Can never make my mind up as they were all individually gifted. But these 3 for me -
Maradonna
Messi
Ronaldinho
Alsoi mentions for Di Stefan and Puskas are my dad's shout.
comment by sandy (U20567)
posted 2 hours, 19 minutes ago
Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein
Not sure if you 2 are high on something, but Jimmy Greaves is a class below Ronaldo de Lima. Comfortably. Comparing stats across eras is a bit silly as well. The 60's was a higher scoring era of football than the 90's and early 00's.
Not as high scoring as today`s gimmes in Spain, last six seasons goals scored La Liga for both Real and Barca
Real Madrid
2010-11 102
2011-12 121
2012-13 103
2013-14 104
2014-15 118
2015-16 110
Barca
2010-11 95
2011-12 114
2012-13 115
2013-14 100
2014-15 110
2015-16 112
Pretty well guaranteed a 100 goals in La Liga every season with the sub-stand opposition.
Scoring 100 goals in the top flight of English football is very, very difficult, even back in the 1960s was only ever achieved five times across the whole decade.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When Ronaldo de Lima played for Barca and Inter and won his awards, those teams weren't bagging anything remotely close to those goals. Barca were a struggling team post-Cruyff in the 90's and Inter struggled behind Juve, Milan and even a team like Lazio. Even in his Madrid days, Valencia was a force in Spanish football winning a few league titles and reaching 2 CL finals.
Sorry man, but "Il Fenomeno" was a hell of a phenomenon in a different class from even a striker like Greaves. Injuries facked him over and then he reinvented himself from a devastating all-round attacker to a Romario-esque player.
A major black mark against Greaves too is his dry cabinet. The guy joined Spurs, by far the best team in the country in '61 (and the likes of Sandy would have me believe that Spurs team with the likes of Mackay and Blanchflower and Cliff Jones etc were the bestest team ever managed by the bestest coach ever in Nicholson) for a record fee and they became little more than a cup side.
Is it any wonder that Barcelona and Real Madrid have scored the amount of goals when they have comfortably the 2 best players in the world in their teams?
Check out the stats; before Messi and Ronaldo came along they weren't scoring near to 100 goals a season.
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 12 minutes ago
Is it any wonder that Barcelona and Real Madrid have scored the amount of goals when they have comfortably the 2 best players in the world in their teams?
Check out the stats; before Messi and Ronaldo came along they weren't scoring near to 100 goals a season.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's not counting that you also have Suarez, bale etc into the mix, i.e. basically the elite players of the world!
so is that a positive or a minus?
Diego never had the luxury of working alongside those players he genuinely dragged the side..Messi had the MSN strikeforce and Ronaldo has the BBC
comment by Bad tardo (U19119)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 12 minutes ago
Is it any wonder that Barcelona and Real Madrid have scored the amount of goals when they have comfortably the 2 best players in the world in their teams?
Check out the stats; before Messi and Ronaldo came along they weren't scoring near to 100 goals a season.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's not counting that you also have Suarez, bale etc into the mix, i.e. basically the elite players of the world!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep. But we're expected to believe Sunderland, West Ham etc. are going to cause them problems more than the lesser La Liga teams?
Greavsie hardly had a dry cabinet, 2 FA cups, a European Cup Winners Cup (as part of the first British team to win a European trophy) and the highest honour of all, a World Cup.
It's absurd to judge Maradona by his goal tally, because he was primarily a creator, not a finisher. People who do so demonstrate their ignorance.
I can understand people using it as an argument, and even on overall footballing abilities I could see why some people might consider Messi the superior player, but there's a huge albeit less tangible difference in Maradona's favour and that was his character, he was a true leader, much more than Messi will ever be.
how do it's?
Diego had such drive, when the chips were down he'd be up for the fight or a fight you have players like that in your side and it lifts the others.
Look at United vs Juve in the treble season - they were dead and buried but Keano decided otherwise - Diego was like that, carry the team not just in one game but all the bloody time. Messi has Aguero/Higuain/Dybala/Icardi to share the burden...Diego had Canniggia and Balbo -all 3 of them serving drugs bans at one time or another
Have you ever watched Argentina play? All of Aguero, Higuain and Di Maria are awful. Dybala and Icardi don't have many caps yet but I'm sure they'll prove to terrible too. Messi carries Argentina.
still better options than what Diego had to play with, well until Batigol came around
not just the WC win in '86 but El Diego also carried them to the final in '90 - bit no-one mentions that bit
Hey, Tino! All good?
Exactly, Maradona got all 11 players fighting.
I do think we tend to wax lyrical in the sense that there were many games he could go anonymous, but not in the biggest games, not when it mattered most. He never hid in those circumstances. In others, well it's anyone's guess in how many of them he wasn't just nursing a massive hangover!
I'm sound mate, obvs in hiding after our mullering last week
strangely enough Diego was clean till he signed for Barca
comment by Loco Liverpool (U18018)
posted 8 minutes ago
Have you ever watched Argentina play? All of Aguero, Higuain and Di Maria are awful. Dybala and Icardi don't have many caps yet but I'm sure they'll prove to terrible too. Messi carries Argentina.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think you're missing the precise point there, Loco.
As Tino says, they are mostly way better options than Maradona had. So how is that players who are big stars for their respective club sides cannot raise their game for the NT?
Why is it that patently inferior footballers played like conquerors when in light blue and white stripes?
Imho, it's because there was one man there who they had absolute blind faith in and who they'd have jumped off a cliff for.
I remember watching one of Jorge Valdano's best-ever performances at the Bernabeu, a game where we hit Elche for 6, of which Valdano scored 4, and upon leaving the ground the comments revolved around much of a massive lump he was.
comment by Tino - senza rischio non c'e vittoria (U2087)
posted 4 minutes ago
I'm sound mate, obvs in hiding after our mullering last week
strangely enough Diego was clean till he signed for Barca
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ventura messed up big time. But you've been known to win World Cups from worse positions.
Maradona is the epitome of the old adage, you can take the kid off the streets, but you can't take the streets out of the kid.
Ironically though, you could also argue that made him ideally suited to his football era, which was much more Wild, Wild West compared to today's Silicone Valley game.
I liked the risk of going 4-2-4 but it wasn't a must win game as such, a draw would have been ok..but now we have the play-offs to look forward to.
Diego is of naples and as my grandad used to call him, he's a scugnizzo
http://www.naplesldm.com/scugnizzo.php
comment by Tino - senza rischio non c'e vittoria (U2087)
posted 4 minutes ago
Diego is of naples and as my grandad used to call him, he's a scugnizzo
http://www.naplesldm.com/scugnizzo.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep, very apt.
comment by Tino - senza rischio non c'e vittoria (U2087)
posted 7 minutes ago
so is that a positive or a minus?
Diego never had the luxury of working alongside those players he genuinely dragged the side..Messi had the MSN strikeforce and Ronaldo has the BBC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To attract and keep Maradonna, Napoli made big signings at the time. It's worth noting too that European football wasn't quite as "top-heavy" as the modern era where CL and PL money have created a small cartel of European giants who have consolidated their position. Little Hellas Veronas won the league in Maradona's first season in Napoli for example and around the time, you had the likes of Forest conquering England and Europe, and Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade winning the European Cup. Maradona was by far Napoli's best player, but the whole concept of how he dragged them single-handed to titles is tad overplayed when used against a player like Messi. It's almost like suggesting Mahrez is somehow better than Hazard because he dragged a far less star-studded Leicester team than Chelsea to the title.
It's absurd to judge Maradona by his goal tally, because he was primarily a creator, not a finisher. People who do so demonstrate their ignorance.
I can understand people using it as an argument, and even on overall footballing abilities I could see why some people might consider Messi the superior player, but there's a huge albeit less tangible difference in Maradona's favour and that was his character, he was a true leader, much more than Messi will ever be.
---------------------------------
Depends on what you mean by creator. He was a no.10 in the Cruyff/Platini/Di Dtefano mode operating just behind or off the striker and those players were incredibly prolific. Messi himself doesn't play a role in Barca much different from Maradonna: he just does it with better players in a better team.
And I do agree he had greater "character" than Messi. Ronaldo has outperformed Messi in the past few seasons, not because he actually played better (Messi was miles better all-round than Ronaldo last season) but because Ronaldo stood up to be counted when he was needed and Messi's head somehow dropped. Hell, even Neymar tended to outperform him in the bigger games.
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
A major black mark against Greaves too is his dry cabinet. The guy joined Spurs, by far the best team in the country in '61 (and the likes of Sandy would have me believe that Spurs team with the likes of Mackay and Blanchflower and Cliff Jones etc were the bestest team ever managed by the bestest coach ever in Nicholson) for a record fee and they became little more than a cup side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever thought how much more competitive it was back in Greavsies Days. Eleven different sides won the 1st division, and Twelve different sides won the FA Cup during Jimmy Greaves career, may have actually been more, that is just off the top of my head.
There was none of this one or two clubs hovering up all the domestic trophies like happens in the modern game.
Have you also ever wondered why players like Matthews, Finney, Moore, Cohen, Banks, etc also won so few domestic trophies, even George Best, only ever won a couple of leagues, and one FA Cup, it was because of the utter competitive nature of the top division back in the day.
Spurs were top of the pile at the start of the decade, but it was infinitely more difficult than today to stay top for very long. These days, one or two teams can blow away the opposition with their vast spending power. Not competitive at all.
Ever thought how much more competitive it was back in Greavsies Days. Eleven different sides won the 1st division, and Twelve different sides won the FA Cup during Jimmy Greaves career, may have actually been more, that is just off the top of my head.
-------------------------------------------
That was around the same period Real Madrid won 6 CL titles in 11 years and no English side could win till Man U in '68. And then Liverpool in '77. Maybe no team at the time in England was dominant because none was good enough to set itself apart. Far as I'm concerned, if the best team in the country buys the best striker in the country at the peak of their dominance, you'd expect them to perform a lot better than Spurs eventually did.
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
To attract and keep Maradonna, Napoli made big signings at the time. It's worth noting too that European football wasn't quite as "top-heavy" as the modern era where CL and PL money have created a small cartel of European giants who have consolidated their position. Little Hellas Veronas won the league in Maradona's first season in Napoli for example and around the time, you had the likes of Forest conquering England and Europe, and Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade winning the European Cup. Maradona was by far Napoli's best player, but the whole concept of how he dragged them single-handed to titles is tad overplayed when used against a player like Messi. It's almost like suggesting Mahrez is somehow better than Hazard because he dragged a far less star-studded Leicester team than Chelsea to the title.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fair, although with certain caveats:
1. It could be argued that Maradona was what enabled Napoli to lure some of the better players they signed
2. Though football was indeed top heavy, Serie A in those days was about as close as any national league has ever got to Champions League class.
Serie A was very much the go to league, similiar to what the PL is nowadays, with the vital difference that the very best players were also there, and not at Madrid or Barça or Bayern or United. Serie A was littered with star names, and not just the Milan sides or Juve.
3. European football was a different beast to what it is now. It had a much bigger element of venturing into the unknown as regards what you know about many of your opponents, and each country was only allowed a single entrant, all of which made for an immensely more open competition
4. The point you make with Mahrez will have validity the day his presence in a lesser side consistently turns them into contenders. Beyond that, there are just certain things that are undeniable when you watch footballers in action over a sustained period. Which I will address in my next post.
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 1 hour, 16 minutes ago
Ever thought how much more competitive it was back in Greavsies Days. Eleven different sides won the 1st division, and Twelve different sides won the FA Cup during Jimmy Greaves career, may have actually been more, that is just off the top of my head.
-------------------------------------------
That was around the same period Real Madrid won 6 CL titles in 11 years and no English side could win till Man U in '68. And then Liverpool in '77. Maybe no team at the time in England was dominant because none was good enough to set itself apart. Far as I'm concerned, if the best team in the country buys the best striker in the country at the peak of their dominance, you'd expect them to perform a lot better than Spurs eventually did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I see you have conveniently side-stepped why the old 1st division was so competitive, with so many winners in the 1960s, and started talking about Real Madrid of the 1950s.
Being top goalscorer back in the day in no way equated to winning trophies. Plenty of players topped the goalscoring charts without being anywhere near winning a trophy. Indeed Greaves topped the goalscoring charts twice whilst playing for Chelsea, despite the fact they finished both seasons nearer the bottom than the top.
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 1 hour, 36 minutes ago
It's absurd to judge Maradona by his goal tally, because he was primarily a creator, not a finisher. People who do so demonstrate their ignorance.
I can understand people using it as an argument, and even on overall footballing abilities I could see why some people might consider Messi the superior player, but there's a huge albeit less tangible difference in Maradona's favour and that was his character, he was a true leader, much more than Messi will ever be.
---------------------------------
Depends on what you mean by creator. He was a no.10 in the Cruyff/Platini/Di Dtefano mode operating just behind or off the striker and those players were incredibly prolific. Messi himself doesn't play a role in Barca much different from Maradonna: he just does it with better players in a better team.
And I do agree he had greater "character" than Messi. Ronaldo has outperformed Messi in the past few seasons, not because he actually played better (Messi was miles better all-round than Ronaldo last season) but because Ronaldo stood up to be counted when he was needed and Messi's head somehow dropped. Hell, even Neymar tended to outperform him in the bigger games.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Di Stefano was considered by many the world's first truly complete footballer. Read what contemporaries such as Bobby Charlton and other greats of the game had to say about him.
Why do I point this out? Because nominally, you can say Maradona was a number 10, but the reality that anyone who watched him is aware of is that he would very often as a deep playmaker, dropping to the edge of his own third to collect the ball from his defenders and build from there.
Finally, though I agree with the characer remarks referred to C Ronaldo , it's a red herring imo because in Messi and Maradona we're talking of two players of very similar technical value, both acres ahead of C Ronlado.
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Greatest Footballer of all time
Page 7 of 7
6 | 7
posted on 8/9/17
Can never make my mind up as they were all individually gifted. But these 3 for me -
Maradonna
Messi
Ronaldinho
Alsoi mentions for Di Stefan and Puskas are my dad's shout.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by sandy (U20567)
posted 2 hours, 19 minutes ago
Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein
Not sure if you 2 are high on something, but Jimmy Greaves is a class below Ronaldo de Lima. Comfortably. Comparing stats across eras is a bit silly as well. The 60's was a higher scoring era of football than the 90's and early 00's.
Not as high scoring as today`s gimmes in Spain, last six seasons goals scored La Liga for both Real and Barca
Real Madrid
2010-11 102
2011-12 121
2012-13 103
2013-14 104
2014-15 118
2015-16 110
Barca
2010-11 95
2011-12 114
2012-13 115
2013-14 100
2014-15 110
2015-16 112
Pretty well guaranteed a 100 goals in La Liga every season with the sub-stand opposition.
Scoring 100 goals in the top flight of English football is very, very difficult, even back in the 1960s was only ever achieved five times across the whole decade.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When Ronaldo de Lima played for Barca and Inter and won his awards, those teams weren't bagging anything remotely close to those goals. Barca were a struggling team post-Cruyff in the 90's and Inter struggled behind Juve, Milan and even a team like Lazio. Even in his Madrid days, Valencia was a force in Spanish football winning a few league titles and reaching 2 CL finals.
Sorry man, but "Il Fenomeno" was a hell of a phenomenon in a different class from even a striker like Greaves. Injuries facked him over and then he reinvented himself from a devastating all-round attacker to a Romario-esque player.
posted on 8/9/17
A major black mark against Greaves too is his dry cabinet. The guy joined Spurs, by far the best team in the country in '61 (and the likes of Sandy would have me believe that Spurs team with the likes of Mackay and Blanchflower and Cliff Jones etc were the bestest team ever managed by the bestest coach ever in Nicholson) for a record fee and they became little more than a cup side.
posted on 8/9/17
Is it any wonder that Barcelona and Real Madrid have scored the amount of goals when they have comfortably the 2 best players in the world in their teams?
Check out the stats; before Messi and Ronaldo came along they weren't scoring near to 100 goals a season.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 12 minutes ago
Is it any wonder that Barcelona and Real Madrid have scored the amount of goals when they have comfortably the 2 best players in the world in their teams?
Check out the stats; before Messi and Ronaldo came along they weren't scoring near to 100 goals a season.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's not counting that you also have Suarez, bale etc into the mix, i.e. basically the elite players of the world!
posted on 8/9/17
so is that a positive or a minus?
Diego never had the luxury of working alongside those players he genuinely dragged the side..Messi had the MSN strikeforce and Ronaldo has the BBC
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Bad tardo (U19119)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 12 minutes ago
Is it any wonder that Barcelona and Real Madrid have scored the amount of goals when they have comfortably the 2 best players in the world in their teams?
Check out the stats; before Messi and Ronaldo came along they weren't scoring near to 100 goals a season.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's not counting that you also have Suarez, bale etc into the mix, i.e. basically the elite players of the world!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep. But we're expected to believe Sunderland, West Ham etc. are going to cause them problems more than the lesser La Liga teams?
posted on 8/9/17
Greavsie hardly had a dry cabinet, 2 FA cups, a European Cup Winners Cup (as part of the first British team to win a European trophy) and the highest honour of all, a World Cup.
posted on 8/9/17
It's absurd to judge Maradona by his goal tally, because he was primarily a creator, not a finisher. People who do so demonstrate their ignorance.
I can understand people using it as an argument, and even on overall footballing abilities I could see why some people might consider Messi the superior player, but there's a huge albeit less tangible difference in Maradona's favour and that was his character, he was a true leader, much more than Messi will ever be.
posted on 8/9/17
how do it's?
Diego had such drive, when the chips were down he'd be up for the fight or a fight you have players like that in your side and it lifts the others.
Look at United vs Juve in the treble season - they were dead and buried but Keano decided otherwise - Diego was like that, carry the team not just in one game but all the bloody time. Messi has Aguero/Higuain/Dybala/Icardi to share the burden...Diego had Canniggia and Balbo -all 3 of them serving drugs bans at one time or another
posted on 8/9/17
Have you ever watched Argentina play? All of Aguero, Higuain and Di Maria are awful. Dybala and Icardi don't have many caps yet but I'm sure they'll prove to terrible too. Messi carries Argentina.
posted on 8/9/17
still better options than what Diego had to play with, well until Batigol came around
not just the WC win in '86 but El Diego also carried them to the final in '90 - bit no-one mentions that bit
posted on 8/9/17
Hey, Tino! All good?
Exactly, Maradona got all 11 players fighting.
I do think we tend to wax lyrical in the sense that there were many games he could go anonymous, but not in the biggest games, not when it mattered most. He never hid in those circumstances. In others, well it's anyone's guess in how many of them he wasn't just nursing a massive hangover!
posted on 8/9/17
I'm sound mate, obvs in hiding after our mullering last week
strangely enough Diego was clean till he signed for Barca
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Loco Liverpool (U18018)
posted 8 minutes ago
Have you ever watched Argentina play? All of Aguero, Higuain and Di Maria are awful. Dybala and Icardi don't have many caps yet but I'm sure they'll prove to terrible too. Messi carries Argentina.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think you're missing the precise point there, Loco.
As Tino says, they are mostly way better options than Maradona had. So how is that players who are big stars for their respective club sides cannot raise their game for the NT?
Why is it that patently inferior footballers played like conquerors when in light blue and white stripes?
Imho, it's because there was one man there who they had absolute blind faith in and who they'd have jumped off a cliff for.
I remember watching one of Jorge Valdano's best-ever performances at the Bernabeu, a game where we hit Elche for 6, of which Valdano scored 4, and upon leaving the ground the comments revolved around much of a massive lump he was.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Tino - senza rischio non c'e vittoria (U2087)
posted 4 minutes ago
I'm sound mate, obvs in hiding after our mullering last week
strangely enough Diego was clean till he signed for Barca
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ventura messed up big time. But you've been known to win World Cups from worse positions.
Maradona is the epitome of the old adage, you can take the kid off the streets, but you can't take the streets out of the kid.
Ironically though, you could also argue that made him ideally suited to his football era, which was much more Wild, Wild West compared to today's Silicone Valley game.
posted on 8/9/17
I liked the risk of going 4-2-4 but it wasn't a must win game as such, a draw would have been ok..but now we have the play-offs to look forward to.
Diego is of naples and as my grandad used to call him, he's a scugnizzo
http://www.naplesldm.com/scugnizzo.php
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Tino - senza rischio non c'e vittoria (U2087)
posted 4 minutes ago
Diego is of naples and as my grandad used to call him, he's a scugnizzo
http://www.naplesldm.com/scugnizzo.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep, very apt.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Tino - senza rischio non c'e vittoria (U2087)
posted 7 minutes ago
so is that a positive or a minus?
Diego never had the luxury of working alongside those players he genuinely dragged the side..Messi had the MSN strikeforce and Ronaldo has the BBC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To attract and keep Maradonna, Napoli made big signings at the time. It's worth noting too that European football wasn't quite as "top-heavy" as the modern era where CL and PL money have created a small cartel of European giants who have consolidated their position. Little Hellas Veronas won the league in Maradona's first season in Napoli for example and around the time, you had the likes of Forest conquering England and Europe, and Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade winning the European Cup. Maradona was by far Napoli's best player, but the whole concept of how he dragged them single-handed to titles is tad overplayed when used against a player like Messi. It's almost like suggesting Mahrez is somehow better than Hazard because he dragged a far less star-studded Leicester team than Chelsea to the title.
posted on 8/9/17
It's absurd to judge Maradona by his goal tally, because he was primarily a creator, not a finisher. People who do so demonstrate their ignorance.
I can understand people using it as an argument, and even on overall footballing abilities I could see why some people might consider Messi the superior player, but there's a huge albeit less tangible difference in Maradona's favour and that was his character, he was a true leader, much more than Messi will ever be.
---------------------------------
Depends on what you mean by creator. He was a no.10 in the Cruyff/Platini/Di Dtefano mode operating just behind or off the striker and those players were incredibly prolific. Messi himself doesn't play a role in Barca much different from Maradonna: he just does it with better players in a better team.
And I do agree he had greater "character" than Messi. Ronaldo has outperformed Messi in the past few seasons, not because he actually played better (Messi was miles better all-round than Ronaldo last season) but because Ronaldo stood up to be counted when he was needed and Messi's head somehow dropped. Hell, even Neymar tended to outperform him in the bigger games.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
A major black mark against Greaves too is his dry cabinet. The guy joined Spurs, by far the best team in the country in '61 (and the likes of Sandy would have me believe that Spurs team with the likes of Mackay and Blanchflower and Cliff Jones etc were the bestest team ever managed by the bestest coach ever in Nicholson) for a record fee and they became little more than a cup side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever thought how much more competitive it was back in Greavsies Days. Eleven different sides won the 1st division, and Twelve different sides won the FA Cup during Jimmy Greaves career, may have actually been more, that is just off the top of my head.
There was none of this one or two clubs hovering up all the domestic trophies like happens in the modern game.
Have you also ever wondered why players like Matthews, Finney, Moore, Cohen, Banks, etc also won so few domestic trophies, even George Best, only ever won a couple of leagues, and one FA Cup, it was because of the utter competitive nature of the top division back in the day.
Spurs were top of the pile at the start of the decade, but it was infinitely more difficult than today to stay top for very long. These days, one or two teams can blow away the opposition with their vast spending power. Not competitive at all.
posted on 8/9/17
Ever thought how much more competitive it was back in Greavsies Days. Eleven different sides won the 1st division, and Twelve different sides won the FA Cup during Jimmy Greaves career, may have actually been more, that is just off the top of my head.
-------------------------------------------
That was around the same period Real Madrid won 6 CL titles in 11 years and no English side could win till Man U in '68. And then Liverpool in '77. Maybe no team at the time in England was dominant because none was good enough to set itself apart. Far as I'm concerned, if the best team in the country buys the best striker in the country at the peak of their dominance, you'd expect them to perform a lot better than Spurs eventually did.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
To attract and keep Maradonna, Napoli made big signings at the time. It's worth noting too that European football wasn't quite as "top-heavy" as the modern era where CL and PL money have created a small cartel of European giants who have consolidated their position. Little Hellas Veronas won the league in Maradona's first season in Napoli for example and around the time, you had the likes of Forest conquering England and Europe, and Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade winning the European Cup. Maradona was by far Napoli's best player, but the whole concept of how he dragged them single-handed to titles is tad overplayed when used against a player like Messi. It's almost like suggesting Mahrez is somehow better than Hazard because he dragged a far less star-studded Leicester team than Chelsea to the title.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fair, although with certain caveats:
1. It could be argued that Maradona was what enabled Napoli to lure some of the better players they signed
2. Though football was indeed top heavy, Serie A in those days was about as close as any national league has ever got to Champions League class.
Serie A was very much the go to league, similiar to what the PL is nowadays, with the vital difference that the very best players were also there, and not at Madrid or Barça or Bayern or United. Serie A was littered with star names, and not just the Milan sides or Juve.
3. European football was a different beast to what it is now. It had a much bigger element of venturing into the unknown as regards what you know about many of your opponents, and each country was only allowed a single entrant, all of which made for an immensely more open competition
4. The point you make with Mahrez will have validity the day his presence in a lesser side consistently turns them into contenders. Beyond that, there are just certain things that are undeniable when you watch footballers in action over a sustained period. Which I will address in my next post.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 1 hour, 16 minutes ago
Ever thought how much more competitive it was back in Greavsies Days. Eleven different sides won the 1st division, and Twelve different sides won the FA Cup during Jimmy Greaves career, may have actually been more, that is just off the top of my head.
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That was around the same period Real Madrid won 6 CL titles in 11 years and no English side could win till Man U in '68. And then Liverpool in '77. Maybe no team at the time in England was dominant because none was good enough to set itself apart. Far as I'm concerned, if the best team in the country buys the best striker in the country at the peak of their dominance, you'd expect them to perform a lot better than Spurs eventually did.
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I see you have conveniently side-stepped why the old 1st division was so competitive, with so many winners in the 1960s, and started talking about Real Madrid of the 1950s.
Being top goalscorer back in the day in no way equated to winning trophies. Plenty of players topped the goalscoring charts without being anywhere near winning a trophy. Indeed Greaves topped the goalscoring charts twice whilst playing for Chelsea, despite the fact they finished both seasons nearer the bottom than the top.
posted on 8/9/17
comment by Sheriff John Brown - bring back David Dein (U7482)
posted 1 hour, 36 minutes ago
It's absurd to judge Maradona by his goal tally, because he was primarily a creator, not a finisher. People who do so demonstrate their ignorance.
I can understand people using it as an argument, and even on overall footballing abilities I could see why some people might consider Messi the superior player, but there's a huge albeit less tangible difference in Maradona's favour and that was his character, he was a true leader, much more than Messi will ever be.
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Depends on what you mean by creator. He was a no.10 in the Cruyff/Platini/Di Dtefano mode operating just behind or off the striker and those players were incredibly prolific. Messi himself doesn't play a role in Barca much different from Maradonna: he just does it with better players in a better team.
And I do agree he had greater "character" than Messi. Ronaldo has outperformed Messi in the past few seasons, not because he actually played better (Messi was miles better all-round than Ronaldo last season) but because Ronaldo stood up to be counted when he was needed and Messi's head somehow dropped. Hell, even Neymar tended to outperform him in the bigger games.
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Di Stefano was considered by many the world's first truly complete footballer. Read what contemporaries such as Bobby Charlton and other greats of the game had to say about him.
Why do I point this out? Because nominally, you can say Maradona was a number 10, but the reality that anyone who watched him is aware of is that he would very often as a deep playmaker, dropping to the edge of his own third to collect the ball from his defenders and build from there.
Finally, though I agree with the characer remarks referred to C Ronaldo , it's a red herring imo because in Messi and Maradona we're talking of two players of very similar technical value, both acres ahead of C Ronlado.
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