I think you guys are missing the point by trying to measure these players by goal ratio. First, none of them were strikers and had slightly different roles on the pitch, although they were all attacking midfielders predominantly (at most second strikers occasionally). So what's the point in analyzing who scored more goals if that wasn't even their main function? It makes absolute no sense. Actually, I don't even see the point in comparing them at all. As for Platini only being great because he had great team-mates, I think it only makes him even greater that he could be a giant amongst giants. Same for Zico in Brazil NT. I don't know how that could possibly be seen as a negative factor for them individually at all. Quite the opposite, really. Anyway, in the 80s: NT - Brazil > France > Argentina (champions don't necessarily have the better team) Club - Juventus = Flamengo > Napoli > Udinese In the end, it's fair to say Maradona was the unluckiest of the 3 in terms of team-mates, although some might get the wrong impression that Napoli had a weak squad in those days, when in fact they assembled quite a strong team with the likes of Careca and others - Napoli was peaking by that time, really... and not only because of Maradona. What does that prove? Nothing.
Maradona also had Burruchaga and Valdano. You're completely right though that Argentina was more dependent on Maradona for their creativity than the other two national teams were creatively dependent on Zico and Platini. Bilardo made some smart choices in order to let him blossom. I think however that over the years it has been wrongly amended to 'he led a mediocre team to the world cup'. A more precise statement is 'he led a team without much creativity to a world cup title'. In all fairness, Burruchaga and in particular also some defenders of that team appeared in many fictional team of the tournaments or in the 'B-team'. Burruchaga was almost as good as Caniggia I think. Burruchaga got excellent ratings and a fair share of plaudits.
Burruchaga was very good at WC86, definitely played above expectations, Valdano was decent, scored three goals in the first round against opponents who were not too fancied, then went scoreless until the final. But neither reached that level again in their NT or club careers, which directly points to Maradona's influence. It was indeed a mediocre team for Argentinian standards, some of the players were even considered lesser to others that were excluded from the squad, in particular Alonso, Gallego, Marcico, L Enrique and especially Diaz. That some of these players appear in all-tournament lists is simply because they won it, all of them, particularly Burruchaga, looked poor in the followup WC90 with Maradona at less than 100%.
I remember Swedish TV commentators saying that without Diego, the Argentine team of '86 would be weaker than the Swedish NT (that didn't even qualify). An exaggeration maybe, but I cannot remember anyone being very impressed by that team's quality in general. That is truly where Diego carried an entire team on his shoulders, much more so than in Napoli.
I know why Diaz wasn't included but why were the other four excluded? I think Burruchaga had a good spell in France which was in his time a strong league. Received coverage over here as well. France Football has him among the top 25 foreigners ever at place 21. Tells something about his quality. Valdano was in his best years a top five player of Spanish league and included in many teams of the season.
At early 80s the most used formation in Europe was 4-4-2. In South America 4-3-3 was in transition to 4-4-2 (with a false winger). So, Brazil '82 system was an unorthodox system to lining-up all great brazilian mids and also compensate the lack of world class forwards. As a second point, i don't think Eder played something like Left Mid (or false winger), but like a true winger with few deffensive duties.
Yes, it's so far the only NT to win the WC single-handedly carried by one player. Also, as someone once mentioned to me, Maradona is the only player to dominate a WC from start to finish. Bilardo did not like the Menotti "posse", so out went Alonso, Gallego and Marcico. Not sure why Enrique the Independiente left-back was exlcuded, his brother Hector Enrique played every match at the WC. Yes, Burruchaga had a good spell in France, but I disagree that it was such a strong league back then (post 1985). Players such as Marcico, Higuain (Gonzalo's father) also excelled there during this time, but other than OM it had no great sides during the eighties. Francescoli was definitely its most important player during the entire second half of the decade. Valdano was never a top five player in Spain, there must have been at least a dozen other offensive players ahead of him any given season (Maradona, Schuster, Sanchez, Magico, Michel, Butragueno, Quini, Salinas, Rush, Lineker, Futre, the Yugo at Real Madrid can't remember his name).
You should be included the likes of Fillol and Passarella (maybe Barbas, too). All of them were starters in WCQ and were playing at high level. btw, the subs Pumpido(Fillol) and Ruggeri(Passarella) were picked in many Best XI for WC'86.
Forgot Fillol, but Passarella was included and quit on his own after a nasty public argument with Maradona. Besides Barbas, Tarantini also was a possibility, only 30 at the time and with two WCs of experience. I never saw Pumpido in a best XI for WC86. Pfaff, Bates, Carlos Gallo, Zubizarreta, Fernandez, Shilton, Larios, even Schumacher had better performances.
Anyway, back to the subject of the thread. I think we've kinda come to a consensus, at least in some positions, for the '80s all-decade squad, haven't we? CB: Baresi, Scirea, Passarella LB: Júnior DM + CM: Rijkaard, Falcão, Matthaus AM: Maradona, Zico, Platini ST: Van Basten I think there are no other names, in the same level as those, for each position, really. What do you think?
Indeed, Eder was a left winger, not really a midfielder. You could say he was the most forward player on that team after Serginho. By the way, you mentioned a lack of world class strikers in Brazil 82. Did you know that, at the time, Brazil had at least 3 top strikers that unfourtunately didn't play: José Reinaldo de Lima was cut out for political reasons... the man was a machine. If you guys really like football, I suggest you take a look at this man. Careca was the other world class top striker. You probably know more about him because he played in Europe. He was going to be among the starting XI, but was injured right before the tournament and couldn't go. Lastly, Roberto Dinamite was a much better player than Serginho, but nobody knows why the Brazilian coach Telê Santana chose to bench him. I mean, Telê is a legend in Brazil. He's practically a national hero, but he could be very hard-headed at times and was severely criticized for that. Another big omission was the goalkeeper Leão. Leão is probably the second greatest Brazilian GK of all time, after Gilmar. But he quarrelled with Telê and was cut out as well. At the end, the only "weaknesses" of that squad were exactly the goalkeeper Waldir Perez and the striker, Serginho. Can you imagine what a team it would have been if Careca or Reinaldo and Leão had been part of it? It very probably would have been, position for position, the single greatest squad in the history of the game, really. This is how Brazil 1982 should have looked: Leão Leandro-Luizinho-Oscar-Júnior Cerezo-Falcão-Zico-Sócrates Éder-Careca(Reinaldo) That, my friends, would be an unbeatable goal-scoring machine. I'm telling you...
Same level, not too many but I would include these ones: Fullback: Amoros, Brehme Centerback: Koeman, McGrath DM + CM: T Cerezo, Socrates, Fernandez AM: Schuster, Boniek, Bochini, Scifo, Francescoli, Laudrup, Cabanas ST: Rossi, Voeller
Maybe you didn't understand my post. I meant that the players I mentioned are the ones more likely to form a consensus amongst the majority of people, since they are in a league of their own in their respective positions. FB: I'm OK with Amoros and Brehme or Leandro, although I don't think they would easily form a consensus like I mentioned. The RB position would be the "weak link" on that squad, as far as I can see it. CB: Koeman and McGrath were not in the same level as Baresi, Scirea and Passarella (even yourself didn't have them in your startin XI). DM + CM: Cerezo was a great CM, but he was always overshadowed by Falcão in Brazil. Not in the same level, really (good sub, though). Sócrates was an AM, not a CM (as we discussed). And I truly don't think Fernandez would form a consensus as would Rijkaard, Matthaus and Falcão. AM: NONE OF THEM come close to Maradona, Zico and Platini. Let's be frank here. Laudrup was amazing, but he peaked in early 90s, really. ST: we already discussed Rossi. I think he wouldn't nearly be a consensus like Van Basten. Voeller? No way. What I meant is: who would be the players more likely to be included in a team like that without much questioning
Will play the devil's advocate here: Bookmakers had no interest in understating the quality of the Argentinian team and all of them had Argentina among the best five, usually at 3rd and 4th place. The one with the biggest market volume had even this as odds Pre-tournament odds: Brazil 11:4 Argentina 4:1 France 9:1 Italy 12:1 England 12:1 Denmark 14:1 West-Germany 14:1 USSR 25:1 Second point: Maradona had four goals and five assists but one goal should not have counted and three assists of the five came against South Korea. South Korea had an ELO rank of 43. As comparison: preceding stars like Eusebio and Cruijff never faced an opponent at World Cup stage of that caliber. Lowest that Eusebio faced was North-Korea with rank 33 (a match where Eusebio saved the 'asses' of his underperforming team-mates btw with four goals after Portugal was 0:3 down). Lowest that Cruijff faced in 1974WC was Uruguay with a rank of 25. Zico faced an opponent of similar caliber in New Zealand with a rank of 45. Zico had two goals and two assists in a 4:0 win - so directly involved in all goals. Which is statistically a similar performance as Maradona his game who assisted all Argentinian goals in the 3:1 win against Korea. In the post-war 16 teams era (1950-1978) only these teams had an equal or lower rank as South Korea in 1986: - Bolovia 1950 (in a group with Uruguay only) - Colombia 1962 (group with USSR, Yugoslavia, Uruguay) - Switzerland 1966 (group with West-Germany, Argentina, Spain) - El Salvador 1970 (group with Mexico, Belgium, USSR) - Haiti 1974 (group with Italy, Poland, Argentina) It means that many stars in the 16-teams era simply did not face cannon fodder teams like Zico and Maradona did in their World Cups - and many after Maradona of course when the World Cup saw further expansions and re-allocations. Of all 'major legends' only Beckenbauer faced a similarly ranked opponent and scored as central midfielder two famous goals in a 5:0 win against Switzerland (his first World Cup game). But again, I'm now putting on the troll mode and playing the devil his advocate.
Why was 4-3-3 phased out btw? What were the causes of the declining popularity? Who was the direct replacement of Barbas? Was it Batista? Can't find it that quickly.
Both Brehme and Amoros are easily one of the best side-backs ever for their unique qualities and overall performance. Brehme was once best player of Serie A during its best days. Vital part of that Internazionale team. Amoros was highly rated at Ballon d'Or and an amazing player who could play on either side. Also Eric Gerets was great indeed. McGrath isn't of same caliber (though in some seasons he was) but Koeman was. Koeman was at PSV and Barcelona together with Baresi the best libero of Europe, period. Koeman scored many goals and had many assists as well. His importance can't be denied - he was the most expensive player of the 'Dream Team' and was saved for the most important matches (benched in league games in order to field him in European matches). Vital link in the groundbreaking team. In euro88 he played with broken foot and was never in best shape. In 1990 he was bad but was still involved in the goals that Holland scored (like the long pass to Basten against Germany which caused a PK). In 1992 he held the record of most passes completed until Xavi broke it in euro2012.
It was not a first tier league but still a pretty decent one. Actually, the best side in the 80's was certainly Bordeaux (with Giresse, Tigana, Tresor Battiston etc.) with 3 titles (1984, 85, 87), two cups (86-87), one champions league semi-final (85), one champions league 1/4 final (88), one European cup of the cup semi-final (87). It is true however that OM started to dominate from 1988. Francescoli was surely one important player post 85 but Susic was still around and besides them there was between others the Bordeaux armada plus Luis Fernandez, Manuel Amoros and above all raising OM star Jean-Pierre Papin, as well as German player Karl Heinz Forster.
I somehow forgot three who really are up there: Bergomi as RB/CB, Gullit and Careca as forwards. You're right about Laudrup, more of a 90s player, but Cerezo was similar level to Falcao and Socrates (particularly during his time in Serie A). Maradona had five goals in Mexico, and Maradona 86 >> Cruyff 74.
The cause if that football was becoming what it is today: more concerned about defending than attacking. Three forwards was becoming too much and football was becoming more physical than techincal due to its increasing professionalization. Therefore, teams were starting to get less fragile defensively and more balanced, since more technical players were always harder to find. It took longer for Brazil to shift because it historically always had more technical players and, therefore, more offensive players, so they could afford to continue with 4-3-3 for a while.
I was only referring to offensive players, it's really between Francescoli and Susic (although Valderrama also played there for two seasons). Papin is not of the same caliber to be mentioned alongside Il Principe.
What about the others you mentioned? As great as Koeman was, Passarella, Baresi and Scirea seem to be much easier picks. Much better known and much more respected names in the world of football. At least, that's how I see it.
If you go back to my squad, you'll see that all three players you mentioned were included as substitutes. What I mean by my post, though (which I think you didn't understand), is those players that we simply know that would make into the squad without question from probably 90% of football fans and without the need of too much personal preference. That's what I'm trying to say. Those more likely to achieve unanimity without second thoughts. Again: I'm not saying the others you mentioned weren't great. I think Careca's spot could be argued, even though I defend his position as the direct substitute for Van Basten (ahead of the likes of Rossi, Lineker, Klinsmann, Hugo Sanchez...). BUT, I am aware that he's not a consensus like Maradona, Platini and Zico are in their positions. That's what I'm trying to say. Do you understand what I mean now? Bergomi (whom I also had as my substitute) simply doesn't hold the same status as the other guys in his position. Gullit would be an unanimous pick if he hadn't to compete with Zico and Maradona for the position. Cerezo was indeed similar, but still 9 out of 10 football critics will tell you that Falcão > Cerezo. That's what I'm trying to say: consensus.
What you do think of Bergomi, I think he was in the same class as the others. Greatest defensive line in WC history is Italy 90 with Zenga, Bergomi, Ferri, Baresi and Maldini. Pound for pound, the greatest, and it would take Maradona and Caniggia to unlock it (but they had to play in Napoli).
I see your point now, but not sure that it's really that high of a consensus (~90%). In Brazil, I believe Cerezo is more highly regarded than Falcao or Socrates. What hurts Bergomi is playing for Inter M (the ugly sister to AC Milan) during their heyday, and not being part of WC94 as he couldn't get along with Sacchi.