Yes, you're welcome You can choose a top 50 (and can name some honourable mentions if you like) or if you just want to choose a top 30 instead then I can add that vote on to the alternative voting system totals (a top 50 would get you a vote with both systems). So yeah, feel free.
Definately a welcome contribution Puck - I watched the start of that video and hopefully I'll get round to watching all of it as well as the Di Stefano testimonial Fraser posted fairly soon. Thanks. I'm sure fraser will also be pleased to see such comments from Van Hanegem and other Feyenoord players. On his behalf and for general interest too, I'll ask if you know any comments from Dutch players such as your namesake Puck van Heel maybe (at least you don't have to worry about him contradicting you by calling Messi the best ever!) about even older Scottish players like Jimmy McGrory. Also any comments about English players like Tom Finney etc would be interesting to read (you did post some opinions of Matthews once before I remember).
I'll search if I can find something. Mister Van Heel (the real one) was after his career a bit shy and did not say a lot. During his career he was as amateur a real star, guided Holland to two Olympic games, and often seen as the first people's hero; people identified with him. He received free bicycles (just like Fanny Blankers Koen but that is another story) and free beverages and so on but after his active career, which coincided with the start of World War II he evaded the spotlights. He was also a bit traumatized by the war and what it meant for the city. Yes, I did post something about Matthews who was quite famous over here, also among football players. Tom Finney was not as known here but dunno why. Maybe Finney was less charismatic. Maybe you know why? Van Hanegem indeed thinks that Messi is the best ever but often phrases like this are put out of context. His thoughts are more interesting than the final verdict but I'm now reiterating myself I do know though that Coen Moulijn was impressed by Johnstone and that Jock Stein also made a flattering remark about Van Hanegem. He compared him with Jim Baxter (who is of course identified with rival Rangers); with a bit less acceleration but a bit more 'magic' in his left foot. Stein was in particular fond of how he was a destroyer and creator in one player. Though in the actual final he was not in his best shape and consequently not very dominant - at 1974WC it was a similar story with him playing very sober and in service of the attack. Moulijn answered about Johnstone that he was even more as him "a winger in the very traditionalistic sense" (which was true I think; Moulijn started his career as inside-left but was against his liking moved to the left-winger position in order to exploit his pace and excellent/precise crosses). He said that he was impressed.
Found something more. Cruyff was in November 1968 asked by German football magazine kicker to make his ideal World XI - shortly after the real World XI played a game against Brazil. The football magazine sought a Dutch representative for making such fictional team and asked Cruijff to make one. This was his ideal 'World XI' team: Banks; Johnstone, Pirri, Vasovic, Schnellinger; Charlton, Beckenbauer; Riva, Pelé, Eusebio, Rivera Yes, he had Johnstone on the right wing-back position. He emphasized in particular that an in shape/form Eusebio and Pelé belong in any team and cannot be ignored. Also found that Wolfgang Overath, who played in the real World XI, questioned whether it was really the strongest team. He mentioned Cruijff in particular. But he said that in general players from second rate countries are overlooked and mentioned Scotland as well. This is another interview where he says roughly the same: http://kranten.kb.nl/view/article/id/ddd:011238234:mpeg21004:a0082 (maybe I can translate it, I'll post it in spoiler tags in that case)
If anyone who just happened to have watched Messi playing with Barca and studied his stats would be thrilled- there is nothing wrong to say such ... just a self opinion and ... "without a context" AGREE. Football is wide stretched from Europe to the whole world and it;s far different than Basketball or Tennis of which STATS would make a huge claim in backing it up a player legacy. I donot say STATS do not work in Football but often we lack of "True STATS" to make it more meaningful - especially for older generations. In a sense, Messi is so lucky to have landed in an era when STATS started taking a bit more serious than before. Just a decade ago, not a single source had full stats of Zidane, Ronaldo ... so forget about Maradona/Zico or Cruijff Platini Pele ...
my list - TOP 50 I tried to criteria use as titles and relevance that each had pro football. The criterion ''ball played'' (who is complete, most qualities, etc.) was left a little aside. Even so, it is obvious that committed some wrongs. Man, it's very difficult to do lists! 1 Pelé 2 Maradona 3 Zidane 4 Cruyff 5 Di Stefano 6 Ronaldo 7 Romário 8 Puskas 9 Beckenbauer 10 Messi 11 Garrincha 12 Platini 13 George Best 14 Zico 15 Bobby Charlton 16 Eusebio 17 Franco Baresi 18 Gerd Muller 19 Bobby Moore 20 Marco Van Basten 21 Gianlucca Buffon 22 Ronaldinho Gaúcho 23 Rivellino 24 Didi 25 Roberto Baggio 26 Paolo Maldini 27 Lothar Matthaus 28 Roberto Carlos 29 Falcao 30 Leonidas 31 Zizinho 32 Peter Schmeichel 33 Michael Laudrup 34 Kopa 35 Nilton Santos 36 Rivaldo 37 Giuseppe Meazza 38 Mario Kempes 39 Ruud Gullit 40 Josef Bican 41 Scirea 42 Lev Yashin 43 Just Fontaine 44 Paolo Rossi 45 Dennis Bergkamp 46 Hristo Stoichkov 47 Bebeto 48 Henry 49 Kubala 50 Cristiano Ronaldo
Up-to-date standings for the top 50 voting after Lucas Gomes's vote: 1 Pele 1240 2 Diego Maradona 1213 3 Johan Cruyff 1191 4 Franz Beckenbauer 1134 5 Alfredo Di Stéfano 1132 6 Ferenc Puskás 1084 7 Michel Platini 1062 8 Garrincha 1031 9 Ronaldo 954 10 Eusebio 946 11 Zico 933 12 Zinedine Zidane 905 13 George Best 897 14 Gerd Muller 883 15 Bobby Charlton 870 16 Marco van Basten 854 17 Lev Yashin 671 18 Paolo Maldini 669 19 Lothar Matthaus 653 20 Romario 650 21 Franco Baresi 592 22 Roberto Baggio 551 23 Ruud Gullit 533 24 Bobby Moore 526 25 Didí 504 26 Rivelino 458 27 Stanley Matthews 431 28 Lionel Messi 411 29 Giuseppe Meazza 399 30 Ronaldinho 394 31 Zizinho 315 32 Jose Manuel Moreno 293 33 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge 271 34 Dino Zoff 265 35 Leonidas 254 36 Raymond Kopa 248 37 Gianni Rivera 242 38 Thierry Henry 213 39 Fritz Walter 202 40 Paolo Rossi 198 41 Ladislao Kubala 165 42 Matthias Sindelar 162 43 Daniel Passarella 159 [FONT=Arial][B][FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=4][FONT=Arial][B]44 [/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/B][/FONT][/B][/FONT]Michael Laudrup 155 45 Rivaldo 154 46 Dennis Bergkamp 153 47 Sandor Kocsis 142 48 Mario Kempes 124 49 Peter Schmeichel 116 49= Johan Neeskens 112 50= Falcao 112 52= Juan Alberto Schiaffino 107 52= Gabriel Batistuta 107 54= George Weah 103 54= Gordon Banks 103 56 Sandro Mazzola 99 57 Omar Sivori 98 58 Giacinto Facchetti 95 59 Kenny Dalglish 94 60 Just Fontaine 92 61 Nilton Santos 90 63 Cristiano Ronaldo 85 64 Jairzinho 84 65 Teofilo Cubillas 83 66 Gianluigi Buffon 80 68 Socrates 78 69= Gheorghe Hagi 76 69= Jozsef Bozsik 76 71= Gunnar Nordahl 74 71= Adolfo Pedernera 74 73 Roberto Carlos 73 74 Uwe Seeler 72 75= Luis Suarez Miramontes 69 75= Hristo Stoichkov 69 77 Duncan Edwards 68 78= Frank Rijkaard 63 78= Carlos Alberto 63 80= Xavi 63 81 Cafu 62 82 Andres Iniesta 61 83 Dejan Savicevic 60 84 Matthias Sammer 54 85= Francesco Totti 53 85= Kaká 53 87 Lilian Thuram 52 88 Elías Figueroa 49 89= Hector Scarone 43 89= Gaetano Scirea 43 91= Jurgen Klinsmann 42 91= Cesar Cueto 42 93 Valentino Mazzola 40 94 Arsenio Erico 37 95 Luigi Riva 36 96= John Charles 34 96= Djalma Santos 34 98= Hugo Sanchez 32 98= Kazimierz Deyna 32 98= Gyorgy Sarosi 32 101 Kevin Keegan 31 102= Tostao 29 102= Samuel Eto'o 29 102= Dragan Dzajic 29 105 Francisco Gento 28 106 Ryan Giggs 26 107= Andriy Shevchenko 25 107= Arthur Friedenreich 25 107= Junior 25 107= Bruno Conti 25 107= Enzo Francescoli 25 112 Jose Nasazzi 24 113= Eric Cantona 23 113= Piet Keizer 23 113= Oliver Kahn 23 116 Nandor Hidegkuti 22 117 Zbigniew Boniek 21 118= Mario Zagallo 20 118= Tom Finney 20 120 Bebeto 19 121 José Leandro Andrade 18 122 Domingos da Guia 17 123 Arjen Robben 16 124 Fabio Cannavaro 14 125= Gunnar Gren 12 125= Claudio Gentile 12 125= Ernst Ocwirk 12 128= Berti Vogts 11 128= Jay Jay Okocha 11 130= Ian Rush 10 130= Alessandro Del Piero 10 132= Emilio Butragueño 9 132= Careca 9 134= Sepp Maier 8 134= Leandro 8 134= Demetrio Albertini 8 137= Gerson 7 137= Alessandro Nesta 7 137= Nils Liedholm 7 137= Preben Elkjaer 7 137= Marcel Desailly 7 142= Ruud van Nistelrooy 6 142= Wolfgang Overath 6 144= Raul 5 144= Edgar Davids 5 144= Ubaldo Fillol 5 144= Roger Milla 5 148= Wesley Sneijder 4 148= Fernando Redondo 4 148= Bryan Robson 4 151= Jorginho 3 151= Hector Chumpitaz 3 151= Roberto Donadoni 3 154= Telmo Zarra 2 154= Gary Lineker 2 154= David Trezegeut 2 154= Rob Rensenbrink 2 158= Robert Pires 1 158= Deco 1 158= Marco Tardelli 1 HM's: Pavel Nedved Denis Law Josef Masopust Jimmy Greaves John Robertson Jean Tigana Jan Ceulemans Glenn Hoddle Pierre Littbarski John Barnes Enzo Scifo Claudio Caniggia Paul Gascoigne Gianfranco Zola Davor Suker Henrik Larsson David Beckham Johnny Rep Paul Breitner Ademir Marques de Menezes Angel Labruna Luis Monti Alberto Spencer Ricardo Zamora Paul van Himst Wlodzmierz Lubanski Abedi Pele Florian Albert Peter Shilton Tommy Lawton Ruud Krol Rinat Dasaev Neville Southall Dragan Stojkovic Fernando Hierro Jari Litmanen Silvio Piola Jose Emilio Santamaria Zoltan Czibor Alex James Roy Keane Obdulio Varela Danny Blanchflower Mario Coluna Billy Wright Raimundo Orsi Kurt Hamrin Oleg Blokhin Dixie Dean Gunter Netzer Patrick Vieira Brian Laudrup Thomas Hassler Gzregorz Lato Wim van Hanegem Vava Helmut Rahn Jean-Pierre Papin Allan Simonsen Tomas Brolin Andreas Brehme Rui Costa Antonio Sastre Julinho Stjepan Bobek Ferenc Deak I'll also update the 'top 30' method standings tomorrow.
I know every list is subject to debate ... if not controversial ... Any beef why you rated Zidane so high, at least compared to Platini Zico and Garrincha?
Because Zidane won the World Cup 1998 scoring two goals in the final, was vice-champion of the 2006 World Cup playing very well and deciding several important matches. He won the Euro 2000. Won a UEFA Champions League being decisive in the final. Won several national championships. As you said in another topic, Zidane always appeared in big games, he always decided in favor of their teams. As the criteria that I used to do was list of titles and the importance of player in that titles, Zidane is better then Platini, Zico and Garrincha. Now, as regards the qualities field (pass, finishing, technical and other characteristics) can not say who was better. That's not the discussion of my list.
Very good of the Feyenoord players to compliment him. Of course, going into the 1970 European Cup final Jinky was on top form and expected to be one of the main dangers for Feyenoord but the Dutch marshalled him excellently in the final which did blunt our attacking impetus somewhat. I believe Jinky himself stated he was disappointed with his personal performance in that final but sometimes your opposite number just has a better day at the office.
I still maintain that any person watching the '67 European Cup final for the first time would get an instant snapshot of what that Celtic team were all about then. They weren't a flash in the pan. We won 1x European Cup. Lost a final and lost out to Internazionale on penalties in a European Cup semi-final. This is just the 10min highlight package but the whole final is on youtube in 10 parts (I think). That team wasn't all about Jimmy Johnstone. Murdoch, Auld, Lennox, Gemmell, McNeill etc where all hugely important parts in it.
There was also a friendly played a year later between both clubs (I think maybe even more) and they met him too in contests against Scotland national team. Feyenoord was a bit lucky that day, also with so much damage to their key players (Moulijn in particular wasn't fit). Play the game 10 times and Celtic would win 4 or 5 at least. Celtic had on the other hand maybe the luck on their side against Internazionale in the 1967 final with key player Suarez sidelined due to injury (also a few other things but I can't recall that at the moment - thought there was also something with Mazzola but can't exactly recall anymore) but to be fair, nobody cared. Internazionale was not very popular around that time and had a coach using psychological warfare and even beyond that (in 1967 it was already known that he sent hookers to referees and complete orchestras to the hotel of the opposition during the night ). I think everyone was generally happy that luck was with Celtic that day and in the actual game they also deserved it of course. I see the point that Celtic was not a one man team with one talent and 10 hard workers, that wasn't the case. For some reason Johnstone was the one who stood out though.
Sorry, I could only pick 20 (without defensive players - impossible to make a comparison between them and offensive players): 1 - Pele 2 - Maradona 3 - Cruyff 4 - Garrincha 5 - Di Stéfano 6 - Ronaldo 7 - George Best 8 - Didi 9 - Zidane 10 - Puskas 11 - Eusébio 12 - Zico 13 -Platini 14 - Bobby Charlton 15 - Zizinho 16 - Gerd Muller 17 - Romário 18 - Messi 19 - Van Basten 20 - Rivellino
Thanks JGGott - since I counted top ten votes by Puck and the Championship Manager team on the alternative (top 30) system then I'll also count this as a vote with points from 20 to 1. If you felt you could add another 10 players then I would count it as a normal top 30 vote with points from 30 to 1. I will show the current standings soon for that voting system, including points from 20 to 1 for these players as your vote for now. I understand that if you don't feel you can include defensive players among the attacking players then it makes it impossible for you to select a top 50 (most top 50's would certainly include some defensive players).
Also I noticed after checking that the top 50 (original voting) standings I showed yesterday had a few mistakes: Luis Figo and Josef Bican aren't showing although you can see where the numbers skip hence where they should be - either my error or something is happening with the copying and pasting, but I'll re-type the whole list in standard text I think and hopefully that will correct things. There are a couple of incorrect numbers shown (positions not points totals) for Neeskens and Xavi so I will also correct those, even though it's clear where they stand anyway really.
Here are the new updated standings for the 'top 30 players ever' voting then: 1 Pele 866 2 Diego Maradona 834 3 Johan Cruyff 807 4 Alfredo Di Stefano 738 5 Franz Beckenbauer 709 6 Ferenc Puskas 677 7 Michel Platini 623 8 Garrincha 618 9 Ronaldo 543 10 Eusebio 526 11 Zico 516 12 Zinedine Zidane 515 13 George Best 503 14 Gerd Muller 442 15 Marco van Basten 394 16 Bobby Charlton 388 17 Lev Yashin 320 18 Romario 292 19 Paolo Maldini 230 20 Lothar Matthaus 205 21 Franco Baresi 184 22 Roberto Baggio 181 23 Didi 167 24 Lionel Messi 161 25 Ronaldinho 145 26 Bobby Moore 127 27 Stanley Matthews 126 28 Jose Manuel Moreno 103 29 Ruud Gullit 89 30 Giussepe Meazza 83 31 Zizinho 77 32 Roberto Rivelino 76 33 Michael Laudrup 70 34 Dino Zoff 63 35 Leonidas 56 36 Thierry Henry 47 37 Paolo Rossi 45 38 Dennis Bergkamp 43 39 George Weah 33 40 Rivaldo 32 41 Gianni Rivera 31 42 Duncan Edwards 29 43 Matthias Sindelar 28 44 Kenny Dalglish 24 45= Luis Figo 22 45= Roberto Carlos 22 47= Nilton Santos 21 47= Andres Iniesta 21 47= Josef Bican 21 47= Karl-Heinz Rummenigge 21 51= Raymond Kopa 20 51= Cristiano Ronaldo 20 51= Dejan Savicevic 20 54= Ladislao Kubala 19 54= Gabriel Batistuta 19 54= Fritz Walter 19 57 Gianluigi Buffon 17 58= Hector Scarone 16 58= Juan Schiaffino 16 60= Tom Finney 14 60= Daniel Passarella 14 60= Matthias Sammer 14 63= Arsenio Erico 13 63= Falcao 13 65= Frank Rijkaard 12 65= Xavi 12 65= Kazimierz Deyna 12 65= Hristo Stoichkov 12 69= Peter Schmeichel 11 69= Jozsef Bozsik 11 71= Eric Cantona 9 71= Jairzinho 9 71= Samuel Eto'o 9 74= Kevin Keegan 8 74= Gyorgy Sarosi 8 74= Sandor Kocsis 8 74= Cafu 8 78= Andriy Shevchenko 7 78= Elias Figueroa 7 78= Cesar Cueto 7 78= Just Fontaine 7 82= John Charles 6 82= Teofilo Cubillas 6 82= Gunnar Nordahl 6 82= Gheorghe Hagi 6 82= Kaka 6 87= Junior 5 87= Bruno Conti 5 89= Denis Law 4 89= Adolfo Pedernera 4 89= Djalma Santos 4 89= Lilian Thuram 4 89= Jose Nasazzi 4 94= Jimmy Johnstone 3 94= Valentino Mazzola 3 94= Arthur Friedenreich 3 94= Sandro Mazzola 3 98= Oleg Blokhin 2 98= Mario Kempes 2 98= Luigi Riva 2 98= Giacinto Facchetti 2 98= Nandor Hidegkuti 2 98= Socrates 2 104= Carlos Alberto 1 104= Francesco Totti 1 HM's (counting as those between 31-50 on full votes): Jurgen Klinsmann Johan Neeskens Raul Dragan Dzajic Robert Pires Fernando Redondo Hugo Sanchez Omar Sivori Luis Suarez Miramontes Tostao Enzo Francescoli Gordon Banks Uwe Seeler Francisco Gento Sepp Maier Oliver Kahn Fabio Cannavaro Gary Lineker Ryan Giggs Piet Keizer Edgar Davids Mario Zagallo Domingos Da Guia Bebeto Careca Leandro Ubaldo Fillol Jorginho Gaetano Scirea Hector Chumpitaz Alessandro Nesta Deco Berti Vogts Arjen Robben Claudio Gentile Demetrio Albertini Wesley Sneijder Roberto Donadoni Marco Tardelli Ian Rush Laurent Blanc Ruud van Nistelrooy David Trezeguet Jose Leandro Andrade Ernst Ocwirk Nils Liedholm Preben Elkjaer Gunnar Gren Telmo Zarra Gerson Wolfgang Overath Rob Rensenbrink Zbigniew Boniek Jay Jay Okocha Roger Milla Alessandro Del Piero Marcel Desailly Bryan Robson
You're welcome, mate. The problem is that the further down you go on the list the more complicated and subjective it gets and a bigger amount of players become an eligible option. But I'll try to think of more players that I can add. It would be much easier for me if we could separate it per position. I find it very hard to compare and evaluate players from different positions in a more objective and fair way.
I still find it incredible how Baresi is seen as a top 20 player of all-time (just as Maldini) while the likes of Rijkaard, Laudrup, Falcao, Gullit or even Rivera (the real Milan icon but unfortunately Berlusconi did a good job in eradicating him from history) do not come even close. Maybe a contentious statement of me but Rijkaard could basically do everything what Baresi did plus a bit more. Baresi his real added value was that he was more focused and dedicated though. My own problem is that I want to push 100 names into 30 places which is impossible but Baresi top 20 all time while Laurent Blanc (far more successful internationally) only makes the honourable mentions list????? Similarly, again contentious statement, Ronald Koeman is often forgotten when the top defenders are discussed. He *literally* provided tons of assists and goals as defender.
You're welcome of course to have 50 honourable mentions Puck if you wanted to (although it doesn't resolve the issue of choosing which ones to give the actual points to). Even another 30 HM's on top of that would be ok, to match the amounts of myself and Peru FC. This would be assuming you did a top 50 vote, but if you want to choose 31-50 without specifying positions then I'd be fine with you having a vote on both systems (and I'd re-adjust for your 'new' top 30 vote to replace the top 10 you did even though that might still be your chosen top 10 perhaps - Di Stefano would get 30 points rather than 10 for example and of course 50 points for the original method voting) - I'd split points between the 31-50 choices equally if you did prefer to do this and then have your 50 or 80 HM's too if you liked.
See why I find it impossible to make an accurate list with so many players with different functions and positions.
OK, I did not make it too unorthodox and include many who are named in the other lists. 1) Di Stefano 2) Pelé 3) Cruijff 4) Platini 5) Maradona 6) Eusebio 7) Müller 8) Puskas 9) Zidane 10) Laudrup 11) Sindelar 12) Charlton 13) Nordahl 14) Van Basten 15) Zico 16) Netzer 17) Ronaldo fenomeno 18) Beckenbauer 19) Figo 20) Florian Albert 21) Deyna 22) Nedved 23) Rivera 24) Garrincha 25) Ceulemans 26) Kenny Dalglish 27) Ronaldinho 28) Jari Litmanen 29) Rijkaard 30) Boniek But maybe tomorrow I'll make a complete different list. I see that I included Rijkaard and not Matthaus for who I argued in the '1980s all star team' thread that he should be rated higher in history I will think about my honourable mentions list because I feel I have to be careful with that one, think about who I want to include and who not.
Thanks Puck - intriguing to see your list after you clearly put a lot of time into thinking about it. Overall, not massively surprising I think given that I've seen a lot of your posting of course now but certainly I couldn't have guessed all 30 correctly! I'll wait for your honourable mentions then (and like I say you can list equal HM's between 31 and 50 if you like and that can count as a top 50 vote too) and give you chance to see if you really would pick a different list tomorrow although I interpreted that to mean that it is just a very close call. I'll check obviously so I can adjust the points, but I'm guessing it's just Zico out of your top 10 you listed before and Laudrup (that's Michael I guess although I know you have commented positively about Brian too) in. Interesting that you actually have Laudrup higher than me now then and vice versa I have Van Basten, who I know is a favourite of yours not just a fellow Dutchman, higher than you do. Noticed you generally favoured the attacking and creative players as the very best ever, but with Rijkaard in there too who as you pointed out was great as a defensive player and also making great contributions offensively when playing in midfield. So, I'll wait for you to add HM's etc but I'll be ready to adjust the points after your vote. It might take me a while to do the original method voting standings anyway as I'm going to type them out again as mentioned in a post above to prevent any errors and tidy up the presentation.
Actually I can and will do the top 30 standings now, and then if you make any slight adjustments at all Puck I can easily account for them. I'll do that within the next few minutes. EDIT And I can add on any new honourable mentions for that vote too (the ones between 31 and 50 that are not in others' top 50's, if there are any of those players).