Always at the top, superior team evidently rested excellent offensive player (6)
I believe the answer is:
stereo
'player' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'always at the top superior team evidently rested excellent offensive' is the wordplay.
'always at the top' suggests taking the first letters (letters at the tops of the words).
The initial letters of 'superior team evidently rested excellent offensive' is 'STEREO'.
(Other definitions for stereo that I've seen before include "Sound coming from different directions" , "Three-dimensional sound effect, in short" , "Music system with two speakers" , "Three dimensional sound effect" , "Two-channel sound" .)