yeah but he would do a job for example as a rightback if needed as well IMO
Best 'all-round' Footballer Ever?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Right now, I'd put Alaba on top of that list. He can play pretty much every position at a very high level.
Of.course, i agree with you
Dont remeber him on either wing or as a striker.
There were games where he played that position, not full game, but was pushed into that role.
Probably scared that @Akash would start indulging in his hate posting about the great man.
Lahm, Alaba, rooney, zanetti would be my list from my sort of generation.
Odd to see Rooney, Messi and Ronaldo get mentions.
Surely a complete footballer should be one that can contribute to the attack, defence and midfield play?
Surely a complete footballer should be one that can contribute to the attack, defence and midfield play?
For me, honestly, di Stefano and Beckenbauer are two proper total footballers. They really could do everything at a high level unlike anyone else. GOAT attacking players like Messi and Maradona are a rarity, but proper total footballers like Beckenbauer, di Stefano, and possibly Cruyff are like diamonds in a pool of GOAT's.
It's why, in today's highly-specialised game, I appreciate someone like Alaba more than, say, Neymar. He's pretty much a complete footballer combining athleticism with excellent skills and a great footballing mind.
It's why, in today's highly-specialised game, I appreciate someone like Alaba more than, say, Neymar. He's pretty much a complete footballer combining athleticism with excellent skills and a great footballing mind.
toninho cerezo
See, here's the thing. I really, really love Toninho, but if you want a complete Brazilian, surely that's Paulo Roberto Falcão or Clodoaldo. Both were amazing off and on the ball. Both could defend quite well and do very well going forward. I mean, Clodoaldo played as both an attacking and defensive midfielder throughout his career, and Falcão could do it all as well.
Stevie G, that extra skill of slipping and fecking up in the right moments
Some people think John O'Shea is the greatest all round footballer ever?
Seedorf - i'm could see him playing just as well as a center back or a number 9.
Yaya Touré...defend?
Rakitić is pretty well rounded. Guess most of the players who excel in this thread are either box to box midfielders or full backs.
Tbf he did play a CL final as a CB.
About 6 years ago. Back then he was well rounded (though he didn't have the freedom to attack as much then) but now he's lazy and poor positionally.
Good shout.
Surprised to see so few mentions of Messi. He has already won the Ballon d'Or as a winger, striker and playmaker/attacking midfielder (it's what I'd classify him as right now, the spaces he occupies aren't much different from the ones Iniesta occupies and he's clearly the main source of chance creation). If we think of 4-3-3 formation like this:
LW FW RW
CM CM
DM
LB CB CB RB
Then Messi has already proven to be the best in the world in the front 5 positions and it's not much of a stretch to suggest he could play as a modern attack-oriented wingback with dodgy defending à la Marcelo at an adequate level. On the ball he could also do Busquets' job. CB would be the only position where he'd be terrible.CM CM
DM
LB CB CB RB
Roy Keane for me.Played right back, centre back , centre midfield and right wing in his time.I've no doubt he would do a reasonable job in any position including goals.Bryan Robson, Ruud Gullit,lothar Mattaeus also come to mind.
Some people struggle to understand the thread title. It asks about the best all-round footballer EVER, not about the best in the last few years or in the EPL.
I reckon Pogba could do a good job in any of attack, midfield or defense. Anywhere down the middle of the pitch.
O'Shea, Beckenbauer, Byland, Hagi, May
Di Stefano, followed by Beckenbauer and Cruyff. John Charles deserves a mention too.
O'Shea, Jones, Edwards and Zanetti then. (no, I am joking)
O'Shea, Jones, Edwards and Zanetti then. (no, I am joking)
Seedorf is a great shout, he seriously had a lot of skills in his locker.
You solved your own query in the very next line. If you look at the phases of the football pitch, a team generally does has three elements - defending, midfield play/control (remove this if you want) and attacking. Messi contributes enormously in one aspect of that trident (attack) and majorly/fairly (debatable) in another (midfield). He has little or no input in the defensive aspect. That, logically, for me, disqualifies him from being complete. Can he protect your back 4? No.
On the other hand someone like Roy Keane could A) protect your back 4 and make goal saving tackles (defending), win the midfield battle (midfield control) and drive the team in the attacking third too (attacking). For me, a player like that is naturally more complete. Sure, Messi does his 1.5/2 phases so bloody well that he's on a different level altogether as a footballer, but Keane by contributing in more areas is more complete.
If anything, Messi was more complete 3/4 years back. He used to put in a lot more defensive work then. But that still doesn't qualify him for me just like Suarez doesn't make the grade either.
Of course not
Well, I disagree. I mean how can Messi contribute "majorly/fairly (debateable) in midfield" but Roy Keane was "driving the team in the attacking third"; which is more of an intangible quality, i. e. "leadership", but in reality you wouldn't pick Keane over an actual world class attacking player. You wouldn't pick Keane over a world class winger, striker or playmaker. With Messi you would actually choose him over different type of world class players. Messi's midfield contribution is easily at a much higher level than Keane's attacking contribution was. If I have to pick a striker: "Agüero vs. Messi", I pick Messi. If I have to pick a winger: "Ribery vs. Messi", I pick Messi. If I have to pick an attacking midfielder: "David Silva vs. Messi", I pick Messi. If I have to pick a central midfielder: "Modric vs. Messi", I still pick Messi. Modric doesn't have any ability that Messi does not, including physicality. Messi's defensive game is underrated, he is a very good defensive player and ball winner, he just doesn't do it regularly because he doesn't have to. It would be stupid to waste Messi's energy with defensive play and hustling every game but clearly he possesses the quality for it and contributes defensively in most big games when he has to:
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The way you worded it: "Protecting the back four", "making goal saving tackles" and "winning the midfield battle" actually applies to most defensive midfielders, if you think about it. I wouldn't call Busquets or Schweinsteiger among the most complete players though. Ultimately they can only play 1 broad role very well: central (defensive) midfielder.
Mentioning the likes of O'Shea, Seedorf etc. makes no sense to me. They weren't even the best in the world in their main positions so how can they be the best all-around footballers? The best all-around footballer also has to have the best possible quality in different positions and not just be able to quantitatively play the most positions. Otherwise Sergi Roberto is among the best all-around footballers ever. The guy has played LB, RB, DM, CM and winger. Literally everything except CB and GK. And at a decent level. But you wouldn't actually name him as a top 10 footballer in any position.
We could also start a philosophical debate about Messi "protecting his back four" with his sheer attacking presence which forces entire teams to play more defensively and/or pay special attention to him and not commit numbers forward if they don't want to get punished. I mean people often say Barca's backline is average and doesn't get tested and "MSN" makes the difference. Then you have to give credit to Messi for being such a great attacking threat that he automatically influences the defensive stats of his team.
I don't think Keane is complete either. Di Stefano, Beckenbauer, Edwards and Gullit are complete for me.
Have to agree with this
And you'd pick Messi over a centre-back? Messi's contribution to defending is almost zero, it used to be 10%. A top box to box midfielder contributes all over the pitch to a respectable degree.
Yet his defensive contribution is near non-existent whereas that of a top box-to-box midfielder never is, in any aspect of the game.
Hassling the CB's/fullbacks a little isn't a serious contribution. It's what you expect from pretty much every attacker on the planet playing anywhere.
Indeed, which is why I didn't compare Messi to a defensive midfielder. I compared him to an all-round all action box-to-box midfielder who contributes in every aspect of the game. You can take the Di Stefano example if you want - a player legandary for his influence over all areas of the pitch. Schweinsteiger is definitely one of the most complete players of his generation, or at least was, at his peak. Good tackler, good passer, very good touch, had skill and leadership too.
Oshea is a bizarre shout, I agree. The best all round footballer should be the absolute cream of the players who had influence in all areas of the game. That's why I mentioned Di Stefano, or from what the legend about him says - Duncan Edwards. If we're mentioning Oshea we might as well mention Henderson just because he is box to box.
We could but I personally don't think the influence is as big as that. At Barcelona maybe, given the quality everyone else also has. But no one player has such an influence IMO even if he's possibly the greatest, which is why it's a team sport, and we've seen that with Argentina. Like you say, it's a bigger debate and would require a lot more time.
Keane doesn't hold a candle to Don Alfredo in any phase of the game, sorry. He was a great box to box midfielder but completeness is not something I'd ever relate him to, unless every box to box midfielder by default becomes a complete player? Keane was fairly limited in both his defensive and attacking jobs. Bobby Charlton was used to man mark Beckenbauer - a rising star at the time and vice versa, Beckenbauer was marking Charlton. One played majority of his career as an inside left/attacking midfielder while the other as a libero, yet in a WC game both were marking each other in midfield.
Completeness for me comes from a vast array of skillset, not just running up and down the pitch the whole time. Box-to-box midfielders and wingbacks/attacking fullbacks influence both sides of the pitch but that is completely unassociated to being complete. Why are players like Di Stefano, Gullit, Beckenbauer etc are being mentioned here is simply because they had everything a footballer was capable of doing. On the ball, off the ball. Any position on the pitch, attack, defense, midfield, wide, central, doesn't matter. Someone like Gullit had the tools to be a world class attacking player, an all time great actually and had people like George Best saying that it is more difficult to get the ball off Gullit than Maradona, etc and a few years later he was playing sweeper at Chelsea and still doing that at a fantastic level. I cannot expect someone like Keane or Vieira or just a generic box to box midfielder to be played as a number 10 or a CB and still do that at the same level. Lothar Matthaus man marked Maradona in 86, a job for a pure destroyer. 4 years later he drove his NT to a WC win this time playing with a lot more freedom and 9 years after that he kept a clean sheet in a Champions League final playing as a sweeper. And it was obvious that he would be fantastic in all these roles before he ever overtook them.
The likes of Keane, Vieira, Robson, other standard box-to-box CMs will never enter this discussion. You need a far greater and wider skillset to do so. Doesn't have to be an all time great either - Branko Zebec was an undeniably complete player.
Pele? I mean is that even possible... I used to like Marco van Basten, and I wonder if he could have been the best all around footballer. I suppose it's almost impossible to have this characteristic because of the way the roles are shared.
Yeah, agree completely.
At least if I understand the OP correctly. Most of the shouts here are odd, in fact. A B2B midfielder isn't inherently more complete than any other sort of player just because he covers most of the pitch as part of his natural role. That's a very different thing compared to what I imagine the OP is after here. And Messi isn't anywhere near being a complete player - obviously not. You can call him a complete attacker if you must (I wouldn't call him that either, as it would utterly ignore the potential benefits of being a physically imposing player), but he clearly isn't a complete footballer in any meaningful sense.
The relevant type would be someone like Sárosi. A jack of all trades who is more than a jack - more like a master of all trades, or close to one.
Which is precisely why didn't I didn't put Keane's name forth but rather Di Stefano's, and possibly Duncan Edwards (going by the legend).
I only brought Keane in to set the basis for the general argument, and state why the likes of Messi and Rooney should be even further from the discussion.
On Di Stefano (taken from an article)
Duncan Edwards on his own role (half back) which I thought might be interest for this thread:
Most of what he says applies to your box-to-box midfielders, but the fact that he did everything to such a high level, is what made him complete.
Out of interest, since I don't know that much about De Kaiser, him and Charlton man-marking each other isn't unusual. We've seen attacking players man marking opposing players often. Welbeck did it against Madrid if I'm not mistaken. But obviously Beckenbauer is reknown for being one of the games completest. But I had a question, what was his role going forward? The idea I had of him was that he was a CB who was wonderfully comfortable on the ball and able to bring it out and playmake like a deep lying playmaker, sort of a mix between Rio and Busquets.
That would mean Ashley Young is all round. Left wing, right wing, left back, right back, striker, behind the striker in his last year at Villa.
Intelligent players like Blind can be relied for his versatility. CM, CB, LB. He'd probably be a fine number 10 for a lower team due to his technique, awareness and passing vision.
Then you have blokes like Fellaini who is all round due to his physical qualities. On his day he's unplayable.
Intelligent players like Blind can be relied for his versatility. CM, CB, LB. He'd probably be a fine number 10 for a lower team due to his technique, awareness and passing vision.
Then you have blokes like Fellaini who is all round due to his physical qualities. On his day he's unplayable.
Gullit.
Played as DM, CM, AM and striker.
Simply playing a lot of positions doesn't necessarily mean you're good at them, though. I'm not sure there's any position in which you could argue Fellaini is a specialist. His usefulness up front in an advanced position generally involves knocking long balls to him, since he's not the most creative, or a particularly great finisher. His passing isn't good enough for him to be regarded as an excellent CM.