Serie A between 2000 and 2025 has been a league of aesthetic extremes. Tactical chess at walking pace, then a 40-yard thunderbolt. A back four arranged like an art installation, then a No.10 deciding he’s bored and inventing something illegal. It’s also an era that contains almost every flavour of greatness: Milan’s early-2000s elegance, Inter’s surge to the treble, Juventus’ relentless 2010s dynasty, and the modern wave that ended long droughts and rebalanced the map.
The Ultimate 21st Century Serie A XI
GK: Gianluigi Buffon, the long-haul superhero
Buffon spanned eras, styles, and squads. In the 2000s, he’s the statement signing who turns Juventus into a fortress. In the 2010s, he’s still there, still elite, still making the ridiculous look routine, anchoring the club through multiple title runs. And in the 2020s, he was still playing professional football like a man refusing to leave the party.
What made Buffon special in Serie A was that he never felt like a system goalkeeper. He was the system. Command of the box, reflexes that seemed unfair, and a calmness that could lower an entire stadium’s blood pressure. In a league that has always loved its goalkeepers, Buffon sat on the throne for a quarter-century.
🔥 Gianluigi Buffon: The CLEAN SHEET KING! 👑
— 365Scores (@365Scores) March 31, 2025
With 500+ clean sheets, he stands ALONE as the only goalkeeper in history to hit this insane milestone. 🧤⚡
A living legend. pic.twitter.com/D1m4hBzqYc
RB: Javier Zanetti, the ultimate “never drops below 8/10”
Zanetti is the rare player who feels impossible to dislike because he’s impossible to fault. Right-back, wing-back, midfield, emergency everything, he played like professionalism had a personal brand ambassador. His Inter career covers multiple versions of the club: the years of nearly, the years of heartbreak, and then the years of everything, capped by the 2009-10 treble.
In this quarter-century XI, Zanetti’s job is glamorous in the unglamorous way. He gives you width without losing your shape, recovery runs without drama, and leadership without theatre. Every great Italian team needs someone who keeps the lights on. Zanetti powers the whole building.
CB: Fabio Cannavaro, the defender who made defending look fun
Cannavaro is the argument that centre-half can be a starring role. He was not built like the stereotype, which made it even more irritating for strikers: he read the game early, jumped passing lanes, and won duels with timing rather than brute force. In the mid-2000s, his peak arrives with a kind of inevitability, and the accolades, *cough cough* Ballon d’Or, follow.
🚨 Official 🚨
— 365Scores (@365Scores) October 6, 2025
Fabio Cannavaro has signed in as new Uzbekistan head coach pic.twitter.com/P0sUJ6ZUUH
CB: Alessandro Nesta, the patron saint of clean defending
Nesta defended like he had extra information. The angles were always right. The timing was always perfect. He rarely looked like he was tackling. He looked like he was simply arriving at the correct location before everyone else.
His Milan years in the 2000s gave Serie A one of its defining images: a back line that could be aggressive and elegant at the same time. Nesta was central to that. In a league where centre-backs are judged as harshly as strikers, he passed every test: duels, positioning, composure, and that ability to make chaos feel organised.
#OnThisDay in 1976 one of the biggest icons in Italian football, Alessandro Nesta, was born pic.twitter.com/ixfK401Ksh
— 365Scores (@365Scores) March 19, 2018
CB: Giorgio Chiellini, the modern-era enforcer with a PhD in suffering
Chiellini is what happens when you combine elite athleticism, tactical intelligence, and a personality designed for 1-0 wins in February. He’s the face of Juventus’ nine-title run in the 2010s, but he’s more than a symbol. He is the mechanism: blocking, grappling, organising, snarling, dragging matches into his preferred terrain. He’s the one who heads away the cross after you’ve lost the ball doing something ambitious. He’s also the one who makes the striker’s afternoon miserable enough that they stop enjoying themselves. In Serie A, that’s an underrated superpower.
LB: Paolo Maldini, the most luxurious safety blanket football ever produced
Maybe the greatest player in Serie A history, Maldini at left-back for this period feels like a cheat code because you get the twilight of a career that still looked better than most people’s prime. Even as the sport sped up, Maldini’s decision-making stayed ahead of it. His positioning was a life hack for defending. He did not chase chaos. He prevented it from happening.
CM: Gennaro Gattuso, the human tackle and emotional thermostat
Gattuso is the antidote to any team drifting into self-indulgence. He is bite, tempo, and refusal to be embarrassed. In Milan’s great sides, he was the one who made the art possible. For every Pirlo pass, there was a Gattuso duel that won the ball back and restarted the whole machine. When Gattuso is on your side, your team feels harder to play against. That matters, especially in Italy, where control is currency.
CM: Andrea Pirlo, the league’s greatest remote control
Pirlo in Serie A is an era-defining presence. He turned matches into slow-motion paintings where he picked the colour. He could play fast without sprinting, break a press without panicking, and create chances without ever looking like he was forcing the issue. The ball did not simply move. It travelled with purpose. Put him next to Gattuso and behind Totti and suddenly the team has both structure and surprise.
🔥 Legends who wore BOTH red & blue in Milan:
— 365Scores (@365Scores) January 6, 2025
⚫🔵 Inter & 🔴⚫ Milan share some iconic names:
🎩 Roberto Baggio
🎇 Mario Balotelli
🎩 Andrea Pirlo
🐐 Ronaldo Nazário
🪄 Clarence Seedorf
From rival to rival, greatness knows no boundaries. Who’s your favorite? 👀 pic.twitter.com/R64PnY4eL2
CAM: Francesco Totti, Rome’s eternal cheat code
The top assister of all-time in Serie A (88), Totti is the emotional heart of this whole exercise because he represents something Serie A used to produce in abundance: the superstar playmaker who belongs to a city, a club, a mythology. He was not just a No.10. He was a system, a symbol, and a weekly highlight reel. He can thread passes into feet, clip balls into space, slip a striker through with a disguised touch, or just shoot. He also gives the team its personality. Buffon gives it authority. Maldini gives it class. Totti gives it flair with teeth.
A happy birthday to former Italy and Roma star, Francesco Totti! 🎈🇮🇹
— 365Scores (@365Scores) September 27, 2025
So many amazing memories from the one club superstar! pic.twitter.com/SUm1ZozKZ3
ST: Zlatan Ibrahimović, the league’s most entertaining bully
Ibrahimović in Serie A is theatre and dominance rolled into one. He brought swagger that bordered on performance art, but he backed it up with production, trophies and 156 Serie A goals. His Inter period aligns with the club’s domestic surge, and his Milan return later in life is one of the great late-career leadership arcs, helping drag a young side into title-winning belief.
In this team, Zlatan is the gravitational force. He pins centre-backs, wins aerials, creates chances by existing, and still has the technique to score goals that feel like they require a separate rulebook. Pair him with a cleaner, more penalty-box-focused striker and you get the best of both worlds: spectacle and efficiency.
ST: Gonzalo Higuaín, the penalty-box professional with a record-setting peak
Higuaín’s best Serie A years were ruthless. His movement was the main event: that half-yard dart across the defender, that little drift into a shooting lane, that knack for arriving at exactly the wrong moment for a goalkeeper. His 2015-16 season with Napoli, when he broke the modern-era scoring record for a Serie A campaign with 36, is one of the defining striker peaks of the century.
He complements Ibrahimović perfectly. Zlatan drops, links, improvises. Higuaín runs, finishes, and lives for the moment the ball arrives at the near post. Give him Pirlo and Totti supplying, and he’s fed like royalty.
FAQs
Is it fair to include Maldini when his peak was in the 1990s?
Yes, because his 2000s level was still world-class, and he remained a defining Serie A figure into the late 2000s.
Why no full-backs like Cafu or Dani Alves (briefly at Juve)?
Zanetti and Maldini combine longevity, peak level, leadership, and Serie A identity. You can absolutely argue alternatives, but this pairing is brutally complete.
Why Higuaín over other top scorers like Shevchenko or Del Piero?
Higuaín’s Serie A peak and record-setting season, plus his production across Napoli and Juventus in the 2010s, makes him a strong 21st-century pick.
Would this XI work against modern pressing teams?
Yes. The defence is intelligent and composed, Pirlo can bypass pressure, and the forward pairing gives you both an outlet and a finisher.
What formation would you use if you wanted wingers?
You could shift to a 4-3-3 by moving Totti into a false nine role or using him as a right-sided creator, but the current formation suits the personnel and defensive, controlled Serie A traditions.
By Nicky Helfgott – NickyHelfgott1 on X (Twitter)
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