Welcome to the Guardian’s choice of the world’s top 100 footballers for 2014. Led by Hernán Crespo, Gilberto Silva, Slaven Bilic and Dietmar Hamann, our panel of 73 experts from 28 nations compiled a countdown of the greatest players on the planet this year. On Sunday we reveal Nos 100-71, on Monday Nos 70-41, on Tuesday Nos 40-11, before unveiling the top 10 on Christmas Eve to complete the list.