The best player in Austrian league were Schachner, Krankl, Weber and Obermayer. And none of them should make it.
The weakness of this reasoning is that some teams collectively under-perform, such as Spain for a long time, while some others collectively 'over-perform'. Remains a difficult task. Personal preferences have a stake as well. For example: I thought about Wijnstekers but didn't give a shout because I'm biased in this regard and have after all no material proof to back this up (except that he was vice-captain and became NT-captain at the beginning of 1982).
I agree with your reasoning. I just not saying that country-list would be that way, but it fair to make an adjustment La Liga 1980-81 My candidates to name-off this season will be: Buyo, Zamora, Satrustegui & Quini.
Looking at league strength back then might be interesting 1 Germany 14 2 England 19 3 Spain 21 4 Netherlands 5 5 Belgium 9 6 France 8 7 East Germany 0 8 Soviet Union 7 9 Italy 16 10 Czechoslovakia 0
It would be nice if some players from more 'obscure' countries get a honourable mention. Eastern-European players perhaps and Swedish/Scandinavian players. And what about Portugese players (for example the often highly rated Humberto Coelho - selected for a FIFA XI in 1982)? Anyway, the pre-Bosman era was characterized by more volatile and also closer relative strengths of leagues/nations.
I thought I included Schachner. I meant to. That is interesting. In that case he should be omitted. He received votes in the Ballon D'Or. Hmmm. Zamora scored the goal that won Real Sociedad the league with the last kick of the season. Quini was kidnapped for part of the year and basically carried Barca by all accounts. All of those got good stuff about them in World Soccer I think.
Yeah he might be the most deserving of that bunch. It was also his last season in Austria before he moved to Italy. Well it was voted at the end of 1981 which suggests he had a hot start to his 1981/82 season. Don't know about 1980 d'Or where two guys voted for him.
Schachner had goal-scoring wise not a great season for a striker I see. Krankl was arguably past his peak. You are sure about the two defenders? The Austrian league had some European successes in the 1980s isn't it?
Both were regular NT starters & team captains for a long time during that period. Heribert Weber is the player with most caps in Austrian Bundesliga, Obermayer played for the rival Austria Wien and was voted into their alltime XI. I can't tell in particular if they were deserving in 80/81 or not if that's what you're asking for. Success ... well, European Cup QF now and then, but when finally playing a big team they couldn't get past them mostly. But they had it's moments: Austria Wien 82/83 Cup Winners Cup Semi Finals, UEFA Cup 83/84 two teams in the QF and Rapid Wien making the CWC Final in 84/85.
I saw Austria Wien got past Barcelona and Internazionale in the first half of 1980s. Didn't look further than Rapid Wien though. Nowadays near unthinkable. I thought they were seen over here as decent second-tier nations but maybe I'm confusing decades with each other.
Yes, good call. It's hard to remember when all the games/highlights I've seen are from but I recall seeing Battiston playing very well IMO as a right-back around that time I think. I did watch the France-Holland WC Qualifier from 1981 that you posted and noticed he wasn't playing - was he injured at that time? He was in the league winning team in 1980/81 it seems - if you'd say he was playing at or near his best form that season it'd be a good addition I think (maybe you can clarify which position he played for his Club in that season). Any thoughts about Tigana and Genghini?
Have you ever seen the famous 5:0 game against Hamburg (in 1980/1981)? Battiston played in this game.
Well in average performing: - Zamora was rated in mid-list for top-50 Don Balon ranking that season. - Quni was rated in mid-list for Mundo Deportivo ranking. They were only nominated in one ranking that season. I don't know about their international matches.
Others keepers of the season 1980-1 Some keepers who can make it: - Pfaff - Koncilia - Pantelic - Jennings - Mlynarczyk
No, I hadn't seen that. I found these highlights though: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeULNZTCvt0"]UEFA CUP 1980 - Hamburg 0-5 Saint Étienne - YouTube[/ame] Not a lot of Battiston action but I think he did actually get two assists. I'd noticed when he'd played for France at right-back he was very useful with his passes from the right side too albeit from further up the pitch. I think that game would enhance Platini's claims for a world-class(***) rating. Hamburg were in the European Cup Final the same calender year ! Going back to your earlier point about players from lower-profile countries maybe Tom Lund is a candidate as he would seem to have been of sufficient quality. A 1* rating might be most appropriate perhaps partly due to being somewhat unproven (might be worth looking into Lillestrom's European games if that's easy to find) and I'm not sure whether 1980/81 would be his best claim or not - as with South American leagues Norwegian football was played in periods of 1 calender year plus his 1981 Norwegian Sportsman of the Year award (only other footballers to win seemingly the whole Norway team in 1993) could've been largely influenced by his return to International football and subsequent displays in the second half of '81. Another possible Norwegian candidate for around that time would be Einar Aas - he was widely highly-rated by Nottingham Forest fans when he played in England (compared to likes of Krol I believe in style) before getting a bad injury, but it would seem according to Wikipedia he wouldn't have played a lot for Bayern Munich in 80/81 though it might be worth checking with the Kicker ratings etc. I think he's more of a candidate for 81/82 although I don't know if he had a significant role in Norway's good results such as against England or not. The Belgian and Polish leagues and national teams were of a higher standard than Norway's at the time of course. Does anyone know what Zmuda's form was like in 80/81? I think comme already included a few Soviets and I mentioned a couple from Yugoslavia before. I think for Switzerland it's maybe too late for Sulser and too early for Heinz Hermann.
Based on that Spain does look over-represented. For that particular season England should be top IMO given that you have three clubs in need of major representation (Aston Villa who won the league, Ipswich who won the UEFA Cup and finished 2nd in the league, and Liverpool who won the European Cup but only finished 5th in the league. Maybe a couple more for Germany. East Germany definitely needs some representatives. Karl Zeiss Jena reached the Cup Winners' Cup final by beating Roma, Valencia and Benfica en route. Apparently they had a close escape against Newport County (a third flight team) in the QFs who pumped in long ball after long ball. I couldn't really work out who their best players were.
Denmark has had some very good players and are often seen as under-performing when compared with their neighbors of similar size (in terms of population) Sweden. Sweden often produced less talented and less technically gifted players (not to say that they hadn't them at all) but did perform at important moments. Norway was at times indeed a strong football nation too, especially in the early 90s, although I have also the feeling that they collectively overperformed. For me, the archetypal underperforming country was for a long time Spain and the archetypal overperforming country, who else in my view, Germany.
Metgod I think made 5 appearances (or something like that) for the Dutch national side in that season. An article in World Soccer touched on the fact that the Dutch were picking a huge number of different players (and 4 GKs in 7 games). I think only Jan Peters played in all of the games. I did use the same approach for 1990-1. If I can do this for Europe for every season since 1980 (or further back) I'd be interested in participating in a South American version of it, but I think one of the S American experts we have would be better placed to lead it. Of course, one of the problems I face with this is judging how many players go into each category. If any of you remember I previously said: World Class *** (Guideline – 15-20 players a season) International class ** (Guideline – a further 20-30 players a season) National class * (Guideline – a further 50-60 players a season) However, there has been a marked shift towards Europe in the last 30 years. Now we can reasonably think that the vast majority of players in these categories would be European based. For 1980-1 Europe would have had far less of the very best players. As such, do I need to adjust the weighting?
But that is also the case with balance of power between first-tier and second-tier nations. For example, the great Liverpool side, arguably one of the greatest teams of all-time, sometimes went out in an early stage against 'obscure' eastern-european teams. Liverpool even played well in some of these matches, according to the players...