The 10 Best Right-Backs in the World in 2026, Ranked

The best right-back in the world in 2026 is PSG's Achraf Hakimi, who won Ligue 1 and the Champions League and then captained Morocco to the World Cup quarter-finals, with Arsenal's Jurriën Timber and Spain's World Cup winner Pedro Porro next. Below is the full top ten, with a stat line for each player from the 2025-26 season.

How the list is ranked

Three things, in this order:

1. The 2025-26 club season. League appearances as a measure of availability, the trophies the player's team won, and the end-of-season selections that judge individual players: the PFA Team of the Year, UEFA's Champions League Team of the Season, the UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year and the Serie A Top 11 voted by the players' union.
2. The 2026 World Cup. It is the most recent evidence there is, so it counts. Players whose countries did not qualify are not marked down for that alone.
3. Goals and assists, where they help separate two close cases. A right-back is a defender first, so they never decide a place on their own.

Reputation and transfer value are not criteria. Stat lines are for 2025-26 and give league appearances and goals, then all competitions.

The top ten at a glance

Rank	Player	Club in 2025-26	Age	League apps (goals)	All comps apps (goals)	Major honours 2025-26
1	Achraf Hakimi	PSG	27	18 (2)	32 (3)	Ligue 1, Champions League
2	Jurriën Timber	Arsenal	25	30 (3)	44 (4)	Premier League
3	Pedro Porro	Tottenham	27	34 (1)	47 (2)	World Cup
4	Marcos Llorente	Atlético Madrid	31	29 (0)	49 (4)	World Cup
5	Jules Koundé	Barcelona	27	30 (1)	47 (3)	La Liga, Supercopa
6	Konrad Laimer	Bayern Munich	29	29 (3)	47 (3)	Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal
7	Marco Palestra	Cagliari	—	37 (1)	—	—
8	Matheus Nunes	Manchester City	28	34 (1)	49 (1)	FA Cup, League Cup
9	Denzel Dumfries	Inter	30	20 (3)	28 (5)	Serie A, Coppa Italia
10	Reece James	Chelsea	26	29 (2)	39 (2)	—

Ages are as of 5 October 2026. Llorente was in Spain's World Cup-winning squad but did not play in the final.

1. Achraf Hakimi (PSG, Morocco)

2025-26: 18 Ligue 1 appearances, 2 goals; 32 appearances, 3 goals in all competitions.

Eighteen league games is a low number for a player at the top of a list like this, and it is explained by two injuries. A severe ankle sprain after a tackle by Luis Díaz against Bayern on 4 November 2025 kept him out for weeks, and a thigh injury in the first leg of the semi-final against the same opponents, on 28 April 2026, cost him the second leg.

When he played, though, PSG won almost everything. They took Ligue 1 by six points from Lens, and Hakimi started all 13 of his Champions League games, with one goal and six assists. In the final against Arsenal on 30 May he started, and scored PSG's fourth penalty in a 4-3 shootout win after a 1-1 draw. He was the right-back in the UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year, although not in UEFA's Champions League Team of the Season.

At the World Cup he captained Morocco and started all six of their matches, with a goal and two assists. He scored his first World Cup goal in a 4-2 win over Haiti, missed his kick in the round-of-32 shootout that Morocco still won against the Netherlands, and set up the opener in a 3-0 win over Canada with a free-kick. France ended the run 2-0 in the quarter-finals.

2. Jurriën Timber (Arsenal, Netherlands)

2025-26: 30 Premier League appearances, 3 goals; 44 appearances, 4 goals in all competitions.

Arsenal won the Premier League with 85 points, seven clear of Manchester City, and Timber was the right-back in the PFA Team of the Year, his first selection. He started 28 of his 30 league games and added five league assists to his three goals: two against Leeds and the winner against Chelsea in March.

His season stopped there. He went off after 38 minutes of the 2-0 win over Everton on 14 March with a groin injury and did not play again until the Champions League final, where he came on in the 66th minute for Cristhian Mosquera. The injury still had not healed in June, and he withdrew from the Netherlands' World Cup squad on 8 June. That is the only thing keeping him off the top spot.

3. Pedro Porro (Tottenham, Spain)

2025-26: 34 Premier League appearances, 1 goal; 47 appearances, 2 goals in all competitions.

On club form alone Porro would not be this high. Tottenham finished 17th with 41 points, lost the UEFA Super Cup to PSG on penalties, and he missed about a month with a hamstring injury picked up at Burnley in January. He still played 34 league games, more than anyone above him.

The World Cup is what lifts him. Llorente started two of Spain's three group games at right-back; Porro started the other and every knockout match, six in all, and scored twice. The first came in a 3-0 win over Austria in the round of 32, the second in the 2-0 semi-final win over France, after which FIFA named him player of the match. In the final against Argentina he played all 120 minutes, and it was his ball to the back post that Nico Williams headed across for Ferran Torres's 106th-minute winner. He was the right-back in the World Cup best XI chosen by FIFA's fan vote.

4. Marcos Llorente (Atlético Madrid, Spain)

2025-26: 29 La Liga appearances, 0 goals; 49 appearances, 4 goals in all competitions.

Llorente was the only right-back in UEFA's Champions League Team of the Season, and he earned it in attack as much as defence: four goals and an assist in 14 Champions League games, more European goals than any other player on this list. In La Liga he added four assists.

Atlético did not win anything. They finished fourth and lost the Copa del Rey final to Real Sociedad on penalties on 18 April.

He was part of Spain's World Cup win, starting the group games against Cape Verde and Uruguay and setting up Álex Baena's winner in the 1-0 victory over Uruguay. Porro then took the position, and Llorente was an unused substitute in the final.

5. Jules Koundé (Barcelona, France)

2025-26: 30 La Liga appearances, 1 goal; 47 appearances, 3 goals in all competitions.

Barcelona won La Liga, their 29th title, clinching it by beating Real Madrid 2-0 on 10 May and finishing on 94 points. They also beat Madrid 3-2 for the Supercopa in January. Koundé played 30 of those league games, with three assists, and scored twice in the Champions League.

He lost a month to a left thigh injury in the Copa del Rey semi-final against Atlético on 3 March, returning on 4 April. He was not in any of the major end-of-season XIs, which is why two players without a league title are above him.

He was France's first-choice right-back at the World Cup, where France lost 2-0 to Spain in the semi-finals and finished fourth.

6. Konrad Laimer (Bayern Munich, Austria)

2025-26: 29 Bundesliga appearances, 3 goals; 47 appearances, 3 goals in all competitions.

Bayern used Laimer mainly on the defensive flank in 2025-26. They won the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal, and Laimer was the right-back in ZDF's Bundesliga team of the season. On 20 July 2026 he extended his contract with the club until 2029.

7. Marco Palestra (Cagliari, Italy)

2025-26: 37 Serie A appearances (34 starts), 1 goal, 4 assists; more than 3,000 minutes.

The youngest player on the list spent 2025-26 on loan at Cagliari from Atalanta and was the right-back in the Serie A Top 11 at the players' union's Gran Galà del Calcio, voted for by the players themselves. Nobody else on this list played as many league games. Chelsea signed him in the summer of 2026.

8. Matheus Nunes (Manchester City, Portugal)

2025-26: 34 Premier League appearances, 1 goal; 49 appearances, 1 goal in all competitions.

Nunes made the right-back position his own at City. They finished second in the league, and he played in both cup finals City won: 2-0 against Arsenal in the League Cup and 1-0 against Chelsea in the FA Cup on 16 May. He was named in Portugal's 26-man World Cup squad.

9. Denzel Dumfries (Inter, Netherlands)

2025-26: 20 Serie A appearances, 3 goals; 28 appearances, 5 goals in all competitions.

Inter won Serie A with 87 points and the Coppa Italia, beating Lazio 2-0 in the final on 13 May. Dumfries missed more than three months of it: he hurt his ankle against Lazio on 9 November and had stabilisation surgery in London on 16 December, returning on 24 February.

He started all four of the Netherlands' World Cup games, with two assists in a 5-1 win over Sweden, before they went out to Morocco on penalties in the round of 32. He joined Real Madrid on 5 July 2026.

10. Reece James (Chelsea, England)

2025-26: 29 Premier League appearances, 2 goals; 39 appearances, 2 goals in all competitions.

James's season is the familiar story. A hamstring injury against Newcastle on 14 March, his tenth since December 2020, came a week after he signed a new contract, and he did not return until 9 May. Chelsea finished tenth and lost the FA Cup final to City.

He was England's right-back when fit at the World Cup, but another hamstring problem in the group game against Ghana on 23 June kept him out of the starting line-up for the next four matches. He came back to start the semi-final defeat by Argentina, and England finished third.

Just missing out

Trent Alexander-Arnold (Real Madrid) went off five minutes into his Champions League debut with a hamstring injury, then missed about two months with a thigh injury from December. He made 21 La Liga appearances, Real Madrid won nothing, and Thomas Tuchel left him out of England's World Cup squad.

Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli) won the Supercoppa Italiana but sprained his knee against Fiorentina on 31 January and did not play again until 11 May.

Jeremie Frimpong (Liverpool) made 21 Premier League appearances around three separate hamstring injuries, and Ronald Koeman left him out of the Netherlands squad: "I didn't take Frimpong because of what I saw in the season... Several physical problems."

What the list says about the position

Injuries shaped this ranking more than form did. The top two both missed significant parts of the season, and five of the ten were out for a month or more at least once. That is partly the cost of the modern role: right-backs are now asked to defend one-against-one, overlap, and in some systems step into midfield as well. Our guide to full-backs, wing-backs and inverted full-backs explains how those jobs differ.

For the players these right-backs line up beside, see the best centre-backs in the world in 2026. The World Cup 2026 format explains the round of 32 in which the Netherlands went out, and the Champions League format covers the competition PSG won.