Dante
Average bang
Paul Scholes.
That is an interesting sub argument, the importance of peak level against career longevity. It is something that has been used a great deal when discussing the likes of Giggs and Scholes on here.
Messi and R9 are the 2 highest peaks I have watched in my lifetime. In a SF universe where Mars challenged Earth to an Expanse style rumble and we had the technology to revive any player at their peak moment R9 would be the striker and Cristiano would not be in my team.
Really. You don't want to see a team with flanks of Messi and Ronaldo, spearheaded by R9?
Pure fantasy that would be great but I don't think you could afford the defensive issues it would bring. R9 or Pele up front, Messi from the right, Cruyff from the left, Diego supporting from attacking midfield. Midfield 2 would be very difficult to pick.
If people are genuinely watching their games then that's fair enough, I doubt there are many out there who offer their opinion based on watching loads of old games from start to finish, surely? I know you mentioned before that you have so I always read your posts when it comes to these players, I think Invictus was another one who did.Why do you distinguish between watching at the time and watching after their time? Someone who lived in England through di Stefano's era was lucky to see him a couple of times. Yet that didn't stop someone like Bobby Charlton wax lyrical about him and compare him favourably to players he played against dozens of times and played with hundreds of times.
People now can see many more games of his with the benefit of far more contextual information. Invalidating their opinion is invalidating every person's opinion on almost any player comparison pre TV era. And if you hold that view this seems an odd place to air it.
If people are genuinely watching their games then that's fair enough, I doubt there are many out there who offer their opinion based on watching loads of old games from start to finish, surely? I know you mentioned before that you have so I always read your posts when it comes to these players, I think Invictus was another one who did.
Think Kaka probably achieved more in his career though which is why I’d favour him.
There are 5 pillars of football and they are all on the same table.
Alfredo Di Stefano
Pele
Franz Beckenbauer
Johan Cruijff
Diego Armando Maradona
These players have their own table and I believe other players can join them but thier position in the game is secure and noone can surpass them.
You are underrating CR7's hardworking pressing. He worked hard when defending. Peak Ronaldo and Messi are fit monsters who can press all day.
I can't really argue with any of that. I guess I'm probably OCD practical in all areas of life, this being a prime example. I'd never compare a player I've seen played 90 minutes x 100's of times to a player I've only seen snippets of and read about, but that's just me and it's obviously fine for others to do so despite it seeming strange to me. I do like to read about these players for sure, though, so it's always good to get opinions from people/posters who've watched their games.Aye I'm one of those weirdos but I think the broader point is still worth bearing in mind - when people in the 80s were comparing Maradona and Pele back in the day, they were discussing it based on info passed down second hand, snippets of matches from the past and even at the time, and their own imagination. It was practically impossible to see more, unless you were paid to travel around the world watching live games.
No doubt people have gone a bit crazy with the comparisons these days in a way they didn't before, but this particular discussion has been pretty much ever present and has always been founded on very little evidence - and it didn't matter. It was never meant to be taken seriously.
I think the level of seriousness in this discussion is probably worse than the level of misinformation in it. The standards we set for the amount of football you need to watch to passes as a credible witness is impossibly high, benchmarked against all previous eras of football fans. I don't think that's such a good thing myself. I've watched a shitload of old football for reasons no-one could ever explain, beyond the pure, simple and undeniably weird joy of it. It's not to make informed judgments.
In my mind do Stefano is the greatest of them all, despite only ever being able to watch him a few times at the tail end of his career - there's a magic to him, and a level of romanticism it brings out in me. I think of him as Keane and Zidane rolled into one, a force of nature and a picture of grace. It might be misguided, it might be based on deeply flawed information, it might be more imagination than reality - but that's how it's always been. If you don't take it too seriously it's at it's core just a celebration of the romanticism embedded into a sport we love for reasons you could never possibly justify.
They pressed. Some. As you'd expect from modern attackers. Up until they stopped doing it.
It was hardly a standout feature of their game.
These threads are the best. Debating whether Cruyff, Best, Garrincha or Di Stefano were better than Puskas, even though none have seen them play outside maybe a gritty Youtube video
R9...fecking hell.
Greatest ever should be judged over their entire career and Ronaldo spent most of it injured or overweight.
Messi did more in a season than Ronaldo did in his last 6. When Messi retires he will have 200 (currently around 140) more goals scored than Ronaldo it’s not even a discussion
My opinion is mine, and while Ronaldo was injured a lot during his career - he was also fit for long enough to show what he can do. He found time to win World Player of the Year 3 times and the World Cup twice for a start. It would have been great to see R9 at his best for longer, but I saw him at his best for long enough to know how good he was.
Why greatest needs to be judged over an entire career is beyond me anyway. The lack of longevity of R9s peak is very explainable, so I’ll focus on what I did see when he was fit. Which wasn’t a 6 month spell. His WC record was just beaten by Klose in the last tournament, and he’s still Brazil’s second top scorer ever. Not some fecking flash in the pan. He was probably the best player in the world when he was 13 - a complete one-off.
I think it's a bit strange to count him as a 1994 winner seeing as he hadn't played even a minute thereand the World Cup twice for a start
Of major trophies
Kaka won:
1 Seria A
1 CL
1 la liga (hardly contributed)
and the '02 world cup thanks to playing all of 25 minutes in the tournament.
Ronaldinho won
1 serie a
2 la ligas
1 copa libertadore
1 copa america
and the '02 world cup as one of its star performers.
I just don't see how you can say Kaka has, by any metric, achieved more. He won less trophies, less individual awards, scored fewer goals, his star shone less individually and his peak lasted about as long. What am I missing?
There are 5 pillars of football and they are all on the same table.
Alfredo Di Stefano
Pele
Franz Beckenbauer
Johan Cruijff
Diego Armando Maradona
These players have their own table and I believe other players can join them but thier position in the game is secure and noone can surpass them.
I think it's a bit strange to count him as a 1994 winner seeing as he hadn't played even a minute there
I'll go with tiers too:
Tier 0: Pele
Tier 1: Ronaldo, Messi, Maradona
Tier 2: Cruyff, Di Stefano, Beckenbauer
Tier 3: Eusebio, Platini, Best, Garrincha, Luis Ronaldo, Zidane, Puskas, Muller
Tier 4: Charlton, Matthaus, Baresi, Maldini, Buffon, Yashin, Xavi, Iniesta, Pirlo, Ronaldinho, Rummenige, Zico, Figo and many others.
Tier 5: Henry, Ibrahimovic, Kaka, Nedved, Shevchenko, Scholes, Modric, Nesta, Cannavaro, Giggs, Robben, Ribery and even more.
More modern players in tier 4 and 5 cause I am more familiar with them. No player from pre-Di Stefano ever, cause I don't know much about them. I guess that Sir Stanley Mathews should be somewhere in tier 3 or 4, Meazza probably in tier 4, no idea about others.
He did well for Brazil nobody can doubt that but when talking about greatest ever surely longevity has to play a part. It’s your opinion mate and your welcome to it but other players have smashed his stats and trophies won, Messi alone will have close to 200 more goals than Ronaldo when he finally retires that for me instantly kills any Ronaldo GOAT arguments especially when I remember his latter career which was a complete joke.
Ronaldo did well in small bursts it’s not enough for me.
I like that. Clear generational spread as well.There are 5 pillars of football and they are all on the same table.
Alfredo Di Stefano
Pele
Franz Beckenbauer
Johan Cruijff
Diego Armando Maradona
These players have their own table and I believe other players can join them but thier position in the game is secure and noone can surpass them.
He also ‘did well’ for Barcelona and Inter Milan. And PSV if you want to include that.
His premature decline is heavily mitigated as well all know. Robert Lewandowski or Harry Kane, providing he too doesn’t have to miss years with serious knee injuries, will also possibly score more goals over a normal career span. Means nothing. The fact that he reached a level arguably nobody else could reach, and held it there for a few years, should absolutely allow that level to be discussed as the best we have ever seen. You can then add in the specifics of ‘imagine he got to do this and that’ but the sample is still big enough to conclude how good he was. If we are talking about a player who had one amazing season, or 6 amazing months, and then returned to their ‘normal’ level - then it would be hard to conclude that was the player they were. This is not the case with Ronaldo, as we all know. And his injuries didn’t come at 18. He is not a story of a talent the world didn’t get to see because of injury. He is one we definitely got to see, at the highest level, for a good few years. The injuries are just a loss to the rest of the sport who couldn’t enjoy it for longer. Van Basten is also often mentioned amongst the greatest. We don’t need to speak forever about what could have been, when there is more than enough of what actually was.
Using the end of his career, several cruciates later, against him is pointless. Even still, his Real Madrid level was still better than many top class strikers in recent times.
You're not really contextualising the changes in the club game since the 1990s. Teams were needing 65-80 points to win a league title then, now they need 90-100 - all because teams are getting more and more stacked as the gulf in resources within leagues becomes ever wider. It's the same as looking at Van Basten's best season at Milan, 25 goals in Serie A, and then saying Higuain shits on that with his 36 goals in 2015/16.His top level still wasn’t Messi or Ronaldo level no matter how you try and dress it up. You mention the World Cup in 02 but that season he scored 7 goals for Inter, again nobody remembers that.
His best year at Barce was 29 goals, I mean Messi is almost doubling that season after season whilst leading Barce to trebles it’s just not comparable.
His Madrid days resulted in and around 20 goals a season I don’t need to link Cristiano’s record to prove he’s almost trebling them numbers on a consistent basis whilst helping Madrid to 4 CL titles in 5 years.
Yeah, Van Basten should be somewhere in tier 3, I think. Arguably only Pele, Muller, Puskas, and Eusebio were better pure strikers than him. I rate him around as much as Luis Ronaldo. It is sad that both could have been much more if not for injuries, maybe him on the level of Cruyff/Di Stefano while Luis could have easily been the GOAT if he didn't have injuries.Van Basten needs to be in Tier 3 though for sure
I think that most of people rate Best higher than Sir Bobby. Also, if you look the final in 1968, it was all about Best who was just 22 and was clearly the best player in the team.Considering our own Sir Bobby Charlton was outstanding for BOTH Manchester United and England, I think he's vastly underrated outside United fans (and sometimes within). The guy wasn't even a striker but it took what, 40-odd yrs to discard his record for both club and country? Best player of the tournament in England's only WC title, too.
In all likelihood, Ronaldo will finish with double the Ballon D'Ors, either double of close to double UCL (with him being the best player on all of them) and one international trophy (although Cruyff 1974 is so much better than Ronaldo has ever played in an tournament), while having in addition the longevity argument, and scoring at least twice as many goals (career wise than Cruyff). In fact, there is a real possibility that Cristiano - when he finishes his career - has scored more competitive goals than any other player in the history of the game.personally think Ronaldo shouldn't be above Cruijff, but that's just the high regard I (biasedly) hold Cruijff in.
Did you watch him play? I'd be surprised if you had and feel this way regardless. Blankly looking at statistics is an awful way to judge the effectiveness and talent of a player.His top level still wasn’t Messi or Ronaldo level no matter how you try and dress it up. You mention the World Cup in 02 but that season he scored 7 goals for Inter, again nobody remembers that.
His best year at Barce was 29 goals, I mean Messi is almost doubling that season after season whilst leading Barce to trebles it’s just not comparable.
His Madrid days resulted in and around 20 goals a season I don’t need to link Cristiano’s record to prove he’s almost trebling them numbers on a consistent basis whilst helping Madrid to 4 CL titles in 5 years.
Ronaldo was good but to put some prospective on it Ruud took his place in the team and relegated him to the bench, I mean I love Ruud but we’re taking GOAT levels here for me the nostalgia is insane with R9.
His Milan days really fecked him too, he was about 18 stone and scored 6 goals in 2 years meh he was wank for the majority of his career.