Welcome to 2025, where the halcyon days of Ronaldo and Messi are long consigned to the past and a new battle rages to be the world's best. There are many contenders, but who tops the award they all want more than any other - Sam Tighe's Player Rankings. We take a look at some of the young superstars who are well on their way to the top of the game and will be the pantheon of the elite in the future (if they're not already).   Before that though, there's Things We Love - which in this case involve Tanguy Ndombele's return to both the side and to his blistering best; the madness of both Barcelona and Manchester City being placed 13th in their respective leagues; the title races we didn't expect; Leverkusen's pure chaos approach to playing football, and, as the more eagle-eyed of you might have noticed, the new Ranks FC logo.   There's also a special Melon of the Week ranking, which tops out with a refereeing display that put all others to shame, and in this week's Gibberish, Sam ranks the best responses he got to a 'where you're from and who you support' survey.   If you want to enter our competition, hit this link or go to bit.ly/RanksFCComp. And if you wanna skip the lottery and just become one of the Ultras anyway, join us on Patreon here.    See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for privacy and opt-out information.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]