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Ah. Did surprise me to not see him in these lists.
Off to the voting thread, then!
(No seriously, I meant I missed tagging you. But your list should defo be in there, of course.)
I've put Overath in, although he could probably go into two other lists.
He did go into another list indeed, midfield playmakers. Best if you replace him, still time.
This was the issue the first time round with these lists for me. As you can see from my list, I've got him high up for wingers and replacing him with someone else is somewhat contrived. But that discussion is over with, so... I'll go and amend.
Forwards voting is up!
I'll narrow down the tagfest, most regular voters should find the thread in any case.
@antohan @berbasloth4 @BIG DUNK @BlackShark_80 @Earvin Johnson
I'll narrow down the tagfest, most regular voters should find the thread in any case.
@antohan @berbasloth4 @BIG DUNK @BlackShark_80 @Earvin Johnson
Henry as a forward wasn't as good as Henry as striker, imho.
Will open a thread and a pool now Iso.
Please do, sir. He made his name as arguably the best striker in English league.
Who?
Henry the french. Well maybe equal in stature to Denis the Law.
Ah, yes.
Only problem is sexual connotation. Do you love Henry on the side?
Will get round to that, no worries
Not now. I'm only on my first can.Am now not kidding everyone should go through this regarding Law.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/cla...e-greatest-forward-in-uniteds-history.430924/
THank you. Saw that thread before. If Kane worth 150m, makes you wonder how much Law would cost now? 200m is being conservative.
Well, Kane isn't worth 150 imho to start. But, yeah, Law would be kind of priceless... I just posted it as I think most fans look at Holy Trinity as him being not so great as other two which would be just plain wrong.
Also saw a post that Dennis Bergkamp was named after Denis Law, as Bergkamp's dad was Law's fan. Dang.. now i have soft spot for Bergkamp.
To be completely honest, lack of footage is something that is true to different extent to the majority of players ranked. Paradoxically, Even if we do not have many games from Garrincha, he was one of the players for whom it was the easiest to find all touch game compilations (saw 3 of them against Mexico, Czechoslovakia and France). So i don't think i judged him more harshly than other players who suffer from lack of available footage.
I think we disagree on his status because we may have used different methods to rank the players. I gave more importance to factors such as the eye test than to factors like reputation or how big the legend of the player is. I did that because i believe that time warp stories and our perception in the long term. The eye test method is flawed too, because it relies on the amount of footage that i would be able to find and it is also conditionned by my own subjective interpretation. So some players who i thought would rank much higher like Garrincha ended up lower than expected and players who i didn't rate before ended up being much higher on the list like Rensenbrink.
The main argument used for Garrincha is the 1962 WC performance but to be honest i don't see how it is necessarily more dominant than the one of some of his teammates like Amarildo, Didi and Vava. Garrincha was their star, but that team was absolutely stacked. According to the paradigm im using it is a weak argument to warrant a first place ranking specially when the eye test is unimpressive (By the standard of the top 6).
So i thought maybe Garrincha was more the product of the hype of his time, his legend being perhaps bigger than he was on the pitch. Not too dissimilar to someone like Zidane today in mainstream media. On this forum according to the playmaker ranking he seems to be judged more fairly, because majority of people here are knowledgeable about Football and watched him play Not a lot of people watched Garrincha, so i think he is given more the benefit of the doubt and people rate him more on his status than his actual skills
The forward category is absolutely stacked, a lot of great players are going to miss the top 30.
Aside from the top 3/4 maybe, i have no idea for now how the list will pan out. I will post it in a few days.
@paulscholes18
What is the logic at work behind your Top 4, it is rather...Unorthodox...
Also Johan Cruyff is missing from your list..
Aside from the top 3/4 maybe, i have no idea for now how the list will pan out. I will post it in a few days.
@paulscholes18
What is the logic at work behind your Top 4, it is rather...Unorthodox...
Also Johan Cruyff is missing from your list..
To be honest the eye test would always be the starting point for me as well so we probably rank players the same way. Plenty of players have a greater reputation owing to the quality of their team and fortunate circumstances, while others weren't able to make the same impact on major leagues or tournaments due to factors beyond their control such as poorer team-mates or tactical straight-jackets. For example, a lot of the great wingers from the 1980s and 1990s suffered from the defensive nature of the game and the predominance of the narrow shapes of 4-4-2, 4-2-2-2 and 3-5-2. And I think in any visual comparison most of the guys from before that suffer because of their heavy boots and balls and bumpy pitches, none of which are conducive to looking easy on the eye.
In Garrincha's case I feel his ability to swerve his hips, to throw his weight one way while he and the ball went the other, is unmatched. His bow legs made him even more unpredictable and threw defenders the wrong way. Shifting your weight is something that is not easy to assess and very few wingers had (Matthews, Giggs, Dzajic, Best did). He could explode from 0-60 and keep the ball in close control in a way that I think only Ronaldo and Romario approached. Others who could accelerate as quickly, such as Gento, didn't have the ball glued as close to their foot whilst doing so. Others with similar or better close control like Dzajic or Messi could also change gears rapidly but did not quite have the same explosive acceleration over 10 yards. He also had a stocky strength that protected the ball which, again, not many wingers could call upon.
He had his flaws of course. His decision-making was erratic, he could be a frustrating player to play alongside because he was so unorthodox and sometimes took too long to release the ball. But for me he was the best at consistently making something happen. If you gave him the ball 40 yards from goal, even when defensively outnumbered, he could create chaos in the opposition backline. And when you layer on top of that his impact at the highest level he becomes a compelling number one in my view. Certainly he played in great teams, but his performances were ridiculously impactful. He wasn't, but he could theoretically have been a one-man attack at times.
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It is. I will try and explain the logic.
I had never heard of Eusébio until about 10 years ago, I was watching Football Focus and they mentioned him that he had pneumonia and they showed a highlight package of him, and the wow factor I felt watching it i had never felt like that before watching anyone else (or since). So then I watched more and more videos of him and was just in awe of how good he was, so in a few hours I went from never heard of him to having him as my GOAT. To me his performance vs Korea at the 1966 World Cup is the greatest individual performance of all time.
Have you seen this one by the way? (Allow me to shamelessly self-promote my content)
Good thing you didnt see this because you would rate him ahead of Maradona
Cant say i watched shitloads of Pastore but surely catched around 10 games or so, guy never impressed and at best he would look average as feck.......yet, one of the best youtube vids you will ever see!
It's funny because that's what i expected Garrincha to be, however i can hardly see how this decription applies to him. He had elite close control, that's true, but he was nowhere near as explosive as someone like Messi, especially with the ball at his feet. Paradoxically, i thought that in 1958 he was a better playmaker than in 1962, mainly because in the latter tournament he was older and lost a lot of pace, so he wasn't as good when it came to create danger.
The main reason which leads me to not consider Garrincha as a number 1/2 is exactly because of his dribbling and this is where i disagree with your post. As a dribbler he is nowhere near as good as you described him. I've yet to see any instance where Garrincha took the ball 40 yards from the goal and bring danger to the penalty are, actually i think i've never seen him dribble past more than 2 players in a run. The vast majority of his dribbles are beating his opponent on the wing, then settling for a cross. He was very good at that and it was very valuable but as a dribbler he is not in the same tier as players like Ronaldo Fenomeno/Messi, who could effectively take the ball in their own half and dribble half of the opposing players before setting a teammate for a shot or putting it in the back of the net.
Rewatch some of Garrincha's games with what i said in mind and you will notice it too.
So when it's all said and done, and you take these elements into account, he was a good scorer, a very good playmaker, and a very good dribbler even if he falls short to the all time great in that field, once you take into consideration his somewhat questionable decision making at time, i think you are left with a player who is more deserving of a position around the top 5, than being a consensus 1/2. Even if his status indicates otherwise.
Very good talking points, i think it invites another interesting discussion, because comparing players throughout different eras is always gonna be tricky. Due to the lack of data and footage, it is nearly impossible to judge players in a vacuum solely based on their quality, factors like the ones you just cited will always come into play.
I understand the eye test is very subjective, and Eusébio was a joy to watch, but i can't see how it justifies ranking him above someone like Pele, who was an equally impressive goalscorer but also a much better playmaker.
In my book if two players are equally gifted goalscorers, then the tie breaker is the other things they do on the pitch. Playmaking when it comes to attacking players. So that's why i was surprised to see Eusébio and Ronaldo (Two Goat goalscorers) ranking higher than Messi and Pelé (two Goat goalscorers and playmakers).
Funnily enough, Pele's santos played Eusébio's Benefica in the 1962 edition of the intercontinental where the winner of the libertadores played the winner of the European cup. Pele banged 5 (!) goals in that tie, leading Santos to victory.
IMO, Cruyff should be a consensus 3rd pick in the forward category. His 1974 World cup showing is arguably the second best performance after Maradona's. He was one of the best goalscorers of his era while being its best playmaker by a landslide.
I'm not sure. I think your expectations are a little high given the amount of footage (2 World Cups and a handful of other games) is a fraction of the entirety of his career. For Garrincha to take the ball in his own half and dribble past the defence in that small window of games is, in my view, slightly unrealistic. How often do the GOAT candidates do that (apart from Maradona)? For example, if were to take footage from two of Messi's World Cups and a random handful of other international or club games it's unlikely to show anything of that calibre. What Garrincha did do in the little footage we have available reflects enough 1v1 ability to suggest he could cut past a number of defenders in a run. For example, here are half a dozen examples of him creating danger to the penalty area from 40 yards or further out (some of these runs are from the half-way line) -
At 1.38, 2.16, 2.59, 3.22, 3.51:
It's not just about the distance out, but his ability to create something out of scenarios where the odds are stacked against him. This sort of situation - 1 attacker against 4-5 defenders - was fairly typical with him. Yet despite the number of players he had to beat, he often conjured a cross or a shot [as he did in this situation, having already beat the guy about to fall on his arse, reverse jinking past the next one, then burning past a third with a turbo-charged change of pace to get his cross in].
To expand on the point about Garrincha's acceleration, he could go from a standing start to explode past a defender better than any of the other wingers in the list. There are countless examples of him standing up the full-back like that and bursting past them in a 5-yard space. Generally it's easier to defend when the player in front of you has stopped, but he re-wrote the rule book in that sense. In saying that as an all-encompassing attacker I agree that he wasn't as devastating as Ronaldo and Messi who could dribble through more crowded central areas which places greater demands on both close control and spatial awareness. And for me if Messi was included in the winger section, he'd be number one based on what he's done there at different stages of his career. But in comparing wingers I think he's the greatest at doing what a winger is supposed to do in scenarios like the one above where the attacker should have no right to create anything.
Good debate this though - enjoy getting into the details outwith the natural bias of draft games.
Complete toss up between the lower part of the list and a number of players left out.
Whole list is a series of toss ups, tbh. Still time to edit, though not sure how much it would help.
That's actually something that came to my mind hahahahaha. By watching some highlights of 2010 and 2014 WC i noted 2 instances where Messi dribbled past 3 players (against Greece and Switzerland) and several others where he went past two players. However, i think that it is not fair to judge anyone by the standards of Leo Messi.
To be honest, that's what is expected from elite playmakers in Football, beat a defense with a dribble or a pass. Not that he couldn't do that, i'm sure he could do it consistently but it is not that rare of a feat to do for All time great talents in football. Other players in the list could do that.
After reading this paragraph i think we fundamentally agree on Garrincha's strengths and weaknesses. I too believe that he was one of the best there ever was when it's about playing one on one's. My main criticism comes from that i think it is less valuable as a style of play than the ability of taking the ball in the midfield and bursting through defender, like Messi/Maradona/Ronaldo could do.
Considering that Garrincha's reputation as one of the best dribbler of all time i was disapointed when i found out that he counldn't do the same thing as those guys. He's still a terrific dribbler obviously, but falls a bit short to the absolute All time greats in that domain.
So i wanted to raise wareness on this because the current general consensus would have you believe that he was as good as anyone dribbling wise while the reality is more nuanced than that.
@Earvin Johnson Fair points. On that note, and related to your original question. worth having a look at values in the auction drafts to see how much each of the greats command compared to one other. Or the Peaches and a GOAT draft where notional values were assigned to the best players.
Thank you, i just checked it quickly (the Peaches and GOAT draft) and i feel that there is a strong bias toward older players. Rummenige being worth nearly twice as much as Suarez is absurd. Iniesta and Xavi criminally underrated and Messi worth less than Maradona and Pele for some reason...
Yeah, there's an anti-recency bias where most of active players are undervalued if you're not talking about Messi & Cristiano who already secured their spot at the very, very top. Xavi & Iniesta are getting more and more recognition lately, albeit the more "complete" players like Matthäus & Rijkaard still usually being picked first.
On this topic I have to think of this quote about Stan Matthews:
Keeping that in mind (and a host of similar factors), it seems unfair to directly compare a 50s/60s player with someone like Messi.
I think a comprehensive history of balls/shoes/pitch conditions/rules/refereeing styles/fitness regimes would be necessary to fairly compare players' technical abilities across the decades. Probably impossible to do, but how great would that be to put someone's ball-playing ability in context.
Of course you can already compare Garrincha with Pele & Seeler, Best with Beckenbauer, Maradona with Zico, etc. (And Pele beats Garrincha in that department, imo.)
Well it depends on the team you want to build, Rijkaard and Matthaus ain't no scrubs i could totally see them being picked before Xavi or Iniesta. But none of them can let you control the midfield like Xavi or playmake like Iniesta. So it ultimately boils down on the team people wants to build i guess.
Maybe they are rated more fairly now, but the gap that was between them and the old greats in the peach and GOAT draft was overblown in my opinion. Especially when you consider that Zidane was rated more highly which in my opinion is undeserved.
I understand that recency bias can be frustrating, but being biased against modern player is just harmful if we want to give everyone a fair assessment of their skills.
@Synco
Maybe i expressed myself awkwardly and was misunderstood, but i too believe that it is unfair to compare old players to modern ones. Considering that we cannot fully assess all the factors that come into play and shape the different eras and it is impossible to know how a player would do in a different one, i consider that it is useless to ask such questions to ourselves. Rather what we can do is try to see who was motr dominant in his time, that's how i assess greatness. So even if Garrincha style of play would be seen as unadapted to the modern game, he has to be judged according to the standards of his time and this is why i still rank him in the top 5, because there weren't many wingers who could impact the game like he did.
Concerning the voting for forwards, i wish we could have debated Pele and Messi before voting, as they are the most likely to end up in the 1/2 positions.
It could've sparked some interesting discussion on both players.
It could've sparked some interesting discussion on both players.
Oh, I certainly don’t imply that Matthäus or Rijkaard were lesser players than Xavi, but he doesn’t quite get the respect he deserves as a potentially top-3 midfielder of all-time.
As for Messi — there’s an objective (ish?) claim that Pelé was greater than him simply based on his international career. Pelé may have been marginally less talented than Messi (and certainly, in my eyes, than Diego), but he has fulfilled every bit of potential that he had — compared to Messi (good, but far from GOAT international career) or Maradona (lack of longevity).
As for Messi — there’s an objective (ish?) claim that Pelé was greater than him simply based on his international career. Pelé may have been marginally less talented than Messi (and certainly, in my eyes, than Diego), but he has fulfilled every bit of potential that he had — compared to Messi (good, but far from GOAT international career) or Maradona (lack of longevity).
That's a fair statement. Agreed.
I think it's more of a winning bias. If Higuain converts those shots in Wolrd cup and Cooa America finals we wouldn't even be having these discussions. However the result of those shots don't tell us anything on Messi's quality this is why i'm reticent from basing my judgement solely on a factor like this. Especially when you take into account that those Brazillian teams were some of the most stacked teams in History. They had so much talent that even without Pele they were still the best in the world (1962). Pele having a more dominant international carreer therefore make sense, but i am more interested to know how they did perform individually on the international stage. And the craziest thing is that we do have Data to compare them.
Here are some relevant stats per 90 for Pele's performance per 90 in the 1970 WC and Messi's performance per 90 for the 2014 WC
Dribbles :
Pelé : 2.2
Messi : 5.8
Chances created :
Pelé : 4.7
Messi : 3
Progressive passes + progressive dribbles :
Pelé : 12.4
Messi : 12.1
Overall i think these stats are really close once you take into account that Pele was playing on arguably the best national team of all time which helps pump up your numbers while Messi was playing on a poor offensive team and that he was himself far from his best form in the 2014 World cup.
I think the most surprising thing is the discreapancy in dribbles, as i saw a lot of footage where Pele showcased very impressive dribbling abilities. My theory to explain his rather low tally is that since his injury in 1966,he must have lost a lot of mobility which hampered his dribbling skills, it also coincides with a decline in his goalscoring tally.
If this theory is true, then this could mean that Pele was playing at an absolute GOAT level only from 1958 to 1965. Of course he was still a beast later on his carreer as he was able to adapt his game and become more of a playmaker (which explains his insane chance creation number) but not on the same level as peak Messi/Maradona. And this would make Messi the guy with the longest longevity at the GOAT level, which is a solid argument for him when it comes to make a ranking like this one.