I have Baresi and Scirea ahead of him too. Maldini is the Federer of those three though.
Yeah Pele has called about 20 other players the best ever
I had forgotten about Baresi when I posted my list. Its just too hard now, too many greats.
I think its about consistency and longevity. If Messi had retired due to injury at 25 many would have him up there, but C. Ronaldo above because of his consistency. But also we got to see a certain part of Ronaldo Nazario at his peak. He was the ideal nr. 9 apart from not being awesome at headers. He was never a set piece specialist really and didnt run games the way Messi, Maradona and Pelé could. He was awesome at scoring goals out of nothing though.
Not too sure about this. At Inter, Ronaldo played with the #10 and rightly so as he was the one running the show for them. Here's a 30 minute compilation of his 97/98 season. It is ridiculous how many plays he had in a single season, that's better than the career highlights of many world class players. He was no playmaker in the traditional sense but rather somebody who beat players for fun and created chances that way, more similar to the younger verison of Messi than the older one that relied more and more on his passing. One way or another, the density of plays in which he ran a game is unreal.
In fact there are too many people that think of him as the best ever "if not for injuries" and I found this quiet an stretch, he had some Genius traits, he was a clear phenom, mostly is fascinating seeing such a big and powerful guy being so skilled, but more focus in a role. My favorite pure forward ever, even if I think that romario was a better finisher and quite undervalue as a team player and his playmaking skills due to be so stubborn and even maybe, lazy?.
I was very young in the 90s so I only caught a bit of the hype and quickly forgot about it when I started watching football 'consciously' as he wasn't all that special anymore back then. It was only when I started watching highlights, even on match basis, of his time at Barca and Inter that I understood how freakish he was. I don't think he had a smaller density of good plays than Messi for instance, at least not when you factor in today's super squads and especially that the methodization of football gets superstars in much more situations they excel in.
I perfectly understand what you've said. Yet trust me he had a lesser density of plays than Zico, Messi, Pele, Maradona, in terms of slaloms, ball distribution, etc. he thrives better with certain ammount of space, also when looking in detail, he missed quite a lot, he scored many times with not great angles or great shots, etc...let's remind us with whom I'm comparing him, he is of course in that upper upper echelon.
Fair post this. I don't think Messi was better than Maradona. He certainly didn't have more ability and Maradona was an absolute leader. Also, and this is key, imagine Maradona, Cruyff, Pele, Puskas, Platini, Charlton, George Best etc playing with the protection players now receive. Maradona was fouled 23 times by one player in a famous Italy vs Argentina match. One game!!!
"Messi nowhere near the top" has to be one of the most stupid statements I've seen about football
Why not? Platini was seen as the best player in the world up until 1986. Maradona is only seen as the greatest by people due to nostalgia and romanticism anyway. People follow a narrative and stick with it. Granted Maradona was better than Platini, but there is not as much in it as people like to think.
He could win 3 WC though. I may be convinced then.
There is a simpler way of looking at it. Replace Maradona with Platini in the Juventus team, he would have won those titles. Replace Platini with Maradona in the Argentina and Napoli team, he would have won feck all.
Based on what?
I totally get your point, absolutely, because I do think Platini is vastly forgotten (Zico too) in correlation to their inmense talent and also specially in the case of Platini, their carreers.
There's plenty of good arguments to pick Pele/Maradona over Messi.
I agree with this. He was an awesome player, but i don't think he had the all-around quality of Pele, Messi; i'd call him a good/very good passer rather than a great one, though. The fact he failed to reinvent his style after the injury tends to get completely glossed over in assessing him. That could be argued to mainly be down to him losing too much of his dedication, but i also think there was, just as arguably, also a significant element of him not having the natural inclination/ability for playmaking to reinvent himself as a top 9.5/10.
I'm assuming you're Brazilian?
#9's don't tend to reinvent themselves as anything else unless absolutely ruined physically. Ronaldo still had the ability to run well in straight lines or in moments and he was tasked with that job and being the more cunning mover in the box than he ever was pre-injury, post-injury. What he reinvented himself as was a better and shrewder poacher and opportunist; that doesn't run in tandem with being a constant threat as a #10 or any derivative of it as the mindset is so different.
In general i'd agree, though not with the first paragraph. I didn't see much reinvention at all at Real Madrid, just a slower, less effective version who's finishing might have improved very slightly through experience, but even there i'm not sure. but as fobal has said in his posts, we're talking in the context of all-time great comparisons. Being as multi-faceted as possible is going to get you placed that little bit higher and i think in this company Ronaldo falls short. I agree with fobal's take on him being an upgraded Mbappe, Weah sort of player. as good as you'll get in that mold without crossing into territory like Pele and Messi.
Nope man, I'm argie and to be frank? I think I was clear of how I see him as a player and how I view his carreer and style.
Ronaldo started heading the ball at Real, which was easily his worst attribute and something he was rarely known to do pre-injury. His heading output obviously didn't go through the roof, but his desire and attempts to even be in position to entertain such things increased a great deal. He didn't erase the old player, but he adapted and worked with what he had plus carried more intent and desire to work in space (away from, instead of toward the ball). That's a lot of adjusting and amending and it doesn't really meld well with being a player intently focused upon work in and around the #10 area of the pitch. His injuries saw that budding interest clipped and his work from deep reduced a lot because it wasn't in his best interests to be in and around those areas of the pitch anymore, whereas prior to the injury, he initialised a lot of attacks from deep anyway and we saw him adding more strings to his bow, beings as he was in that area of pitch and it made a lot of sense to at least attempt to hone this area of his game.
I get what you're saying, and can take on board the branches of the same 'family' you're listing, but even in brief observation, Ronaldo being grouped with those players is the most egregious as three of them favoured work from outside to in (wide to cutting inside in the final third) and the other, in Weah, just isn't similar to me (as I posited to @Demyanenko_square_jaw in the post above).
I agree with a lot of what you've said here and I do think that R9 doesn't receive enough credit when comes to him becoming more of a poacher, goalscorer, striker specially in his Madrid and late Brazil era. As a side note it was allways weird to me how such a physical imposing player didn't like that much to use his body in the little area or like you've said in general he preffer to burn throught players...Pele, Moreno, or Alfredo on contrair not few times invite such contact even being smaller players, but I do agree that in his best version he could avoid such and merely put a strong foot if the ball just went too far, but not going a bit physical on purpose like Weah liked
It's interesting to me that you branched the 'families' as you did because I think the first thing any branch player with Ronaldo has to have is that desire to come deep, initialise the play in the heart of central midfield and work into a crescendo of chaos, galloping directly towards goal; to be dramatic, the biggest threat Ronaldo carried and what made him so unique and exciting to watch was the feeling the storm was coming and the awareness the opposition had to try and stop that from occurring before it really picked up a head of steam and he could break into space and then use his speed (speed after the initial power to break or burst through), so for me, it's difficult to find many players who combine so many things.
That's why I put Kempes in his branch, a player that sometimes didn't decide if he was a midfielder or a forward, but like R9 he suddenly started to burst, improvise and found himself in the rival's area, yet R9 had more finesse, avoid more contact, etc...both share another aspect, for the good and bad, pure instinct in his actions, even if capable of seeing a great pass while running towards the opposition, I always felt that they ended facing the rivals net by some sort of inertia and this sometimes in bad cases could end with some "clouncy" ending (specially Kempes) in comparison with other massive dribblers like Pele, Zico, Diego or Messi that has a better managed of time and space in my view.
He would be in my top 5 list if he wasn’t injured or getting fat or well past his peak for long periods of his career.
It’s interesting to compare Maradona and Platini.
For years I've thought Messi was the greatest ever. But what I never considered is how'd he fare against Paul Ince. I'm now doubting myself.
For Maradona to win the SA footballer of the year in the late 70s and early 80s is unbelievable. An era where the best players in the world were playing in South America. My point earlier was that, Maradona is never recognised for this period of his career. Platini blossomed from the age of 27. Maradona already had 8 years before he smashed it 86-89.
I did Weah a disservice yesterday and fell into the cardinal trap of marginalising one talent to champion another, which was not my intention, but could easily be seen as such. One thing I didn't really make clear is that Weah was embroiled in a lot more tussles and physical stuff than Ronaldo over a game because of the opposition, rather than his desire to be. Although a superior athlete to quite a few he came up against, he was still within the realms of normal, but strong and fast human; not stronger than a Vieri, not faster than a Van Basten, no more explosive or unpredictable on the first few touches and actions than a Signori, and not more nimble and deft than a Baggio, so combined with the lack of laser-like focus or capability in terms of finishing, a very eclectic and entertaining player who was extremely well rounded, but more likely than not to be in the thick of things without being able to break free. That said with his penchant for the occasional solo run and moments of really exciting play, but not in a similar fashion to Ronaldo, where every time he got on the ball, everything went to red alert and panic stations were engaged immediately. I never saw a player panic Serie A anywhere near as much as Ronaldo did from the first action, and a I don't think Weah was a watered down version of that even if, as you say, there is a removal of a certain number of points per attribute for Ronaldo - I don't think that product dials down to Weah's game, personally.
Enjoy your posts. Hope you stick around.Thanks man, thought when I've read again my post, damn my english sucks, thanks for the effort
