Daniel Passarella...

[Rozay]

Before my time. Was looking at various teams’ all time leading goalscorers and noticed he was in Argentina’s top 10. He was a centre half! I know he was a free-kick and penalty specialist - but still, 24 goals is remarkable for a centre half. It’s a mighty impressive stat.

 

[Gio]

Sensational all-rounder. Brilliant in the air, gorgeous left peg, uncompromising leader. Spent six seasons in Italy when Serie A was at its most miserly, yet still ended his career with close to 200 goals, with a 1-in-3 ratio throughout. Mad bastard truth be told, but he'd be phenomenal in the current game.

 

[TwoSheds]

1 in 3, bloody hell! He must have been a sight to see play.

 

[Brightonian]

Which modern player is he the most like, for the sake of someone too young to know much about him?

 

[Infordin]

South America’s Beckenbauer

 

[dev1l]

Which modern player is he the most like, for the sake of someone too young to know much about him?

He reminds me a bit of Milan s Romagnoli. He was an all round good Footballer with a lethal left foot with which he scored loads of goals from freekick.

 

[harms]

Which modern player is he the most like, for the sake of someone too young to know much about him?

Perhaps Lucio? It's hard to compare, he was very unique.

Some time in the late 1980s, Internazionale were losing an away match by several goals when in the last minute they were awarded a meaningless penalty.

The fearsome Argentine centre-back Daniel Passarella began galloping forward to take it, but before he could get there Alessandro Altobelli, reasoning like any striker that a goal is a goal, stepped up and hit the ball into the net.

A former Inter star who played in that game tells the story that in the changing-room, Passarella threw a fit. "It's always the same!" he screamed. "At 0-0 no-one dares take a penalty, but when it doesn't matter anymore they all do."

Grabbing his genitals, he added: "You are cowards! You have no balls, no cojones."

This went on for some time. Most of the Inter players were used to Passarella and paid no attention, but after a while Altobelli could take no more. Striding up to the Argentine, he asked: "You talking about me?"

Passarella knocked him out with a single punch, stripped, and wandered off to the showers.

A few minutes later Altobelli came to. He stared about him enraged and then, spotting the fruit bowl customary in Italian changing-rooms of the era, grabbed a little knife meant for peeling oranges.

In the shower stalls he found a naked Passarella calmly shampooing his hair. "Come on then!" Passarella cooed at his knife-wielding colleague.

Altobelli didn't know what to do. He didn't really want to stab his team-mate to death like Norman Bates in Psycho. He would probably have been fined, or even transfer-listed.

So he just stood in front of Passarella waving the knife for a while until, to his relief, other players dragged him away and he could pretend this was happening against his will. All the while Passarella continued washing his hair.

 

[Rozay]

Sensational all-rounder. Brilliant in the air, gorgeous left peg, uncompromising leader. Spent six seasons in Italy when Serie A was at its most miserly, yet still ended his career with close to 200 goals, with a 1-in-3 ratio throughout. Mad bastard truth be told, but he'd be phenomenal in the current game.

Close to 200 goals for a centre half is ridiculous!

 

[GodShaveTheQueen]

A dead breed. He would have slotted really well into a modern Conte back 3. A super rich man's David Luiz, if he was playing today.

But I do think modern football wouldn't have appreciated him that well. In an era where zonal organized systems are the norm, he'd be seen as a Luiz-esque liability more often than not.