Germany legend Nadine Angerer may be the only goalkeeper to have come close to matching Hope Solo’s success and reputation in the modern-day era of the sport.
For so long an understudy to Silke Rottenberg for the national team, Angerer took over as the number one at the 2007 World Cup and didn’t concede a single goal as Germany won the tournament.
A penalty-saving expert, Angerer saved two penalties in the Euro 2013 final and ended her career with five European Championship titles and two World Cups, as well as several major domestic honours, including a European Cup with Turbine Potsdam.
The only goalkeeper to be named FIFA World Player of the Year, Angerer asserted herself as one of the world’s best goalkeepers when it came to all disciplines of the position.
19. Julie Foudy
Julie Foudy of the United States (Image credit: Getty Images)
Aside from her impressive tally of 274 international caps and 45 goals for the USA, Julie Foudy helped lead her nation through one of their most successful spells in the team’s history.
As co-captain in the 1990s, Foudy won two World Cups and an Olympic gold medal, and added another as sole team captain in 2004 before retiring. Foudy was part of a golden era of USA players and is still involved in the sport to this day, but her legacy as one of their top midfielders during such a successful stint lives long in the memory.
Foudy’s role as either co-captain and captain for one nation’s success, and the trophies that came with it, will be hard for anybody to match in the future.
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18. Hope Solo
Hope Solo of USA (Image credit: Getty Images)
Hope Solo will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest goalkeepers the women’s game has seen.
As the number one of the number one national team in the world, Solo enjoyed plenty of success in her 202 caps across 16 years with the USA. Between winning back-to-back gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, Solo was named the best goalkeeper at the 2011 World Cup.
An imposing figure, Solo made a name for herself throughout her career as one of the best and eventually got the biggest trophy of all, the World Cup, in 2015, just a year before retiring. Solo won 153 of her 202 games with the national team and holds the record for most clean sheets, with 102.
17. Formiga
Formiga of Brazil (Image credit: Getty Images)
Formiga, like too many of her Brazilian counterparts, doesn’t have the international honours to show for her contributions, but her career has formed its own legacy over time.
Having finally retired from international football at the end of 2021 at the age of 43, Formiga’s longevity has certified her as a one-of-a-kind footballer. It’s very unlikely that we will ever see another player performing at the level the midfielder played at when she was well into her 40s.
It says everything that Formiga’s first major honour came 25 years ago, such is the span of her career successes. Few read and control games like Formiga and the midfielder has won major honours in both South America and in Europe with PSG, as well as being named in the CONMEBOL Team of the Decade for the period between 2011 and 2020. A true legend and the likes of which we will probably never see again.
16. Hege Riise
Hege Riise of Norway (Image credit: Getty Images)
Hege Riise may be better known to modern-day fans of the sport as a coach – indeed the coach who led Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 – but she is also one of the finest players of a generation.
Riise is one of a very select amount of players who can claim to have won a European Championships, a World Cup and an Olympic gold medal, which she did across a seven-year span of unprecedented success with Norway between 1993 and 2000.
When Norway shocked the bigger nations to win the World Cup in 1995, Riise was named Player of the Tournament, as she had been two years previously at the 1993 European Championships.
If being named the best player at two consecutive major tournaments doesn’t cement your legacy as a top player and a true legend, very little else will. After 188 caps and 58 goals, Riise retired and will forever go down as one of Norway’s greatest players.
15. Carli Lloyd
Carli Lloyd of the USA (Image credit: PA)
Carli Lloyd retired at the end of 2021 after an illustrious career that secured her place as one of the USA’s all-time greats.
With 134 goals in 316 games, Lloyd is one of the top scorers in international football history, but it was only in her later years where she produced her biggest moments, with one standing out in particular.
Her quickfire hat-trick, sealed with an audacious lob from near the halfway line at the World Cup final, lives long in the memory and will forever be one of the finest individual performances on a stage as big as Lloyd performed that day.
But to pigeonhole a career that also includes another World Cup, two Olympic gold medals and a whole host of other honours, such as an FA Cup with Manchester City, into one moment would be wrong.
Lloyd’s individual honours list is also an embarrassment of riches, topped off by being named FIFA World Player of the Year in 2015.
14. Kelly Smith
Kelly Smith of Arsenal (Image credit: Getty Images)
Kelly Smith is undoubtedly England’s greatest ever player, as well as one of the most decorated. Smith’s peak came before the FA Women’s Super League boom but her talent was evident to anyone who watched her.
Smith was part of the historic Arsenal quadruple winners and helped the Gunners to an array of domestic successes, but her moments for England on the biggest stages are the true joys, especially against Japan in the 2011 World Cup in Germany.
Smith’s footwork, skill and devastating ability to score every type of goal made her stand out from many of her compatriots at the time.
Her final ever professional goal, a deft lob against Doncaster Rovers Belles from well outside the box, was a fitting tribute to a player who could do the extraordinary with seemingly no real effort.
13. Carin Jennings
American striker Carin Jennings (Image credit: Getty Images)
Carin Jennings was probably the most feared wide player of her time. The way Jennings could beat any player with ease made her a key component of an all-star USA attack in the early 1990s.
Her 23-minute hat-trick against Germany in the 1991 World Cup semi-final was dubbed one of the greatest individual performances by any American ever, and it’s hard to argue.
Jennings would go on to lift the trophy in 1991 and ended her playing career with over 100 caps and over 50 goals for her country, despite not being an out-and-out forward.
Her 1991 performances ensured she was the first player to win the tournament’s Golden Ball award, and nine years later was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. In 1996, she retired just after winning an Olympic gold medal.
12. Christie Pearce
Christine Rampone of the United States (Image credit: Getty Images)
Long-term captain of the world’s most successful national team, 311 caps, two-time world champion and three-time Olympic gold medallist. Need we go on?
Pearce enjoyed an almost unprecedented level of success over an almost unprecedented amount of time – her USA career lasted 18 years.
Intertwined with injuries and maternity leave, Pearce took home five major medals from her time with the USA team.
At the 2012 Olympics, Pearce played every single minute as she won her third Olympic gold medal and at the 2015 World Cup, she became the oldest player to play in a final when she was brought on in the last four minutes to win her second World Cup. A true legend.
11. Homare Sawa
Homare Sawa of Japan (Image credit: Getty Images)
It may be that 2011 was one of the greatest years the women’s game has ever seen. Sawa, just months after Japan was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami, led her team to an almost unthinkable World Cup triumph.
She also scored the extra-time goal that took the final to penalties, ending the tournament with both the Golden Boot and Golden Ball, and later that year the title of FIFA Women’s Player of the Year.
Sawa at her best was truly special and she enjoyed an incredible amount of domestic success across two decades. Sawa remains the most capped Japanese player in history, with 205 appearances as well as her nation’s top scorer with 83 goals.
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Rich Laverty has been a women’s football writer for a decade now, covering the game across the FA WSL, several FA Cup finals and live from the 2017 European Championships and 2019 World Cup. He has written regularly for publications in the UK and USA, including The Times, Guardian, Independent, iSport, FourFourTwo, Bleacher Report, The Blizzard, These Football Times and Our Game Magazine.
