presence in Friday’s quarter-final against Colombia can be found further back in Luiz Felipe Scolari’s line-up – and the latest Castrol Index ranking reflects this.
“It was Tostao, the 1970 World Cup winner-turned-journalist, who wrote in his daily column after the tense penalty shoot-out triumph over Chile that ‘the stand-outs for Brazil were Thiago Silva, David Luiz and Julio Cesar‘ and Scolari’s two centre-halves both feature in the top ten along with Neymar.
“Indeed, Luiz sits in first place after a match where he scored Brazil’s goal – getting a touch to Thiago Silva’s flick-on – converted a penalty, and produced a notable block on a Charles Aranguiz close-range shot in the first half of the match, which helped to boost his score (9.79).”
According to FIFA, the Castrol Index “uses the latest technology to objectively analyse player performance”, and that it tells us “which players truly deserve to grab all the headlines.”
They have even produced an informative video to let explain the whole thing.
The full top 10 after the last 16 is:
1) David Luiz, Brazil (9.79).
2) James Rodriguez, Colombia (9.74)
3) Karim Benzema, France (9.7)
4) Arjen Robben, Netherlands (9.66)
5) Jan Vertonghen, Belgium (9.62)
6) Neymar, Brazil (9.59)
7) Thiago Silva (9.56)
8) Ivan Perisic, Croatia (9.53)
9) Johan Djourou, Switzerland (9.5)
10) Thomas Mueller, Germany (9.48)
