Top 10 World Cup-winning teams

There's an argument to be made that the best team doesn't necessarily win the World Cup in any given tournament. However of the great teams that did become champion, here's a subjective list of the top 10:

1. Brazil 1970

It's rare to achieve consensus with regard to the greatest in any creative pursuit, but few would suggest that this was not the finest soccer team of them all. This was utopia, joga bonito in excelsis. Brazil's defense may have been ropey, but it hardly mattered when it had a front five blessed with a collective sixth sense and unbelievable talent: Rivelino, Gerson, Jairzinho, Tostao and Pele. They managed 19 invariably sublime goals in six mythical games, as well as the coolest goal that never was. It all culminated in a stunning 4-1 demolition of Italy in the final. There was never been a team like this, and probably never will be.

2. Brazil 1958

A change can do you good. It can also win you a World Cup. Brazil looked a decent side for its first two games of the 1958 World Cup, but once it introduced two youngsters called Garrincha and Pele (a boy mountain at 17), it was a class apart. Both hit the woodwork in the first two minutes of their first game, against the USSR, with Vavascoring in the third. Brazil never looked back, romping to its first World Cup with 5-2 victories in both the semifinal against France and the final against Sweden. This team had almost everything: Garrincha's devastatingly direct wing play, Pele's muscular genius, Didi's high-definition passing in midfield, Nilton Santos, arguably the greatest ever left back, and Mario Zagallo doing the work of two men on the left wing. With better center backs, they might even be a match for the 1970 side.

3. Uruguay 1950

Winning a World Cup is not just about exerting your superiority. Having gone behind in three of its four games, most notably the legendary final match against Brazil in the Maracana, Uruguay had to dig deep in 1950. Thankfully it had an endless well of inspiration in its captain, Obdurio Varela, a master of all trades who was equally adept in defense or midfield. Juan Alberto Schiaffino was a legendary center forward, and the sinuous right-winger Alcides Ghiaggia scored in all four games. On defense, Victor Rodrigues Andrade was a true great, while the goalkeeper, Roque Maspoli, had perhaps his finest hour in that victory over Brazil. That he needed to produce such a performance showed again that victory did not come easily for Uruguay, but it was a triumph of the human spirit.

4. West Germany 1990

The power team par excellence. It may have peaked a touch early, scoring only three goals in its last three games, but the demolitions of Yugoslavia and Holland were chillingly emphatic. All its defenders were comfortable on the ball, most notably the wonderfully two-footed left wing-back Andreas Brehme; Jurgen Klinsmann and Rudi Voller were a crafty, indefatigable and undeniably world-class front pair; and the captain Lothar Matthaus, supported by a number of diminutive schemers, was a monstrous all-round midfielder at the very peak of his powers.

5. Italy 1938