Greatest Serie A Players including Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Diego Maradona and more

In the 1980s, the Italian Serie A enjoyed a resurgence, with huge investment attracting some of the game's greatest players.

In the 1990s, it was undoubtedly the world's best league, winning numerous continental trophies with world class players scattered throughout the division.

As the money dried up in the 2000s, the players started leaving for pastures new, but Serie A still boasted multiple Ballon d'Or winners.

Below we look at some of Serie A's greatest players.

Ronaldo

Serie A appearances: 88
Serie A goals: 58
Honours: UEFA Cup, FIFA World Player of the Year, Ballon d'Or, Serie A Footballer of the Year

Although Ronaldo's best years were spent outside of Serie A, with his time in Italy cruelly beset by career-threatening knee injuries, when Ronaldo was fit, he was still one of the most terrifying centre-forwards seen in Italy.

His only full season saw him score 25 goals in 32 games against the best defenders and defensive systems in the world before injuries took hold.

Ronaldo would rupture tendons in his knee that would see him miss two years of football, and while he came back to prove his fitness for the 2002 World Cup, scoring seven goals in 10 games, a move to Real Madrid would bring his time in Milan to an end.

Read more: The Greatest - Serie A Players: Ronaldo

Francesco Totti

Serie A appearances: 619
Serie A goals: 250
Honours: Serie A, Coppa Italia x2, Serie A Young Footballer of the Year, Serie A Footballer of the Year x2, Capocannoniere

The ultimate one-club man, Francesco Totti once said: "winning one league title at Roma, to me, is worth winning 10 at Juventus or Real Madrid," and Totti had offers. A world-class footballer and a key part of some great Italy teams, Totti would reach the final of Euro 2000 - winning Man of the Match despite being on the losing side - and the 2006 World Cup, where the Azzurri won on penalties.

It took the better part of a decade for Totti to finally get his hands on the Scudetto but it was well worth the wait, and what he may have missed out on in terms of trophies he made up for in individual accolades.

Read more: The Greatest - Serie A Players: Francesco Totti

Kaka

Serie A appearances: 227
Serie A goals: 77
Honours: Ballon d'Or, FIFA World Player of the Year, Serie A Footballer of the Year x2, Serie A, Champions League

An relatively unknown Brazilian import in the summer of 2003, Kaka took to life so quickly in Milan that he was instantly installed as a member of the starting XI and he'd take the league by storm.

The thinking was that Kaka would be the long-term heir to the likes of Rivaldo and Rui Costa, but Kaka immediately barged his way into the side and was named Serie A Footballer of the Year in his debut campaign.

Blessed with strength, pace, finishing and skill, Kaka was a world-class number 10 with the output of a centre-forward. Although he did win the Champions League in 2007, he should've won it two years earlier with a mesmerising first-half display that saw Milan take a 3-0 lead over Liverpool, only to be pegged back, eventually losing on penalties.

Read more: The Greatest - Serie A Players: Kaka

Gabriel Batistuta

Serie A appearances: 318
Serie A goals: 184
Honours: Serie A, Coppa Italia, Capocannoniere

A goalscorer so potent he was given a nickname to reflect it. Gabriel Batistuta - or Batigol - was one of the greatest strikers in Serie A history.

Playing for a middling Fiorentina side, honours eluded Batistuta for much of his career, despite routinely plundering 20+ goals against some of the world's meanest defences. After nearly a decade in Florence, Batistuta finally made the move to try and win the Scudetto.

The move was a slightly puzzling one, however. Batistuta didn't join powerhouses Milan or Juventus, but Roma, who hadn't won a title since 1983 and hadn't even finished in the top three since 1988.

Nevertheless, Batistuta's influence was so great they'd win the title in his debut season.

Read more: The Greatest - Serie A Players: Gabriel Batistuta

Pavel Nedved

Serie A appearances: 372
Serie A goals: 71
Honours: Serie A x4, Coppa Italia x2, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, Ballon d'Or, Serie A Footballer of the Year

An all-action midfielder, Pavel Nedved was brought to Serie A on the back of an impressive Euro 96 with the Czech Republic. Though it took Nedved a little while to adapt, he'd grow into one of the league's best players, forming a key part of the title-winning Lazio team of 2000.

With Lazio encountering financial difficulties, Nedved was sold to Juventus to become one of the world's most expensive footballers. Tasked with replacing Zinedine Zidane, Nedved filled his shoes superbly, winning the Ballon d'Or in his second campaign, capturing three more Serie A titles, and staying with the club following their demotion to Serie B.

Read more: The Greatest - Serie A Players: Pavel Nedved

Alessandro Del Piero

Serie A appearances: 478
Serie A goals: 187
Honours: Serie A x6, Coppa Italia x1, UEFA Champions League, Capocannoniere, Ballon d'Or, Serie A Footballer of the Year

Quite simply one of the finest footballers to have graced Serie A, Alessandro Del Piero is a Juventus legend that ranks right up there with the best.

His trademark goal of cutting in from the left, bending the ball into the corner beyond the goalkeeper - referred to as the Del Piero Goal - became as iconic as the player himself, and over the course of his Juventus career, he'd score nearly 300 goals in all competitions, and was one of a handful of players dropping to Serie B following the team's demotion.

Del Piero won numerous accolades both individual and with club and country over nearly 20 years with the Old Lady, but few compare to the honour of being featured alongside Thierry Henry and Ronaldinho on the cover of FIFA 04...

Andriy Shevchenko

Serie A appearances: 225
Serie A goals: 127
Honours: Serie A, Coppa Italia, UEFA Champions League, Ballon d'Or, Serie A Footballer of the Year, Capocannoniere x2

After terrorising defenders across Europe in the Champions League with Dynamo Kyiv, Andriy Shevchenko earned the move up to test himself against the world's best with Milan in 1999.

Shevchenko would break the 20-goal barrier in his maiden campaign, repeating the feat the following year.

Over seven years, Shevchenko would hit 24 goals three times, winning the league and Champions League, as well as the Ballon d'Or, establishing himself as the best striker in the world, eventually doing enough to convince Chelsea to part with £30m to sign the then-nearly-30-year-old, leaving Milan as the club's second-highest goalscorer, behind only Gunnar Nordahl, who plied his trade back in the 1950s.

While his spell in England was hugely underwhelming, it doesn't take away from how lethal he was at the San Siro.

Roberto Baggio

Serie A appearances: 419
Serie A goals: 198
Honours: Serie A x2, Coppa Italia, Ballon d'Or, FIFA World Player of the Year

Undoubtedly one of the best footballers of his generation, Roberto Baggio spent his career all over Italy, playing for a number of Serie A's biggest clubs.

From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, Baggio played for Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan, Bologna, Inter and Brescia. As such, it's hard to fully associate him with just one club, though his best spell came with the Old Lady where he'd win the league and cup double, scoring better than a goal every other game.

An artist on the ball, Baggio was one of the most talented players to ever play the game, but he wasn't without his critics throughout his career partly owing to his unique profile as a creative number 10 when the role was becoming more limited.

Despite his critics and injury issues, Baggio's numbers speak for themselves, and he'll forever be remembered as one of Italian's football's greats.

Paolo Maldini

Serie A appearances: 563
Serie A goals: 26
Honours: Serie A x7, Coppa Italia, European Cup/UEFA Champions League x5, Serie A Footballer of the Year

If he's not the greatest defender of all time, he's certainly the most accomplished. Equally adept at centre-back as left-back, Paolo Maldini was as timeless as they came, playing more than 1,000 games for club and country over his career, winning the Champions League more times than most clubs.

While most defenders would pride themselves on their tackling ability, Maldini considered it a failing, famously saying: "If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake."

So good was Maldini's positioning and reading of the game, he rarely did.

Gianluigi Buffon

Serie A appearances: 657
Serie A clean sheets: 299
Honours: Serie A x10, Coppa Italia x6, UEFA Cup, Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year x13, Serie A Footballer of the Year

From the turn of the century, two goalkeepers spent a full decade battling it out to be the world's number one.

One was an immovable part of his national team, playing for his country's biggest club. The other was also an immovable part of his national team, playing for his country's biggest club.

Over the course of their careers there was little to pick between Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon, but in terms of longevity, Buffon wins hands down.

Establishing himself as part of the great Parma team in the late 90s, Buffon would set a world record in his transfer to Juventus, replacing Edwin van der Sar following a mixed spell in Turin.

After setting a transfer record, Buffon over his career would set plenty more, with the most Serie A appearances and clean sheets, being named Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year 13 times.

Franco Baresi

Serie A appearances: 471
Serie A goals: 112
Honours: Serie A x6, European Cup/UEFA Champions League x3

To stand at just 5ft9in and still be recognised as one of the greatest defenders of all time gives you an idea of how good Franco Baresi was.

He was not the old-fashioned physically domineering defender, but perhaps read the game better than anyone ever had. Strong in the tackle, quick across the ground, and better in the air than his height would suggest, Baresi was the complete defender, also comfortable acting as a defensive playmaker owing to his supreme ball-playing skills.

Baresi would form part of the most formidable defence in history as part of the Milan side that conceded just 14 goals in their title-winning 1987-88 season.

Twice being relegated as part of the struggling Milan side of the early-1980s (first as part of a match-fixing scandal), Baresi would eventually lead Milan to three Champions Leagues and six Serie A titles over the course of his career, being named runner-up for the Ballon d'Or in 1989.

Diego Maradona

Serie A appearances: 188
Serie A goals: 81
Honours: Serie A x2, Coppa Italia, UEFA Cup

One of maybe two players to have played in Italy with legitimate claims as the greatest footballer of all time. Diego Armando Maradona transformed the fortunes of Napoli, who stayed in Serie A by just one point the season prior to his arrival.

In his first term, Maradona scored 14 goals, which may not seem overly impressive, but in the Serie A of 1984/85, it was enough to rank third in the league.

In his third season, Napoli were champions, as Maradona almost single-handedly guided them to the Scudetto, winning the Coppa Italia in the same campaign. Two years later, they'd win the UEFA Cup, and the year after, they'd win Serie A again.

In the years after his retirement and then death, the number 10 shirt was retired, and Napoli's stadium was renamed Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

'Hero' is a greatly overused word within football, but for what Maradona was to Napoli, the word barely scratches the surface.

Zinedine Zidane

Serie A appearances: 151
Serie A goals: 24
Honours: Serie A x2, Serie A Footballer of the Year, Ballon d'Or, FIFA World Player of the Year x2

With injuries cruelly chopping Ronaldo down in his prime to the point he hardly kicked a ball for four years, Zinedine Zidane felt like the first of the modern greats. After Pele and Cruyff and Beckenbauer and Maradona came someone who when all was said and done would sit alongside them.

Zidane joined European champions Juventus from Bordeaux and would win back-to-back titles, only to be denied Champions League glory, losing in the final of each of his first two seasons.

Zidane's first season would see him named Foreign Footballer of the Year, as Italy was introduced to his breathtaking poise, balance, technique and sheer elegance that left team-mates and opponents in awe.

Marco van Basten

Serie A appearances: 147
Serie A goals: 90
Honours: Serie A x4, European Cup x2, Ballon d'Or x3, FIFA World Player of the Year, Capocannoniere x2

Lots of footballers have careers impacted by injury, but few more so than Marco van Basten.

Following Silvio Berlusconi's purchase of Milan, the media tycoon set about signing the biggest players in the game, including Dutch trio Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Van Basten.

While Rijkaard twice finished in the top three and Gullit won in 1987, Van Basten is one of only five players in Ballon d'Or history to have landed the gong three times. Despite an injury-hit 1988, Van Basten's heroics at Euro 88 saw him win the award that year, with his Champions League win the following season making it back-to-back Ballons d'Or.

Van Basten was the complete centre-forward: quick, strong and a lethal finisher, finishing his Serie A career with 90 goals in 147 games before having to hang up his boots at 28.

Andrea Pirlo

Serie A appearances: 494
Serie A goals: 58
Honours: Serie A x6, UEFA Champions League x2, Coppa Italia x2, Serie A Footballer of the Year x3

"I think therefore I play" - the aptly titled autobiography of Andrea Pirlo.

Few could have envisioned Pirlo leaving such an indelible mark on the game after breaking through in the late 90s. Struggling to find his way, a move from Brescia to Inter bore no fruit, with Pirlo deployed further up the pitch, but his move to Milan, where Pirlo played in a deeper role, would see help redefine the position.

Pirlo could play the game at walking pace and never be out of position, and could play with a blindfold and still lay on assists.

The Italian was a mainstay of one of the great Milan teams, going onto be a crucial member of the national side before moving to Juventus in the twilight of his career, winning four straight titles.

Alessandro Nesta

Serie A appearances: 448
Serie A goals: 8
Honours: Serie A x3, UEFA Champions League x2, Coppa Italia x3, Serie A Defender of the Year x4

While Paolo Maldini might have declared that if he had to make a tackle he'd already made a mistake, Alessandro Nesta's view seemed to be that if you had such a potent weapon in your arsenal, why not use it? Immaculate timing and reading of the game made Nesta one of the best tacklers Italian football has ever seen.

In his early years at Lazio it was clear to see what a special talent they had on their hands with Nesta winning Serie A Young Footballer of the Year, and while he'd win a first title as part of the great Lazio team of the late 90s, financial difficulties saw Nesta move north to Milan.

Though injuries hampered Nesta's career, he was one of the best defenders of his generation, with superb pace and anticipation, as well as supreme technical skills to build out from the back.

Michel Platini

Serie A appearances: 147
Serie A goals: 68
Honours: Serie A x2, European Cup, Coppa Italia, European Cup Winners' Cup, Ballon d'Or x3, Capocannoniere x3

The 1980s saw an influx of some of the world's best players coming to Serie A, with Michel Platini one of the pioneers. Moving in 1982 after an impressive World Cup, Platini scored 16 goals, winning Capocannoniere in each of his first three seasons in Turin.

Despite not being a centre-forward, Platini could score and create goals at will, and while he was never the most industrious player, his vision, awareness and technique more than made up for that.

A supremely gifted technician, Platini remains one of the best free-kick takers the game has ever seen, and was the first (and only until 2011) player to win the Ballon d'Or in three straight years.

Cafu

Serie A appearances: 282
Serie A goals: 9
Honours: Serie A x2, UEFA Champions League

The only player in history to have appeared in three World Cup finals, Cafu remains one of the greatest full-backs to have ever played the game.

Unsurprisingly starting out as a right-winger, Cafu was shifted back to defence which wasn't an instant fit, but it meant he would go on to become Brazil's most-capped players; an immovable part of the Selecao.

With electric pace, the Brazilian was formidable in both attack and defence, one of the first names on the team sheet for the Roma side that won the Scudetto in 2001.

While the theory is often that attacking wing-backs neglect their defensive duties, Cafu was never found wanting, as one of the most complete full-backs in the history of the game, winning football's biggest trophies for club and country.

Marcel Desailly

Serie A appearances: 137
Serie A goals: 5
Honours: Serie A x2, UEFA Champions League

Few players have the wherewithal to be world class in two positions, but Marcel Desailly was. Though the Frenchman preferred to operate in defence, as we saw in his later years with Chelsea, there wasn't the room in the Champions League-winning Milan side of the mid-90s, and Desailly was deployed as a holding midfielder.

Quick, strong, with an excellent reading of the game, Desailly combined his talents to be a top-class operator in defence and midfield, and even found himself amongst the goals in the 1994 Champions League final.

Fabio Cannavaro

Serie A appearances: 147
Serie A goals: 68
Honours: Coppa Italia x2, UEFA Cup, Ballon d'Or, Serie A Footballer of the Year

Part of the iconic UEFA Cup-winning Parma team that boasted talents including Gianluigi Buffon, Lilian Thuram, Juan Sebastian Veron and Hernan Crespo, Fabio Cannavaro would spend seven years in white and black before financial difficulties saw the club gradually sell off its top assets.

While Cannavaro was a mainstay of the Italy side following his breakthrough with Parma, going on to become the country's most capped outfield player, it wasn't until 2006 when he experienced his finest hour.

After winning Serie A Footballer of the Year in 2006, Cannavaro would captain Italy to the World Cup with a series of formidable defensive performances, becoming the second defender to win the Ballon d'Or.

Despite standing at just 5ft9in, like Franco Baresi, Cannavaro's reading of the game allowed him to see things no one else on the pitch could, with his height rarely an issue.

Ruud Gullit

Serie A appearances: 178
Serie A goals: 63
Honours: Serie A x3, European Cup x2, Coppa Italia, Ballon d'Or

Part of Milan's Dutch triumvirate of the late 1980s, it feels reductive to say Ruud Gullit is one of the greatest attacking midfielders to have played the game.

While the Dutch Total Football peaked in the 1970s under Rinus Michels, Gullit was still exemplifying it more than a decade later. So incredibly well rounded both technically and physically, Gullit was capable of playing anywhere on the pitch.

Tall, strong and fast, Gullit was physically imposing, but when combined with his technical abilities it made him one of the world's best players. After winning the European Cup with PSV Eindhoven in 1987, Gullit moved to Milan, where he'd collect the Ballon d'Or a few months later.