The greatest player you've never seen play but heard great things about?

[Dark Savante]

comme's threads has made me curious. Many are being honest enough to say they are voting for who they have seen play extensively (or enough to evaluate them) and that is fair enough. I guess the thinking being: why buy into a 'myth' you've never seen with your own eyes or 'he can't be as great as he is now eulogised to be in textual folklore' etc, etc.

The idea of this poll is to see who of the players you never seen play but have heard/read so much about wins your vote. This isn't designed to mock anyone or slight your choices in comme's polls - I mean, it is actually very difficult to get footage of some of these players other then a few clips so I definitely understand why some would remain sceptical as seeing is often believing. All I ask is that you vote honestly in this poll.

Thanks.

[dor02]

Obdulio Varela, the inspriational captain of Uruguay's 1950 World Cup team. He was a guy that had a great will to win, he was great in the 1950 World Cup and also did very well in 1954.

I would say Lev Yashin too but I've seen footage of him but it's not great footage of him.

[Albion + England]

Laurie Cunningham.

[filiusterrae]

voted for garrincha with no second thoughts, but surprised to not see di stefano mentioned.

[comme]

It all depends by what you mean of never seen play. There are plenty that I never saw in the flesh but I have seen clips of pretty much everyone.

Some of the clips are very brief of certain players, and also defensive players get so little attention, as the clips are, in the main, goals which they could have prevented.

[lanman]

The three players I would really like to see extensive footage of would be Alex James, Ricardo Zamora and Dixie Dean. From the list (other than Zamora) I have seenat least reasonable amounts of footage, but would certainly like to see more of Varela.

[Peruvian_6663]

ur missing Cesar Cueto ugo sotil La Rosa and Cubillas :)

[dor02]

I also want to mention Guillermo Stabile, Zizinho, Ademir, Helmut Rahn and Oldrich Nejedly. I've only seen about 10 seconds worth of footage of Rahn, which included his goals in the 1954 World Cup final and the winner against Yugoslavia in the 1958 World Cup.

[bojendyk]

Di Stefano and the entire Real Madrid team of his era.

[Hannah Lee]

Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Garrincha, Puskas, Yashin. I've heard plenty about them but have never seen them play.

[SirManchester]

For those who haven't seen these players in action, its about time now, get to it.

[jp77]

for me Garrincha.....my dad lived in Brazil for most of the 60s and he said that Garrincha was awesome....his moves were ridiculous, only his off-the-field debacles brought down what was a great player...I have seen some video of him in the "History of Football" dvd set and he looked really good

[cristianoronaldo17]

Garrincha my dad said he could get past a whole team, he would always go to the right but the defender never knew when

[HjkF50]

Cruyff, beckenbauer, maradona, pele, and the list goes on and on ,

i'm only 14 :cool:

at least when i'm older i'll be able to say that i saw Ronaldo, Zidane , Henry, and Ronaldinho play

[StrikerCW]

Cruyff definatelly for me because of the fact that I was always taught to do "Cruyff's" dribble move, but have never actually seen the man in action footage; much less doing the move.

[subbuteo]

it's difficult to judge a player's greatness having not seen him or her play

[Ombak]

it's difficult to judge a player's greatness having not seen him or her playYou're kind of supposed to judge them based on what you've heard, as far as this thread goes - after all, seeing them play disqualifies them for the vote in this poll.

[junjunforever]

Di Steffano. Were video cameras even invented back then? i've never yet to see a single clip of him.

[Ibranco]

Mario coluna. The only old footage of Portugal i have ever seen is of Eusebio. Granted there are other great players outside of POrtugal :eek: but when you speak of Portuguese greats of the past you speak of Eusebio and Coluna.

[dor02]

For those who want videos or DVDs, try these websites:

www.geocities.com/nickvideotapes

www.rpvc.com/2004