I know. He still won a MOTM in a CL final
I know. He was a great player after all.
The Greatest Footballer of All Time
- Thread starter Moby
- Start date
I know. He was a great player after all.
That's kind of my point. "Messi & Ronaldo would've dominated in that era" is simply the same pointless hypothetical (and, by the way, the hormonal issue is much more problematic in terms of the potential ways of solving it than discipline issues) — even though yes, they would've dominated, we'll just never know to what extent.
Not sure if you are aware but Maradonas favourite thing was playing with a ball. Players did train twice a day when he was a player, not sure why you think he wouldnt have liked it. He loved training.
What part of my post was a giveaway?
Goalie - Goram
Right back - McGrain
Midfielder - Zidane
Striker - Ronaldo ( fake)
midfielders/ defenders (CB/LB)/ strikers could change every time but ma goalie and right back Guaranteed every time even though I can’t stand and absolutely hate the man, what a goalie, just being 100% honest,
Schmeichel
Buffon
Khan
Neuer
Seaman
Toldo
Andy Goram pisses all over every one of them without a shadow of a doubt, unfortunately.
Right back - McGrain
Midfielder - Zidane
Striker - Ronaldo ( fake)
midfielders/ defenders (CB/LB)/ strikers could change every time but ma goalie and right back Guaranteed every time even though I can’t stand and absolutely hate the man, what a goalie, just being 100% honest,
Schmeichel
Buffon
Khan
Neuer
Seaman
Toldo
Andy Goram pisses all over every one of them without a shadow of a doubt, unfortunately.
Really tough call, the game has seen so many unbelievable players, my top list includes: Maradona, Baresi, Van Basten, Beckenbauer, Messi, Cristiano, Zidane, Ronaldinho. It's really hard to pick between any of them, but I'd say Maradona. No one can take the taste of football out of my mouth when I see him play or think of him as a footballer, it really feels above anything else.
Messi for me. Only stain on his record is his failure to win a world cup with Argentina. But at club level, unparalleled.
You are confusing Maradona with Romario. Maradona was a hard trainer. Infact as per Zola, he would at times be the last person to leave.
I think, in today'd generation with super agents, Maradona wouldn't have been indulgent in drugs. At most he would have been like Suarez, in terms of professionalism and attitude, a horrible cnutish player who will do anything to win on the field.
Messi covers less distance on average than Maradona used to despite playing in this more 'intense' era.
Cause CR7 and Messi are not used at all to those type of tackles and cause their bodies would not cope. Maradona was slightly smaller than Messi in terms of height, but he was way better built. So was Pele.
Brilliant post.
Yes, that is what I was talking about, the fact that they couldn't cope physically and that they'd get injured far too often. Also, by not dominating I meant that they wouldn't replicate the same stats as they have now.
George Best
Have I really just read a post - from a Celtic fan of all people - saying Andy Goram is the worlds best ever keeper?
Biggest WUM ever?
Would like to hear more.
Given that there's only 2 Andy gorams that would seem to give them a head start in goalkeeping terms ?Have I really just read a post - from a Celtic fan of all people - saying Andy Goram is the worlds best ever keeper?
Biggest WUM ever?
Would like to hear more.
There's no coin to be tossed. CR7 has had just as good a club career (if not better), and he has also managed to win trophies with Portugal, which is an inferior team to Argentina. Although he's not better ability wise, CR7 is clearly greater than Messi.
But neither is as great as Pele and Maradona.
Not sure if serious..... can’t be. Goram never played football in a «professional» league, unless you count his two appearances for United. The Scottish league is piss-poor. If you haven’t played at the top level, you automatically forfeit this competition. Same goes for Pele, the level of football was so low it’s impossible to rate how good he actually was. Football now and football then are two different sports, not only evolution.
At club level, CR7 has him beat (he won more Champions Leagues and proved himself in 3 leagues). Pele has just as good a record himself. Cruyff isn't that far behind either.
You can never be the GOAT without a World Cup. Messi's failure to win a major trophy with Argentina is what prevents him from surpassing Pele, Maradona and even CR7, who has won a major trophy with Portugal (an inferior team to Argentina).
Your body doesn't learn to cope with being tackled harshly, it's not like your bones, muscles and joints get tougher after you've been kicked and slammed to the ground a certain amount of times, you either get hurt or you don't and the best prevention for impact injuries for a footballer is being as well trained and fit as possible, and I'm not really going out on a limb when I say that modern players are much better trained than the guys from the 60's-80's. Messi (170cm/~70kg), Maradona (165cm/~70-75kg) and Pele (172cm/~73kg) are very similar in both height and weight and if you can conclude that the latter two were "better built" to prevent injuries from hits and tackles then you've got a skill that I don't. Not that it matters much since both Pele and Maradona have nothing on Ronaldo when it comes to physicality or their build so the argument kinda stops there anyway.
As for being used to tackles, if there are two modern players that are used to it it's Messi and Ronaldo. The former in particular since he's probably dribbled and transported the ball more than any other player in the last 15 years and they've both been hacked down by terrible tackles more times than we can count, yet even if that wasn't true it's still pretty strange to imply that they wouldn't be able to adapt if they were sent back to the 70's. Otherwise it's a bit like saying that if Pele played today he would never be able to hit the target because the modern balls are so much lighter than what he was used to so he'd send it up into row Z every time for 10 years straight.
The Scottish league certainly wasn’t piss poor during Goram’s time. There was plenty of talent around. Rangers were a really good side, they knocked out the English champions (Leeds) in the champions league during that run too.
The GOAT/World Cup argument is silly.
Would anyone on the planet argue that George Best was inferior to Kleberson because Kleberson won a World Cup but Best failed to do so? I seriously doubt it.
Pogba has won a WC but neither Messi nor CRonaldo have, but no one would argue that Pogba is the superior footballer of the three.
What’s interesting about Pele, whom I had as the GOAT until Messi, is that in no single World Cup was he regarded at the time as the greatest player in that World Cup. Fontaine in 58 was clearly superior to Pele. Then Garrincha, then Jairzinho in subsequent World Cups. (And arguably Muller in 1970.). But Pele’s teams won 3 World Cup and clubs countless trophies...the goals scored over that 12 year period to 1970, after which time his play declined, was astonishing.
Would anyone on the planet argue that George Best was inferior to Kleberson because Kleberson won a World Cup but Best failed to do so? I seriously doubt it.
Pogba has won a WC but neither Messi nor CRonaldo have, but no one would argue that Pogba is the superior footballer of the three.
What’s interesting about Pele, whom I had as the GOAT until Messi, is that in no single World Cup was he regarded at the time as the greatest player in that World Cup. Fontaine in 58 was clearly superior to Pele. Then Garrincha, then Jairzinho in subsequent World Cups. (And arguably Muller in 1970.). But Pele’s teams won 3 World Cup and clubs countless trophies...the goals scored over that 12 year period to 1970, after which time his play declined, was astonishing.
I'm talking about weight per height ratio. Pele and Maradona were bulkier compared to their height than Messi and CR7.
I did the math.. kilo per centimeter:
Messi - 0.411
Pele - 0.418
Maradona - 0.439
Ronaldo - 0.449 (187cm/84kg)
So Ronaldo turns out to be the bulkiest and there's a difference of a whopping 0.028kg/cm between Messi and Maradona, and we know Maradona had more body fat since we just need to look at a couple of pictures to figure that out. I think you've simply convinced yourself that the old guys are more sturdy somehow and therefore better able to take a hit but there's nothing that actually supports that, especially when we know that muscles protects your ligaments, joints and bones better than fat which speaks in favour of the young guys.
This thread has officially peaked.
We all know these kind of threads produce the bestest posts, and we simply had to know how the bulk was spread out!
Kleberson was simply part of a team that won a World Cup, he didn't drag them to one.
Pogba's club career is nowhere near as good as that of CR7 and Messi, and just like Kleberson, he didn't drag France to their win. He played good, but was nowhere near as instrumental as the likes of say Maradona, Ronaldo, Romario, etc.
Pele was injured in the 62 and 66 World Cups, when he was at his peak and when he could have put on a similar performance as Maradona did in 86.
Pele has just as good a club career as Messi and CR7, and a far superior one at international level, which is what makes him the greater player.
Just being 100% honest.Have I really just read a post - from a Celtic fan of all people - saying Andy Goram is the worlds best ever keeper?
Biggest WUM ever?
Would like to hear more.
The strength of leagues has changed over the years and at certain points (such as the 1960s, 1980s and early 1990s) the coefficient of the Scottish League was comparable with any of today's big leagues. That's unlikely to ever happen again, but that was the reality of football then. By the same logic you would rule out the likes of Best (olden days player) and Yashin (olden days player and didn't play in one of today's big leagues). Anyway, Goram was impressive for Rangers in the Champions League (denying your man Cantona multiple times when we turned over Leeds) and had two excellent international tournaments to his name at Euro '92 and Euro '96. I wouldn't place him as best-of-all-time, but he deserves to be in the conversation.
Maradona is the greatest after George Best.
The Brazilian Ronaldo led his team to a World Cup in 2002, and of course was a major force in 1998 but suffered that freak medical breakdown the day of the final. But Messi...no World Cup trophies, yet I don’t think anyone would argue that Ronaldo, a truly phenomenal footballer, was superior to Messi on account of the former winning a World Cup trophy.
There’s no arguing with Pete’s trophy haul and individual stats. The margin of the argument between the two is very narrow and I’ve argued here before that if one is looking for a a tiebreaker between the two that going with their international trophy record is reasonable. But it’s also the case that Pele was surrounded by substantially more talent in his NT than Messi ever was and that both in all four WCs Pele was not regarded at the time as the team’s best player, though by 1970 Pele took on a fully deserved global iconic status. And Messi never stopped a civil war, did he?
The question has been debated to death elsewhere on the caf so I won’t present the full case here, but Messi’s record of achievement in has been accomplished in a football world that’s more competitive than it was during Pele’s career. (It wasn’t until Pele was past his prime when the great German and Netherlands national and club teams reached their peaks.) While we can’t overlook your well taken point about their respective trophy hauls, it should also be noted that Argentina’s teams were mostly one-man teams, whereas Brazil’s teams were studded with so much talent that 1958, 1962 and 1970 Pele wasn’t even regarded as the team’s best player, although he is rightly regarded at Brazil’s greatest player.
That's true to a point, but in 1958 and 1970 it wasn't clear-cut who was the best player in the tournament. In 1958 it was Didi and Kopa who were generally regarded as the best players, albeit Fontaine obviously filled his boots, but the 17-year-old Pele was right up there too. All 6 of his goals were in the knockout stages when Brazil faced tougher opposition, scoring the only goal against a wiley stubborn Wales, a hat-trick against France in the semi, and two in the final against Sweden. And I think in 1970 Muller was obviously brilliant, but Pele's 9/10 hybrid role as the focal point and attacking hub made him Brazil's most important player, even though both Jairzinho and Gerson (who had a similar midfield leadership role) were right up there too. I suppose it wouldn't have been unreasonable for someone to call him the best player in either of those tournaments, because there were a handful in contention, whereas it was fairly clear cut in 1962 Garrincha (with Pele out), as you say, was standalone as the best player.
Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi and Ronaldo are obviously great, but their insane numbers at club level have to be taken into perspective.
Both of them played most of their careers (in Messi's case: his entire career) for superclubs, that created their entire system in a way so that both could score as many goals as possible.
Back in the day of Maradona etc. there weren't any superclubs that basically destroyed half their league by 5-7 goals per game, like prime Real or Barca did.
The national team stats are much more representative of their raw abilities without supersquad + system bonus:
Messi: 142 games, 71 goals (0.50 goals/game), 51 assists (0.36 assists/game) ----> overall 0.86 scorerpoints/game
Cristiano: 170 games, 102 goals (0.60 goals/game), 41 assists (0.24 assists/game) ----> overall 0.84 scorerpoints/game
Those numbers are absolutely great of course, but they're far from unmatched, if we look back at great strikers/offensive players from the past.
Prime vs prime, I'd pick Ronaldo over Messi every single time. Both have their strong points, but R9 edges it cause he can adapt to any league, any team, any teammates, any system...and WIN. Messi can't, he's a system player.
From around 2010 to 2016, Messi was surrounded by world class teammates, just like Pele was.
And Pele was clearly the best player in the world in 62 and 66, he simply happened to get injured during those World Cups.
Yes, in many respects football is more competitive, but in many others, it isn't. Back in Pele's time, there were no "super teams" (as I call them), meaning most top teams had 1 or 2 stars at best. Nowadays, a handful of teams pick up all the top players, so their adversaries are far inferior, which means it's a lot easier to win trophies.
Disagree, they played at huge clubs but they made them super teams. Barca without Messi are dogshite and Real since Ronaldo left after Sergio Ramos, Dads Army and Eden the Pie Man. Those players are what really made them super teams. despite having amazing team mates.
This is a fair point, people often overlook the modern day superclub set up in assessing those guys. It simply wasn’t like that in the past.
I have to say that I think that Pele is the greatest footballer of all time, and I came to this conclusion after watching as many full matches and extraneous footage as I could find. He just does not have a weakness as an attacking player and there are no holes in his record. Virtually every other top candidate has a major gap in their CV
Not sure how to handle multiple quotes, so please bear with me.
On the first point, it's an easy call Messi > R9, but I respect the respect you have for R9. But I have to strongly disagree with the assertion that Messi is a "system player". You give Messi the ball and he torches 5 or 6 defenders and then scores. He's nothing like an actual system striker. A system striker would be someone who scores at the end of crosses or at the end of intricate passing. Messi does score at the end of intricate passing on occasion, but the majority of his goals are his work where his 10 other teammates are watching with their mouths open wondering WTF they just witnessed.
R9 did much the same, torching defenders at will (but for a very short time) but in no universe is R9 at Messi's level, at least not over the course of their respective careers.
Messi had great teammates, as Pele did. I don't think we can break that tie with hard data, but what I will say is that Pele was surrounded by players in what many regard as the greatest side of all time, Brazil 1970. And although no one, myself included, would argue that Muller > Pele, it is the case that Muller was the better player in the 1970 World Cup. And at the time in 1970 was not regarded as Brazil's best player. We do have CR7 who was at his prime during Messi's prime years 10-16, but we can without any doubt that Messi's best and greatest player by a considerable distance (who, Iniesta, Neymar, Suarez...I don't think so) and that but for CR7 Messi would have at least 9 or 10 ballon d'or trophies.
Football is in fact more competitive now than it was in the 1960s (Pele was not a factor in the 1970s, at least not after the 1970 World Cup). We can all go over videos of football as it was played in England, Germany and Brazil during the 1960s and the pace and technical quality just isn't what it is today. That Brazil team in 1970s was exceptional and would compete well with any national team today, but club football for the most part is almost not even watchable compared to what we see at the top level of club football today. We can explain that away with nutritional and training standards, but that would only explain why club football in the 1960s is inferior to today's football, not refute the point that it is.
But "peak" R9 was indeed a phenomenon. A shame it didn't last very long. Messi, on the other hand, has been truly world class for 13 or 14 years now and looks like good value for remaining at an extremely high level for at least another 2-3 years. R9, maybe 4 at most.
I don’t think this is the point. I think people bring up World Cups because if you’re going to say that someone is the greatest player of all time, literally better than anyone else who has ever played the sport, then it helps to have played a significant part in capturing the game’s most prestigious trophy.The debate was always traditionally between Pele and Maradona, largely because of their World Cup exploits. But it’s not just that they were part of a squad that won (like Kleberson), they scored great goals and had unforgettable, iconic moments on the sport’s biggest stage.
Also, I would argue that you are incorrect about Pele in ‘58 and ‘70. Fontaine was definitely not better, he just scored more goals. The France v Brazil game is available online, it’s a great watch. I think Pele played even better in that game than in the final. And though Didi was perhaps the senior leader in ‘58, Pele was definitely the best player at the 1970 World Cup. Again, Jairzinho did score in every round but his all-round performances were not better than Pele’s IMO, he was the fulcrum of that side
I retract my reference to Kleberson and substitute in his place Zidane, a truly phenomenal player who led France to WC finals, winning one of them.
Yet nearly 100% of serious football observers rate Messi over Zidane, despite Messi having not yet won any WC trophies
As for Pele, I can’t argue against his trophy credentials. But what I can argue, and this is just opinion, is that Pele was surrounded by vastly greater talent on his NT than Messi. Aguero comes nowhere close to starting for any of the Brazil sides between 1958 and 1970, but it’s not hard to imagine swapping in Messi for Pele and Brazil achieving the same success.
What we also know is that Pele declined significantly after he turned 30, whereas Messi is still going very string as a B d’Or short lister in his mid 30. Perhaps we can explain Pele’s decline as the inevitable result of pressure amd global exposure, but that decline nevertheless happened as it happened.
But for those who hold that Pele is the GOAT, and I was one who held this view until several seasons ago, I don’t argue against that view, but I look at what Messi has done and continues to do at the very highest level and do not see how Pele performing at that level.
Can you back at least one of those claims, please? I'm especially interested in who was the real star of that Brazil side? Jairzinho? Rivelino? Everaldo?