Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has been voted as the best footballer in 23 years of Premier League history in a poll conducted by market research website Usurv.com.
The Los Blancos player, who turned 30-years-old yesterday, received 24% of the votes, beating Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, who came second after obtaining 18% of the votes.
Ryan Giggs came third with 13% of the votes, just one per cent more than Alan Shearer and Eric Cantona. All of them are currently retired. In fact, Ronaldo is the only active player among the top-5.
Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard got 10% of the votes and finished sixth in the ranking. Dennis Bergkamp, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira completed the top-10.
25 per cent of the people included in the voting could not decide who to pick as the best player in Premier League history.
Ronaldo arrived to the Premier League in the summer of 2003. He scored 118 goals in 292 appearances for Manchester United and was awarded with the Ballon d’Or after lifting the Champions League title with the Red Devils in 2008.
He left Manchester in 2009 to join Real Madrid in a world-record 96 million euros transfer.
Poll results:
- Ronaldo (24 percent)
- Henry (18 percent)
- Giggs (13 percent)
- Shearer (12 percent)
- Cantona (12 percent)
- Gerrard (10 percent)
- Bergkamp (5 percent)
- Zola (3 percent)
- Keane (2 percent)
- Vieira (1 percent)
