The Ultimate Soccer Player to Walk the Earth

[kingkong1]

By the way, you forgot to reply on the Romania/Italy match for Euro 2008, are you excited to be playing against a country who's league is of such a low, insignificant level?That's because I don't actually see the point. In 2004 you did not make it in the quarterfinals past Denmark and Sweden, in 2002 you lost to the "mighty" South Korea, but you won in 2006. This is football, you win some, you lose some. In 2008, Italy will play against Romania. You beat us in 2000, but you lost against us in 1983 (you know, that time when Serie A was the pinnacle of club football according to your statements :rolleyes:), when we shut the door of the Euro in the face of the newly crowned world champions. So what ? Assuming you will win, what's the big deal ?

Besides, Tribune,

You modestly didn't cite the case of Romania in the 1970 WC who gave Brazil one of the hardest-fought games of its history (2 x 3), while the defensively 'great' Italian NT fell on top of their 4 paws in one of the worst massacres in the entire history of football ;) ...

Just like their 'beloved' Argentina:

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1113/semttulouish6.png

[kingkong1]

If you haven't heard of one of the world's great keeper it's you who is the jokerIt's like me posting up the Paraguay squad from the last World Cup, and saying "Look S America are rubbish, I've never heard of their players"Man,

Please, once and for all, decide yourself:

Is (and here I'm using your own words) N. Ireland a team that had the 'world's great' players (Jennings, etc) or is just another "Paraguay' of life?...

Besides who chose the wrong team was you, since Paraguay is a much more important football country...

Take a look at their historical average rankings (FIFA.com data):
(from Aug 1993 To Dec 2007)

Paraguay - 32.194
N. Ireland - 79.831

From that we can easily imply that Paraguay is at least twice as much important to football as your Jennings' beloved N. Ireland... That England team of the 80s achieved as much as the Brazil of Zico etc (ie sod all)Yep, nothing :rolleyes: ...

[comme]

Man,

Please, once and for all, decide yourself:

Is (and here I'm using your own words) N. Ireland a team that had the 'world's great' players (Jennings, etc) or is just another "Paraguay' of life? (by the way a more important football country than Pat's 'The Who' N. Ireland)

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Liberia were still crap when they had George Weah.

The fact that Jennings played for Northern Ireland does not itself make them better than Paraguay. The fact that they produced a plethora of greats including George Best and Danny Blanchflower, and have twice gone further than Paraguay ever have despite having a population of under 2 million would suggest it though.

Seriously I don't want to get into denigrating a country like Paraguay (a tiny country who punch well above their weight), just because you want to insult England or Northern Ireland. Talking to you is a waste of time.

[comme]

Besides who chose the wrong team was you, since Paraguay is a much more important football country...

Take a look at their historical average rankings (FIFA.com data):
(from Aug 1993 To Dec 2007)

Paraguay - 32.194
N. Ireland - 79.831

From that we can easily imply that Paraguay is at least twice as much important to football as your Jennings' beloved N. Ireland

Of course a 14 year period is reflective of their relative importance in the history of football :rolleyes:

The game has been played for 150 years, for most of that time N Ireland were superior to Brazil, let alone Paraguay.

I know that alot of European fans get pulled up as arrogant and ignorant, but the same is equally true of S Americans.

[kingkong1]

Seriously I don't want to get into denigrating a country like Paraguay (a tiny country who punch well above their weight), just because you want to insult England or Northern Ireland. Talking to you is a waste of time.Hey, don't twist the facts!...

Who's insulting who?...

It was you (and not me in relation to Ireland) who unelegantly associated the word 'rubbish' to 'Paraguay'.

There is no way back for you, bud, don't try to fix things: you ALREADY ''denigrated' it...

Besides if Paraguay is a 'tiny' country (with its 400 000 km²) what's then N. Ireland with its 13 000 km²?...

N. Ireland has a small population (2 million)? So has Paraguay (6 million) - so what? Is that a proof of quality (or lack of?)...

Didn't comment anything about the historical average rankings of both countries in the FIFA site! Why? :rolleyes: ...

Hmm, now you did; and arrived to the conclusion that N. Ireland is 'in the past' even superior to Brazil!!!...

Would you give yourself the trouble to tell us...WHEN, Comme?

Thanks for the collective laughter, mate ! :p ...

[gmonn]

The game has been played for 150 years, for most of that time N Ireland were superior to Brazil.

Was that before somebody brought a ball to Brazil??? I've heard the Irish saved civilization, but not this. :)

[kingkong1]

Was that before somebody brought a ball to Brazil??? I've heard the Irish saved civilization, but not this. :)Man,

Hit the nail!...

I just solved the meaning of Stonehenge: those are not monuments that you see in a circle!...

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagem:Stonehenge_Wide_Angle.jpg

It's a whole stadium, with posts and all!...

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/7891/800pxstonehengewideanglhe5.jpg

What only proves their passion for football: imagine the effort in placing those huge boulders on top of the other!...

That also explains why their football is so 'physical'! :cool: ...

[Ombak]

kingkong: the "half of 150 years" statement is uncharacteristically hyperbolic for comme, he remains arguably the best and most knowledgeable source on this site for history of the game along with names such as Gregoriak and tpmazembe among others.

You would do well to take his posts more seriously and to not treat him as another JJF.

Keep in mind his posts on Paraguay have been responses to your, very poorly written, posts on England (or, mistakenly, N. Ireland) and you have taken them. For example, he did not use teh word rubbish to describe Paraguay. He used it as a way of comparing how you were talking about N. Ireland to how someone else with a similar attitude might talk about Paraguay.

I suggest you read through his posts again but without ignoring the context they were responding to and you might find them to be valid criticisms of how you jumped from one post to the next without ever properly rectifying your mistakes first.

A little reading comprehension goes a long way.

Finally, I think you show too much bias in the last few pages and this leads me to believe you are now dismissing most arguments as JJF-level stuff and not taking the same trouble you did before to respond to other posters. Don't let that happen and you'll be on your way to becoming one of the better history posters here, a group which I am always eager to read new posts from.

[Ombak]

I can see how me thinking that Maradona is the greatest, a player from a country that I've never set foot in isn't objective at all, compared to somebody from Rio saying Pele is the greatest. But what can I do you know? haha.I'm just curious as to why you said Rio here instead of Brazil. Do you identify Pelé with Rio and if so why?

[JumpinJackFlash]

[/color]JF, pardon me, please!...

(& this post serves to some of El Pibe's fans in this Forum)...

But (specially by being an Italian living in Inghilterra, the Boot's eternal rival, against whose mediochre defense El Pibe scored his 'Hand of God' and 'Century's' goals, and Italians happening to be even more patriotic and fanatic about football than the Argentinians themselves) - let's concede:

At the bottom of your heart, you never REALLY 'thought' Maradona was the greatest ever!...

Maradona was just a big historical pretext Italians found in order to see if, AT LAST, they could once and for all get rid of the ghost of the Big Black Guy that destroyed them in 1970 .

You'll respond: why would we back Maradona since he was an Argie who beat us in a WC at our home, and even swore at us after all we gave him?...

As if nobody knew Maradona's granma was Napolitan & had Italian blood in her veins, as most of the Argentinians!...

Maradona image in Italy is of the 'daring immigrant', the 'heroic poor cousin' - an 'oriundo'! - who left his 'province' and came to try life in 'original' homeland.

And, mainly because of that peninsular blood, he overcame all difficulties, and finally, SUCCEEDED in the Meca of defensive football.

Thus, rewriting the biblical story of the dear buon figlio qui a la casa torna...

Maradona was a retarded bomb* Italians smartly tried to 'plant' at the very craddle of The Brazilian Beast - South America - in order to dethrone it...

And since he was 'an Argie', nothing could seem less 'unsuspicious' on the Italians part...

In short, El Pibe was used - specially by the Italians - as The Last White Hope!...

Exactly in the way Muhammad Ali referred to when a representative of the status quo - opportunistically elected by the establishment - showed up to dethrone him...

And in that 'election' - they even used the Internet...

And, worse, tried to shift the balls, by saying the 'establishment' guy was Pelé!...

They failed.

Pelé's myth has never been more solidly installed than today in the post of 'the man yet to be beaten'.

More and more people get back to Pelé's, Maradona's & other great players' records - only logic and non-biased alternative way to resolve ANY 'dispute'...

And see by themselves that the 'best player of the world' CANNOT BY NO MEANS have 4 World Cup titles & 1000 goals less than his most immediate adversary...

As if it were little to just directly compare in footage the absolute difference of category between them...
__________________________________________________________________
*RETARDED BOMB:

"(...) A POORLY TOLD, or otherwise untenable, JOKE which, once told, lays there like an unexploded bomb while the jokester prays someone can come along to defuse the situation (...)" - Urban Dictionary


It has nothing to do with colour or nationality. Diego is an Argentinian mestizo.... I'm not, neither are other Neapolitan or wider Italian blood people in Europe, so you can't play the race card and make out that this is a case of Pele the poor repressed black man. Diego is known to be of some Croatian background too.

Also Italians and Argentines whine about each other too, don't you remember the 1990 World Cup where Diego called the people of Rome "sons of whores" and all that drama for Argentina knocking Italy out in the semi-finals? This is hardly Italy and Argentina holding hands and dancing around in a hippy love circle, Diego is just that damn good so it doesn't matter what his nationality is... even if he was French or Albanian, it wouldn't change a thing. Diego played against Italy not for them, against Italy you are the oposition and everything will be done by the men of the field to stop the other side from winning. Full stop. There is know "ooooh, so your great, great grandmother moved from Italy to Argentina?? here have a free goal!".

You and other Brazilians tear Maradona down, because you are born in a position to be systematically bias against him, if he was born in Brazil instead of Argentina you'd push old man Pele aside, with his fraudulent goals record and accept Diego as your saviour. Argies and Brazilians are both bias against each others main star, so when its put to the rest of the world to give their stance, just about only England and its media (a country who’s national team Diego raped and the Falklands issue is not that distant) seem to think Pele and the Brazilian football myth is best, look how well that stance has served the youth system in England with their ridiculous training regimes.:rolleyes:

I have come to like Argentine football because of Diego, not the other way around, so no way am I bias in terms of national alligences for El Pibe De Oro, like you are when it comes to Pele. When it comes to Brazil I freely give credit where its due, Garrincha was their greatest footballer and this interests me greatly (yes I'd even pretend Pele was the greatest for that)...
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8835/brazlianbabenj4.jpg

[comme]

Hey, don't twist the facts!...

Who's insulting who?...

It was you (and not me in relation to Ireland) who unelegantly associated the word 'rubbish' to 'Paraguay'.

There is no way back for you, bud, don't try to fix things: you ALREADY ''denigrated' it

As Ombak pointed out, no I didn't. I was making a comparison to your error over England and Norther Ireland.

Besides if Paraguay is a 'tiny' country (with its 400 000 km²) what's then N. Ireland with its 13 000 km²?...

N. Ireland has a small population (2 million)? So has Paraguay (6 million) - so what? Is that a proof of quality (or lack of?)

Neither. It is a sign of how well Northern Ireland have done to produce such a high calibre of players. Northern Ireland is a tiny place as well.

Didn't comment anything about the historical average rankings of both countries in the FIFA site! Why? :rolleyes: ...

Hmm, now you did; and arrived to the conclusion that N. Ireland is 'in the past' even superior to Brazil!!!...

Would you give yourself the trouble to tell us...WHEN, Comme?

Thanks for the collective laughter, mate ! :p ...

Your historical average rankings are ridiculous. N Ireland had played the game for 50 years before Paraguay even played an international game.

[TKORL]

Man,

Hit the nail!...

I just solved the meaning of Stonehenge: those are not monuments that you see in a circle!...

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagem:Stonehenge_Wide_Angle.jpg

It's a whole stadium, with posts and all!...

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/7891/800pxstonehengewideanglhe5.jpg

What only proves their passion for football: imagine the effort in placing those huge boulders on top of the other!...

That also explains why their football is so 'physical'! :cool: ...


HAHHAHAHAHA

[bosterosoy]

The issues here are more complex than simply declaring than one league is better than the other, etc. For instance, the biggest success of Platini or Maradona came abroad, more exactly in the super-tough Serie A, not at home, in their "inferior" domestic leagues.A Maradona or Platini won close to nothing in France and Argentina.

I dont know about Platini, but for Maradona, the part in bold is laughable. Tell anybody in Argentina that Maradona accomplished 'nothing' in Argentina and they will laugh in your face for so long.

Your right, Maradona never won anything with Argentinos Juniors, but Argentinos is not a big club at all and despite this, Maradona always had them in contention in a league that had a brilliant Boca Juniors team (Libertadores champ in 77 and 78) and a River Plate team with many stars (Passarella in his prime as we went over before) and many other teams (remember, back then most of the 78 WC Champs in Argentina were playing for Argentinian clubs). They even finished second in 1980

Then, Maradona went to Boca (he could have gone to Europe but wanted to play a season in Boca first) and won the league title.

He made his debut in Argentinos Juniors 10 days before turning 16 (an insane record because unlike today, back then not many players made it into their South American clubs at such an early age as they do nowadays).

In 1978, 1979, and 1980, he was the top goalscorer in every Metropolitano. In 1979 and 1980, he was top goalscorer in the Nacional. He is the only player in the history of Argentinian football to lead the league in scoring for 5 tournaments.

In those years he was also the ARgentina's Football Writers' player of the year. In 1979 he won the first of many South American Footballer of the Year awards.


He had already scored 144 goals in a mere 206 games before going to Barcelona.

So unsuccessful, I don't think so

[bosterosoy]

JF, pardon me, please!...

(& this post serves to some of El Pibe's fans in this Forum)...

But (specially by being an Italian living in Inghilterra, the Boot's eternal rival, against whose mediochre defense El Pibe scored his 'Hand of God' and 'Century's' goals, and Italians happening to be even more patriotic and fanatic about football than the Argentinians themselves) - let's concede:

At the bottom of your heart, you never REALLY 'thought' Maradona was the greatest ever!...

I'm not going to quote the whole thing

but that quote has to be possibly the most irrational and stupid thing that I have read in a very long time

[kingkong1]

(...) that quote has to be possibly the most irrational and stupid thing that I have read in a very long time (...)Not bad that...:

'(...) has to be possibly (...)' either.

:confused:

[bosterosoy]

if you click on the arrow, it'll tell you which quote, maybe i should have left the beginning of it *doh*

[kingkong1]

xxx

[kingkong1]

Ombak,

I have nothing against Comme (or JJF), but, in that particular case, I was the ‘disrespected’ one, in 1st place…

Step by step, I’ll try to tell you why (despite my ‘poor’ English)…kingkong: the "half of 150 years" statement is uncharacteristically hyperbolic for commeHis expression was not 'half 150 years', but:
'The game has been played for 150 years, for most of that time N Ireland were superior to Brazil, let alone Paraguay'. Even if it were 75 years though, is that something to be affirmed by an informed person?...he did not use teh word rubbish to describe ParaguayI never said he stated that.

I said he...'(...) unelegantly associated the word 'rubbish' to 'Paraguay (...)'Which is - slightly - but significantly different...Keep in mind his posts on Paraguay have been responses to your posts on England (or, mistakenly, N. Ireland) (…) I suggest you read through his posts again but without ignoring the context they were responding to and you might find them to be valid criticisms of how you jumped from one post to the next without ever properly rectifying your mistakes firstMy mistake had ALREADY been rectified by myself since post #526 (when I even humbly excused myself: - “Sorry” - I said)…

Re: The Ultimate Soccer Player to Walk the Earth posted Yesterday, 09:24 AM - # 526
There is no such thing as the "British side". The squad that you have listed is Northern Ireland, not England.To what I responded:Pasted it wrong from the site, sorry: I myself was in a hurry to sleep too!...After what I immediately pasted the correct 86 English NT.

It was our friend Comme, however, who from then on, even being alerted to that, kept methodically insisting in the same note in all ulterior posts:

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13397831&postcount=529 (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13397831&postcount=529)

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13398915&postcount=538 (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13398915&postcount=538)

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13404267&postcount=558 (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13404267&postcount=558)
Finally, I think you show too much bias in the last few pages and this leads me to believe you are now dismissing most arguments as JJF-level stuff and not taking the same trouble you did before to respond to other posters.
Not if the ‘other poster’ himself doesn’t care about it, as it was definitely demonstrated above (by stating, for instance, that Northern Ireland was superior to Brazil in ‘most’ of the 150 years of football history. If that’s not ‘showing too much bias’, what did I say that was SO MUCH MORE biased?)…

If you had applied the phrase: ‘A little reading comprehension goes a long way’ to Comme as well, I’d be the 1st to totally agree with you.Don't let that happen and you'll be on your way to becoming one of the better history posters here, a group which I am always eager to read new posts fromThanks, and I’ll try it, but I do need reciprocity, OK?...

C’mon, Comme (forgive me for the lousy pun), accept my hand (not God's, for sure) for a shake-hand…

[Tribune]

I dont know about Platini, but for Maradona, the part in bold is laughable. Tell anybody in Argentina that Maradona accomplished 'nothing' in Argentina and they will laugh in your face for so long.

Your right, Maradona never won anything with Argentinos Juniors, but Argentinos is not a big club at all and despite this, Maradona always had them in contention in a league that had a brilliant Boca Juniors team (Libertadores champ in 77 and 78) and a River Plate team with many stars (Passarella in his prime as we went over before) and many other teams (remember, back then most of the 78 WC Champs in Argentina were playing for Argentinian clubs). They even finished second in 1980

Then, Maradona went to Boca (he could have gone to Europe but wanted to play a season in Boca first) and won the league title.

He made his debut in Argentinos Juniors 10 days before turning 16 (an insane record because unlike today, back then not many players made it into their South American clubs at such an early age as they do nowadays).

In 1978, 1979, and 1980, he was the top goalscorer in every Metropolitano. In 1979 and 1980, he was top goalscorer in the Nacional. He is the only player in the history of Argentinian football to lead the league in scoring for 5 tournaments.

In those years he was also the ARgentina's Football Writers' player of the year. In 1979 he won the first of many South American Footballer of the Year awards.


He had already scored 144 goals in a mere 206 games before going to Barcelona.

So unsuccessful, I don't think so


The word used by me was "WON" not "ACCOMPLISHED". Which changes the whole thing...
The argument was used with the purpose of illustrating the fallacy of the usual argument "Pele played in an easier league, so it was easier for him to rack more trophies while Maradona led a minnow to scudettos in Serie A etc".


About listing Maradona's accomplishments in Argentina, thanks for sharing. Only from his Boca goals are at least 15 (out of 28) who could make it into a top 3 of goal of the week.
Plus many brilliant plays...

The points of my argument (maybe it was no so well put, in which case I have to take the blame) was to defend the South-American leagues against the constant rubbishing thet get from many europeans... And in this particular case, that Argentina boasted enough quality during those years, enough anyway to stop Maradona from leading an argentinian minnow to the promised land...

[comme]

C’mon, Comme (forgive me for the lousy pun), accept my hand (not God's, for sure) for a shake-hand…

I'll shake the metaphorical hand. I'm going to try and avoid this thread now, because it is likely to be a waste of time. :)