Guardian's World Cup top 100 Footballers of all time

[crappycraperson]

Even emphasising the performance of players in the final, I don't think Zidane was sparkling enough throughout '98 to deserve that kind of title (I wouldn't even have him in a team of the tournament, despite his final show). The stamp against Saudi Arabia didn't really help matters. Euro 2000 was his great tournament.

I thought it was commonly accepted that Zidane 2006 > 1998 in context of the WC. And even then Zidane only really turned it on in the knockouts.

 

[Anti-DNA]

It's also debateable whether Ronaldo was the standout of 1998, or maybe just one of three or four who were the stars of the tournament.

I completely disagree. I believe Ronaldo was easily the best player of WC 1998. As the voting reference, you look at the media vote. Ronaldo had no sympathy vote like Davor Suker and the Croatia "fairytale". But he had won with 21.3% of the vote, Suker with 10.8% of the vote. As the performance reference, it is still clear that Ronaldo was the best. In every match except the final, Ronaldo made major impacts — even if he was not scoring or assisting goals — with a very high level of dominance. Here are some of the nicer moments of Ronaldo from that World Cup.

[Group Stage — 1 goal, 1 assist]

1] Individual challenge — Escócia
2] Super volley goal — Marrocos
3] Dribbling assist to Bebeto — Marrocos
4] Creating clear chance for R. Carlos — Marrocos
5] Creating clear chance for Cafu — Noruega

[Knockout Stage — 3 goals, 2 assists]

6] Wins and scores his own penalty — Chile
7] Hits post — Chile
8] Scores second goal — Chile
9] Hits crossbar — Chile
10] Through-ball assist to Bebeto — Dinamarca
11] Through-ball assist to Rivaldo — Dinamarca
12] Individual challenge — Holanda
13] Weak-foot goal — Holanda
14] Bicycle kick cleared off line — Holanda
15] Clear penalty by De Boer on Ronaldo — Holanda

This is not even looking at some of the amazing dribbling runs that Ronaldo was doing at WC98 — if you look at the individual clips of him, you see these in every match. The best player in the world going into the World Cup, with all expectation on him, was the biggest star.

Apart from the fiasco in the finale, he was the best player of the tournament, in my opinion. With the clear chances made, the posts he hit, the attempts cleared, the penalty he was not awarded, he could have added even more to his goals and assists. As far as I know, Ronaldo contributed the most goals + assists [7] in the tournament.

Who do you think was better than him?

[Edit: I will reply to the WC02 comment later]

 

[Gio]

It's a pleasure to revisit some of that footage to see him at the peak of his powers or thereabouts. I think there's a case to be made for him being the best player, and if forced to choose I'd probably go with him. But "easily" or "the standout" is a little unfair on the likes of Thuram, Davids and Rivaldo who all enjoyed excellent tournaments. And the three of them were probably more consistent than Ronaldo who had 2-3 quiet games. Obviously Ronaldo's unmatched impact and influence when on his game swings it back in his favour, but all in all it's not as clear cut as suggested.

 

[PedroMendez]

I completely disagree. I believe Ronaldo was easily the best player of WC 1998. As the voting reference, you look at the media vote. Ronaldo had no sympathy vote like Davor Suker and the Croatia "fairytale". But he had won with 21.3% of the vote, Suker with 10.8% of the vote. As the performance reference, it is still clear that Ronaldo was the best. In every match except the final, Ronaldo made major impacts — even if he was not scoring or assisting goals — with a very high level of dominance. Here are some of the nicer moments of Ronaldo from that World Cup.

[Group Stage — 1 goal, 1 assist]

1] Individual challenge — Escócia
2] Super volley goal — Marrocos
3] Dribbling assist to Bebeto — Marrocos
4] Creating clear chance for R. Carlos — Marrocos
5] Creating clear chance for Cafu — Noruega

[Knockout Stage — 3 goals, 2 assists]

6] Wins and scores his own penalty — Chile
7] Hits post — Chile
8] Scores second goal — Chile
9] Hits crossbar — Chile
10] Through-ball assist to Bebeto — Dinamarca
11] Through-ball assist to Rivaldo — Dinamarca
12] Individual challenge — Holanda
13] Weak-foot goal — Holanda
14] Bicycle kick cleared off line — Holanda
15] Clear penalty by De Boer on Ronaldo — Holanda

This is not even looking at some of the amazing dribbling runs that Ronaldo was doing at WC98 — if you look at the individual clips of him, you see these in every match. The best player in the world going into the World Cup, with all expectation on him, was the biggest star.

Apart from the fiasco in the finale, he was the best player of the tournament, in my opinion. With the clear chances made, the posts he hit, the attempts cleared, the penalty he was not awarded, he could have added even more to his goals and assists. As far as I know, Ronaldo contributed the most goals + assists [7] in the tournament.

Who do you think was better than him?

[Edit: I will reply to the WC02 comment later]

how can I like a post? watched every single video and forgot quite a few of these situations. great job.

 

[Gio]

For interest here's how L'Equipe rated the best players at France '98:

7,17 Thuram (France)
7,07 Desailly (France)
6,92 Petit (France)
6,60 B. Laudrup (Denmark)
6,40 Ortega & Verón (Argentina), Bergkamp (Holland)
6,36 Rivaldo (Brazil)
6,33 Davids (Holland)
6,30 Henry (France)

Hopelessly biased.

France Football's similarly biased ratings:

30 points: Thuram (France)
28: Desailly (France)
27: Šuker (Croatia), Barthez & Petit (France)
26: Davids (Holland)
25: Dunga & Rivaldo (Brazil), F. de Boer & Stam (Holland)
24: Taffarel (Brazil), Ladic & Jarni (Croatia), Deschamps (France), Cocu (Holland)
23: Cafu, Leonardo, Roberto Carlos & Ronaldo (Brazil), Asanovic & Stanic (Croatia), Van der Sar (Holland)
22: César Sampaio & Júnior Baiano (Brazil), Bilic & Stimac (Croatia), Lizarazu (France), R. de Boer (Holland)
21: Verón (Argentina), Bebeto (Brazil)
20: B. Laudrup (Denmark), Boban & Simic (Croatia), Djorkaeff (France), Overmars (Holland)

Gazzetta dello Sport's Serie A biased ratings:

7,10: Thuram
7,00: Zidane
6,95: Davids
6,90: Mondragón
6,75: Pagliuca, Ince, Owen, Luis Hernández
6,70: Petit, Vieri
6,65: Desailly, Bierhoff
6,60: Di Biagio, Mahdavikia
6,55: B. Laudrup, R. Baggio
6,50: Barthez, Dunga, F. Cannavaro, Overmars, Šuker, Blanco, Wilmots
6,45: M. Laudrup, Deschamps, Rivaldo, Bergomi
6,40: Ronaldo, Hadji, Konsel

And Kicker's average ratings for Brazil players:

7,43 Dunga & Rivaldo
7,17 Cafu
7,08 César Sampaio
7,00 Taffarel, Júnior Baiano & Roberto Carlos
6,86 Ronaldo & Leonardo
6,83 Aldair
6,50 Denílson
6,36 Bebeto

On reflection a lot of those ratings favour defensive players given that it's easier to score steady 7s whereas there are higher demands in a creative, match-changing role for the 10s and 9s. But it does give a sense of some of Ronaldo's competition that summer.

 

[Annahnomoss]

That is one terrible list. Seems to be a popularity contest for people without much in depth knowledge who weren't allowed to research anything. Ronaldinho at number 23 is a joke? His best WC was his 02 one and he was second string to the stars Rivaldo and Ronaldo. Zagallo is also too far up and should definitely be below Didi without a question.

Didi was the man of the tournament in 58 ahead of Pele and rightfully so as they won the WC. He had the longevity too, winning it again in 62 and having a good World-cup in 54. Ridiculous list really, Puskas/Kocsis should be higher up as well and most of the pre '66 stars are missing completely. Meazza/Schiaffino/Varela/Sindelar/Leonidas ought to be higher.

Apparently dominating an entire WC prior to 66 like the aforementioned - is considered worse than never performing in the WC in the modern days like Ronaldinho/Messi/C.Ronaldo.

 

[The United Irishman]

It's a subjective list that is biased towards modern day footballers and is clearly taking into account their club form. What do you honestly expect?

 

[Anti-DNA]

Rankings

Interesting ranking, but I believe two of them are very inaccurate when it comes to Ronaldo. I am looking specifically at "Kicker" and "France Football".

Kicker [1-6 ranking system, 1 is the best, 6 is the worst]

Spoiler

1] GS Escócia — 3,0
2] GS Marrocos — 2,0 [1 goal, 1 assist]
3] GS Noruega — 4,0
4] L16 Chile — 2,5 [2 goals, 1 assist]
5] QF Dinamarca — 2,5 [2 assists]
6] SF Holanda — 2,5 [1 goal]
7] F França — 5,5

Very unfair rating system. My first impression is that I should not take it seriously. 2,5 is closer to an "average" [3] performance than it is to a "world class" [1] performance. I refer directly to Ronaldo x Chile — for a striker to score 2 goals, and hit the post 2 times, you only give him a 2,5 ranking?

Against Holanda, he was outstanding and made Stam with De Boer look poor. He scored a good weak-foot goal, made several individual plays, had a bicycle kick cleared off line and had a clear penalty denied. Again, only 2,5 ranking?

The rankings against all of the teams except Marrocos and França is stupid. I only looked at the ranking of matches for Ronaldo, but I do not think this is accurate.

France Football [1-6 ranking system, 1 is the worst, 6 is the best]

Spoiler

1] GS Escócia — 3
2] GS Marrocos — 4 [1 goal, 1 assist]
3] GS Noruega — 3
4] L16 Chile — 3 [2 goals]
5] QF Dinamarca — 4 [2 assists]
6] SF Holanda — 4 [1 goal]
7] F França — 2

I do not know why they again have trouble rightly ranking the performance of Ronaldo against Chile. If the other matches get a 4 ranking, how does the performance against Chile not get 5, or 6? It is funny that Zidane never gets a ranking of below 4 in the knockout rounds, their system is very biased.

It is my opinion, but against Chile, Ronaldo was spectacular. Always getting into strong positions, showing very good speed and dribbling, and then scoring 2 goals.

Looking in retrospect, Ronaldo in 1998 is the last player to have been the best of the club season to bring his strong form into the World Cup. The others were not fit, did not play, or simply underperformed. As reference I use the "UEFA Club Footballer of the Year" award.

1998: Ronaldo; 2002: Zidane; 2006: Ronaldinho; 2010: Milito

As someone said earlier, there was a lot of hype and expectation for Ronaldo, much of it coming from the commercial vehicle of Nike. It was a lot of pressure for 21-year old Ronaldo, and he performed. This is a very important thing when it comes to his performance. A lot of star players crack under the pressure: Ronaldinho, Messi, Cristiano [...] when it comes to the World Cup. We [Brasil] had odds of 3/1 going into the 1998 World Cup; França was at 11/2, Itália was at 6/1. Going into the World Cup, Ronaldo was seen as the best player by almost all of the world. He was the "star" of the Nike 1998 airport commercial which included the entire national team.


But in my opinion, the major thing in favour of Ronaldo was the context of football at that point. Ronaldo truly was a one-of-a-kind player at that point in football, at the highest level. I refer to the strikers of the 1998 Ballon d'Or voting: Suker, Ronaldo, Owen, Batistuta, Bergkamp, Bierhoff,
Raúl, Vieri.

The quickness of Ronaldo, specially in dribbling and from his first touch was very unique. He was a very raw player, very energetic, and television-friendly. There was no other player who could compare to his skill-set prior to his second major injury. Michael Owen was the only striker who could match speed, but nothing like him at dribbling.

Ronaldo did it at every stage, made big influences in almost every match — Kicker would not have given Ronaldo a 4,0 against Noruega if Cafu scored the clear chance Ronaldo offered — and was the most dynamic player of the tournament.

 

[RooneyLegend]

The fact that Sneijder, Iniesta, Villa and Xavi are so far apart tells you what you need to know about this list. They were all at a similar level in the past world cup and need to be bunched together since that's the only world cup they've all had somewhat of an impact on. Where's Forlan btw? He won a golden ball in 2010 thus has to be slightly ahead of that bunch.

Messi and Ronald aren't in anything related to the world cup so have no business being there. Not a team of the tournament, not on scoring lists, not nothing!