Who is the next Maradona?

[gmonn]

The Brazilians think Pele is the greatest. The majority of the rest of the world thinks that Maradona was the greatest, whether they're Argentine or not. Really is there anything else to say on that now?


That's nonsense.

[roykeanes_safc]

1) Currently, the leagues would have the following players: Zanetti, Ayala, Samuel, Burdisso, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Gabriel Milito, Heinze

2) Even if the top European defenders are better than the top South American defenders, the difference is the difference between the middle rated defenders. Argentina and Brasil has much more depth than countries like Italy and Germany and WAY more depth than England and Spain. Just think of some of the top teams without any Brasilians/Argentinians.

Real Madrid would be lacking: Robinho, Gago, Heinze, saviola, Higuian, Baptista
Barcelona would be lacking: Gabriel Milito, Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho, Edmilson
AC Milan: Cafu, Kaka, Dida, Serginho, Ronaldo, Emerson, Alexander Pato
Arsenal: Gilberto Silva, Denilson
Inter Milan: Cease to exist pretty much

The Spanish and Italian teams would be harshly hit, the English teams not so much, but then now think about the teams that they would have in Argentina and Brasil

I'll show you an example using my team, Boca Juniors

GK: Pato Abbondanzieri (Getafe)
RB: Hugo Ibarra (Boca)
CB: Nicolas Burdisso (Inter)
CB: Walter Samuel (Inter)
LB: Clemente Rodriguez (Espanyol)
RM: Pablo Ledesma (Boca)
CM: Fernando Gago (Real Madrid)
LM: Sebastian Battaglia (Boca)
AM: Juan Roman Riquelme (Boca)
F: Carlos Tevez (Manchester United)
F: Martin Palermo (Boca)

Subs:
GK: Miguel Caranta (Boca)
LB: Morel Rodriguez (Boca)
CB: Daniel 'Cata' Diaz (Getafe)
CM: Fabian Vargas (Boca)
AM: Federico Insua (America)
F: Rodrigo Palacio (Boca)

Now try and make a Milan, Inter, or Barcelona team like that. And on top of that now consider that since these teams have less star players, the star players that Chelsea, Arsenal etc have that aren't European (making their lineup still solid) would be more equally divided among the other power teams.

Get the picture??

The only real big misses in those teams are the attacking players though. Despite the league being strong their are lot more weaker defenders in South America than Europe. Brazil and Argentina have more options and depth attacking wise but defensively they are very thin on the Ground. Id rather take Englands pool of Defenders than either Argentina or Brazil and same applies for all the strong nations in Europe.

If you want to build a great team, back 5 - europe Front 6 - South America

[roykeanes_safc]

Brazil Sao Paulo goal ratio in 1962 : 3.35 goals per game

Primera Division in 1962 : 3.17 goals per game

Serie A in 1962 : 2.51 goals per game

Premier League in 1962 : 3.42 goals per game


So, besides the usual suspects Serie A, Brazil was no more weak defensively than La Liga or Premier League.
Are the records of players like Di Stefano, Puskas, Best or Bobby Charlton worth nothing because of this ?

Besides, if Brazil had the best offences, and yet, somehow, the brazilian defenses conceded just as much as their counterparts from Spain or England, what does that tell about the defenses from those countries... You know, conceding the same numbers although facing, by your own admission, attacking forces not as good as the ones from Brazil :rolleyes: ?

Man, you are really giving us europeans a bad name.

Nice try but no cigar.

Your figures mean sweet fa, you have compared one brazilian club to a whole league. Also to really prove the point you would have to take the total average of the big European leagues and compare it to the big South American leagues average. You need to keep all variables consistent to prove the point, didnt you learn Science in school.

[saabrian]

Im doing a project, and I need at least 50 people to vote on htis poll. Thanks!

According to Luciano Spaletti, it's Mirko Vucinic! :-)

[Tribune]

Nice try but no cigar.

Your figures mean sweet fa, you have compared one brazilian club to a whole league. Also to really prove the point you would have to take the total average of the big European leagues and compare it to the big South American leagues average. You need to keep all variables consistent to prove the point, didnt you learn Science in school.

Nope.

I have not compared "one brazilian club with a whole league". I did not refer to the FC Sao Paulo club, but the Sao Paulo league. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the idea : prior to 1970, Brazil was too big in order to have a national league. The distances made extremely difficult for teams to travel across the country, so they had state leagues (or regional leagues, if you want to call them like that). The biggest of them was the Sao Paulo state, which was a region of similar size and and population with a country like Spain. At the time there were two main footbalistic areas in Brazil : the Sao Paulo region and the Rio de Janeiro region. Both had a separate leagues, with players recruited among their own population and also from other regions of Brazil, which played in those leagues because they were the most developed economically and had the best teams.
These two regions represented the core of brazilian football, in terms of players production and strength of clubs.
But brazilian clubs did not play exclusively in their own state leagues. There was also the Rio-Sao Paulo tournament, a competition reuniting the best teams in both those regional leagues (5 from each), each team playing against the others.
There was also the Taca Brasil, a knock-out tournament, deciding the national champion, which was created in 1959.

The figures I gave you were from the Sau Paulo league, which was the strongest at the time and where Pele played.

About the total average of European leagues, ok.
Let's see Primera Division :

Between 1960-1970, the total average was 2.81 goals per game.

In the Sao paulo league :

Between 1960-1970, the total average was 3.07 goals per game.

In the Premier League :

Between 1960-1970, the total average was 3.19 goals per game.

As you can see, the most offensive league must be looked in Europe, not in South-America.

And, btw, there is also Bundesliga, who wasn't playing catenaccio at the time (3.10 goals per game in 1970, as an example and like that are many seasons).

So, "nice try, but no cigar", Mr. "Scientist".

[REALfootballRulez]

HOW could Messi be winning the poll??? He doesn't have anwhere NEAR the slick moves that Maradona had. In the Copa final Messi just disappeared and he was awful.

Brazilian Ronaldo was pretty close and Ronaldhino is probably the closest although I haven't seen THAT much of Cristian Ronaldo except for the World Cup.

That's what's wrong with soccer today. You don't have a Maradona type player with such great moves he can fake player after player out and just blow by people and go straight to the net. WHY NOT???

[Tribune]

HOW could Messi be winning the poll??? He doesn't have anwhere NEAR the slick moves that Maradona had. In the Copa final Messi just disappeared and he was awful.

Brazilian Ronaldo was pretty close and Ronaldhino is probably the closest although I haven't seen THAT much of Cristian Ronaldo except for the World Cup.

That's what's wrong with soccer today. You don't have a Maradona type player with such great moves he can fake player after player out and just blow by people and go straight to the net. WHY NOT???

Players like Maradona don't come often. For instance : it was Pele in 1940, then Maradona in 1960. You could say that Ronaldo was the third, in 1976. So, according to the pattern, the next big thing should be around 15 years old now, maximum. That in the best of cases.
You will have to wait another decade until we could say whether there's a new Maradona or not.

[lanman]

He never proved himself in a league other than the Brazilian league.

He didn't need to. The league Pele played in was easily comparable to the top European leagues of the time, as tpmazembe clearly illustrated in this thread (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129040&pp=15s&page=7) (start from post #103)

[roykeanes_safc]

Nope.

I have not compared "one brazilian club with a whole league". I did not refer to the FC Sao Paulo club, but the Sao Paulo league. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the idea : prior to 1970, Brazil was too big in order to have a national league. The distances made extremely difficult for teams to travel across the country, so they had state leagues (or regional leagues, if you want to call them like that). The biggest of them was the Sao Paulo state, which was a region of similar size and and population with a country like Spain. At the time there were two main footbalistic areas in Brazil : the Sao Paulo region and the Rio de Janeiro region. Both had a separate leagues, with players recruited among their own population and also from other regions of Brazil, which played in those leagues because they were the most developed economically and had the best teams.
These two regions represented the core of brazilian football, in terms of players production and strength of clubs.
But brazilian clubs did not play exclusively in their own state leagues. There was also the Rio-Sao Paulo tournament, a competition reuniting the best teams in both those regional leagues (5 from each), each team playing against the others.
There was also the Taca Brasil, a knock-out tournament, deciding the national champion, which was created in 1959.

The figures I gave you were from the Sau Paulo league, which was the strongest at the time and where Pele played.

About the total average of European leagues, ok.
Let's see Primera Division :

Between 1960-1970, the total average was 2.81 goals per game.

In the Sao paulo league :

Between 1960-1970, the total average was 3.07 goals per game.

In the Premier League :

Between 1960-1970, the total average was 3.19 goals per game.

As you can see, the most offensive league must be looked in Europe, not in South-America.

And, btw, there is also Bundesliga, who wasn't playing catenaccio at the time (3.10 goals per game in 1970, as an example and like that are many seasons).

So, "nice try, but no cigar", Mr. "Scientist".

Still its not the Brazilian league is it, and the fact Pele played in a regional league throws even more doubt on his GOAT status.

Nice try no cigar, you cant compare a regional league to National league even if it is Brazil.

[bosterosoy]

Still its not the Brazilian league is it, and the fact Pele played in a regional league throws even more doubt on his GOAT status.

Nice try no cigar, you cant compare a regional league to National league even if it is Brazil.

wow, reading comprehension for the loss. Pele's region was bigger than Italy, Germany, England ... you get the picture.

Seriously this is getting old. There's already a thread discussing all of this. A link is provided a couple of posts above ;)

[Tribune]

Still its not the Brazilian league is it, and the fact Pele played in a regional league throws even more doubt on his GOAT status.

Nice try no cigar, you cant compare a regional league to National league even if it is Brazil.

I see, so now it's not about the defenses, anymore ? :rolleyes:

Jose Altafini. Striker from Palmeiras, made it to WC 1958, lost his place in the squad in favor of Pele.
Played in that "regional league" which cannot be compared to national league. He never became top scorer in that league.

After the WC 1958, he goes to AC Milan. There he scores 120 goals in 7 seasons (becomes Milan third top scorer ever). He will also become Serie A's third top scorer ever (with a total of 216 goals). He was top-scorer in Serie A in 1962 and CL top scorer in 1963 (he is the highest top scorer in the history of the competition for a single season, with 14 goals).
Absolute star in Serie A and in Europe, he was more of a luxury in the brazilian "regional league".
And, BTW, after he moved to Milan, he was never called again to the selecao. Apparently one of the best strikers from Europe wasn't good enough to compete with the brazilian strikers from those "regional leagues" and the fact that Altafini tore Serie A apart wasn't impressive enough to earn him another call.
Altafini is not an exception. Players like Evaristo, Canario, Jair, Amarildo, Dino Sani, Cinesinho were constantly dropped from the selecao when they moved to Spain/Italy and please compare the results of their national teams with the ones of Brazil.
Why did that happen, "no cigar" ? Brazilian players from top-sides like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Milan or Internazionale constantly shown the door in favor of the players from those "regional leagues" ?
Damn, the brazilian federation must have been truly retarded. Oh wait, in fact, they did not need them, Brazil was doing fine just with the players from the regional leagues.


Now let's take year 1959 as reference and see how tough was the opposition faced by Pele and Santos in comparison with an european league. Since Spanish teams were the most dominant that year (Real winning C1 and Barcelona giving a 2-0 and 5-1 trashings to Milan in the quarterfinals), let's take La Liga.

Here is a statistic from Primera in 1959 :

That year Barca was champions with 51 points (in 30 games). Next was Real with 47 points (in 30 games). On the third place came Athletic Billbao with 36 points. Translated into our current system with 3 points for victory it comes like that :

Barcelona 75 points
Real 68 points,
Athletic 53 points

So, the rankings were :

Barca 51 points
Real 47 points
Athletic 36 points
Valencia 33 points
Atletico 32 points
Betis 32 points

Here is for comparison the rankings in Sao Paulo championship. The first 5 teams :

Palmeiras 38 games 63 points
Santos 38 games 63 points
Ferroviaria 38 games 53 points,
Sau Paulo 38 games 53 points,
Corinthians 38 games 53 points.

A single look at the top of the table, shows us that the paulista championship was a more balanced competition than Primera Division. In La Liga there were 2 major competitors, Barca finishing 4 points ahead of Real, while Santos and Palmeiras finished the season shoulder to shoulder. There is a 15 points difference between the spanish champion and the third placed team, while there are only 10 points difference in the paulista championship. And so on.


Besides the state championship, there were other official competitions as well. One of them : The Rio-Sao Paulo Tournament.
I stand by the assertion that this tournament was as competitive as the whole CL from that time. Why so ? Well, in the old format, only the champions were allowed in C1, so the number of powerful teams was not that big. You have champions of Spain, Italy, England, West Germany, Portugal, Scotland, France, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Soviet Union. So you have maximum 10 powerhouses. Due to the knock-out format of C1, a team like Real Madrid, for instance, could have met only 2-3 elite teams.
The Rio-Sao Paulo tournament was disputed in a league format and included powerhouses like Santos, Palmeiras, Flamengo, Fluminense, Vasco da Gama, Corinthians, FC Sao Paulo, Botafogo or Portuguesa. Absolute every team of those was capable to fight against Santos on even terms and Santos had to play each of them.
Here are some cases to study to give on idea of the competitiveness of that tournament :
In 1959 :

1. Santos 9games 6 1 2 24 scored 16 conceded 13 points
------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Vasco 9 4 4 1 12 6 12
3. Flamengo 9 5 1 3 24 15 11
4. Palmeiras 9 5 0 4 17 19 10
4. São Paulo 9 4 2 3 23 22 10
6. América 9 4 1 4 19 23 9
7. Botafogo 9 4 0 5 15 16 8
8. Fluminense 9 2 2 5 13 14 6
8. Corinthians 9 2 2 5 10 21 6
10. Portuguesa 9 2 1 6 16 21 5

In 1960 :


1. Fluminense 9 6 2 1 22 12 14
------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Botafogo 9 4 4 1 17 12 12
3. Vasco 9 4 3 2 17 7 11
3. Corinthians 9 4 3 2 11 10 11
3. Flamengo 9 5 1 3 13 14 11
6. Palmeiras 9 4 1 4 12 11 9
7. São Paulo 9 2 3 4 11 19 7
8. Santos 9 1 4 4 11 17 6
9. Portuguesa 9 2 1 6 11 16 5
10. América 9 1 2 6 14 21 4



Just look at the tables. Can you imagine what hell of a competition was that ? Santos winner in 1959, eigth place in 1960. In that tournament everyone could win it or end on the last place. That Santos from 1960 had the same core of players (Pele, Dorval, Coutinho, Pepe, Calvet, Zito, Mauro, Mengalvio, Gilmar) who will win Taca Brasil 5 times in a row from 1961 to 1965. It's the same Santos team who will win Libertadores in 1962 and 1963 and defeat Benfica and Milan in the Intercontinental. It's the same Santos who pissed on european opposition 4 games out of 5.
To know it was not an accident : Santos ended on fifth place in 1961, did not participate in 1962, won again in 1963 and 1964 and ended on the 9th place in 1965.


Anything else, "no cigar" ? :D

[JumpinJackFlash]

If the Brazilian league is so elite then why have Argentine clubs won the Copa Libertadores 21 times and Brazilian clubs have only won it 13 times? By 1980 after twenty one Copa Libertadores competitions, Brazilian clubs had only won it three times, compared to Uruguay's five times and Argentine clubs twelve times.

Even Racing (secretly the greatest club in south America :P) won the competition before Vasco, Flamengo, Internactional, Palermerias, Cruzeiro, Gremio and Sao Paulo. Excuses for historic inferiority to atleast two other South American leagues?

[bosterosoy]

well, the Argentinian league has always been better than the Brasilian league. But that doesn't really mean that in that time it was worse than the European leagues.

[Tribune]

If the Brazilian league is so elite then why have Argentine clubs won the Copa Libertadores 21 times and Brazilian clubs have only won it 13 times? By 1980 after twenty one Copa Libertadores competitions, Brazilian clubs had only won it three times, compared to Uruguay's five times and Argentine clubs twelve times.

Even Racing (secretly the greatest club in south America :P) won the competition before Vasco, Flamengo, Internactional, Palermerias, Cruzeiro, Gremio and Sao Paulo. Excuses for historic inferiority to atleast two other South American leagues?

Because the argentinian top clubs had a big advantage over their brazilian counterparts : in Argentina the best players were spread among 5-6 elite clubs, while in Brazil you had around 15 (and also brazilians pulled out on several occasions, due to the bad relationships with Argentina - Santos declined to take part in 1966, for instance, and in 1969 and 1970 Brazil sent no team to that tournament).
That's why so few brazilian clubs managed to create dinasties capable to dominate domestically like Real Madrid, Juventus, Liverpool or Bayern.
In Brazil no club has managed to win the Brasileiro at least three times in a row. In Spain, Real Madrid emerged champions five times in a row on two ocassions (1961-1965 and 1986-1990), three times in a row in other two occasions (1967-1969 and 1978-1980), there is also Barcelona who managed four titles back-to back in 1991-1994.
Since 1971, the maximum number of titles won by a single team in Brazil is 5, by FC Sao Paulo. In comparison, also since 1971, Real Madrid has 16, Barcelona 10, Juventus 14 and Milan 8.
Since 1971, the Brasileiro has been won by 17 different teams. That's an entire league of champions we have here ! This as opposed to 9 different champions in Serie A during the same period, 6 different champions in Spain and 10 different champions in England.
It's hard to determine who was the best league, but I know who was the most balanced.

Besides, if I'm applying your logic to the wire, why italian clubs have won only 2 CL in between 1965 and 1988, in 23 editions, as opposed to England's eight ? After Milan's victory in 1969, italian teams didn't win anything in CL for another 16 years and you needed to assemble two all-time squads (Platini's Juventus and the Milan of Van Basten, Baresi & Co) in order to win that thing again. Until your golden decade from 1989-1998, you haven't won too much.
Yeah, Uruguay won more Libertadores than Brazil during 1960-1980. So did Holland in CL between 1966-1988 in comparison to Italy (five trophies as opposed to two for Serie A).
If I use your criterias, I would have to say that Maradona wasn't the best because he played in Serie A and not the Premier League, who was dominating the CL at the time (and would have continued to do so until Milan's arrival on the stage, if not for the Heysel ban). :rolleyes:

Besides, Brazil always didn't do well in tournaments organised by Argentina (and the Libertadores was an argentinian initiative). Brazil national team is also behind Argentina in Copa America as well, and you aren't going to tell me that the selecao wasn't an elite team.

[JumpinJackFlash]

If I use your criterias, I would have to say that Maradona wasn't the best because he played in Serie A and not the Premier League, who was dominating the CL at the time (and would have continued to do so until Milan's arrival on the stage, if not for the Heysel ban). The Premier League didn't exist then, also since Britain and Argentina were having a war around that time, its hardly a surprise that he went first to Spain instead. Ossie Ardiles even went back to Argentina in 1982 when he was a Spurs player because of the tensions at the time.

And by the way, on what logic are you claiming without Heysel English clubs would have "continued winning" instead of others? Thats fantasy, coulda, woulda, shoulda talk. England's time of dominating the European Cup was declining fast already by then. In the three finals before they were banned the results were as such...

1984-85 Juventus FC 1 - 0 Liverpool FC
1983-84 Liverpool FC 1 - 1 AS Roma (eventually Liverpool won on pens 4-2)
1982-83 Hamburger SV 1 - 0 Juventus FC

The English club's time of total domination was 1977-1982... Heysel happened three years after that. Also, if we want to wander into irrelevent, coulda, shoulda, woulda talk. I could argue that without the club been rocked to the core by Heysel and having their confidence obliterated by the tragedy then Juventus would have continued to be a dominant force in the European Cup in the decade following instead of having a decade of no success (even domestically). But personally I think using tragic deaths in a debate about "who is better at football" is a bit low.

Besides, if I'm applying your logic to the wire, why italian clubs have won only 2 CL in between 1965 and 1988, in 23 editions, as opposed to England's eight ?Well this is kind of irrelevent to this topic, but why are you chosing random years out of knowhere to give an overview of the comp? In the first fifteen seasons of the Champions League only Spanish clubs had won the title more times... and carried through to the modern day Italian clubs have more Champions League winners than anyone else. So Italy has had success from the early times and going through to the modern day they are the most successful.

The same cannot be said about Brazilian clubs in the Libertadores, despite the fact that in another thread you stated that the Brazilian league was very strong because many of the best Brazilians stayed (unlike in the Argentine league where more moved you said), they still have never been the most successful in the most allustrious South American club competition. Not then, not now.

In the early years, Uruguayan and Argentine clubs won the competition far more often and even in the modern day, 2008... Argentine clubs have won the competition 8 times more. Also isn't that a bit of a rubbish excuse "Brazil always didn't do well in tournaments organised by Argentina (and the Libertadores was an argentinian initiative)" ... how does that apply? Argentine clubs don't have any advantage, since games are played on a home and away basis so everyone has the same opertunity. And after the lecture you gave me about the Club World Cup (or whatever its called this week).. I'm disapointed in such a hypocritical arguement you're using to suit your ideal. :rolleyes:

[bosterosoy]

In the early years, Uruguayan and Argentine clubs won the competition far more often and even in the modern day, 2008... Argentine clubs have won the competition 8 times more. Also isn't that a bit of a rubbish excuse "Brazil always didn't do well in tournaments organised by Argentina (and the Libertadores was an argentinian initiative)" ... how does that apply? Argentine clubs don't have any advantage, since games are played on a home and away basis so everyone has the same opertunity. And after the lecture you gave me about the Club World Cup (or whatever its called this week).. I'm disapointed in such a hypocritical arguement you're using to suit your ideal. :rolleyes:

The problem is that Brasil has had a lot of success on the national level and since they fail to equal it on the club level the automatically use excuses such as that the refs always favor the Argentinian/Uruguayan clubs because that is the only 'logical' explanation.

[Tribune]

The Premier League didn't exist then, also since Britain and Argentina were having a war around that time, its hardly a surprise that he went first to Spain instead. Ossie Ardiles even went back to Argentina in 1982 when he was a Spurs player because of the tensions at the time.

Yes, the Football League First Division, thanks for reminding me. And I don't make such a claim about Maradona, I suggest how dumb your logic is by making an analogy.

And by the way, on what logic are you claiming without Heysel English clubs would have "continued winning" instead of others? Thats fantasy, coulda, woulda, shoulda talk. England's time of dominating the European Cup was declining fast already by then. In the three finals before they were banned the results were as such...

1984-85 Juventus FC 1 - 0 Liverpool FC
1983-84 Liverpool FC 1 - 1 AS Roma (eventually Liverpool won on pens 4-2)
1982-83 Hamburger SV 1 - 0 Juventus FC

The English club's time of total domination was 1977-1982... Heysel happened three years after that.

Liverpool draw with in AS Roma on italian ground, in case you forgot. Second, having in mind that weaker sides won the ECC in 1986-1988, is not that far fetched to assume they could have won more.
I don't see what decline are you talking about. In those 3 years, english teams made it to 2 finals out of 3 and won one of them on the opposition ground. That's domination. Juve made it into 2 finals and won theirs on neutral ground. And afterwards, italian sides failed to reach a final again until 1989, despite having a major competitor out of the race,
Regardless, it cannot be denied that english clubs were prevented to defend their chances, which made easier for the other leagues to win more trophies.

I could argue that without the club been rocked to the core by Heysel and having their confidence obliterated by the tragedy then Juventus would have continued to be a dominant force in the European Cup in the decade following instead of having a decade of no success (even domestically). But personally I think using tragic deaths in a debate about "who is better at football" is a bit low

Juventus fell because they didn't manage to find replacement of the same class for their aging players, like Platini, Boniek, Rossi, Tardelli or Scirea. It has nothing to do with Heysel.

Well this is kind of irrelevent to this topic, but why are you chosing random years out of knowhere to give an overview of the comp? In the first fifteen seasons of the Champions League only Spanish clubs had won the title more times... and carried through to the modern day Italian clubs have more Champions League winners than anyone else. So Italy has had success from the early times and going through to the modern day they are the most successful.

Every league has periods of being unsuccesfull in a certain competition. During the time period chosen by you (1960-1980), Primera won only one CL. Are you going to argue that La Liga was a rubbish league ?
Second, what kind of question is this "why are you choosing random years out of nowhere" ?
On what criterias for instance have you chosen the "first fifteen seasons of ECC" in order to assess the Spanish League ? Yeah, Spain won six trophies until 1966... and won nothing for other 26 years.
You chose the first 21 editions of Libertadores. Isn't that a random choice of yours ? In the first 21 editions of CL, Engalnd won the thing only once... Does that make England an inferior league ?





Also isn't that a bit of a rubbish excuse "Brazil always didn't do well in tournaments organised by Argentina (and the Libertadores was an argentinian initiative)" ... how does that apply? Argentine clubs don't have any advantage, since games are played on a home and away basis so everyone has the same opertunity. And after the lecture you gave me about the Club World Cup (or whatever its called this week).. I'm disapointed in such a hypocritical arguement you're using to suit your ideal.


Oh, please. It's really comical to hear the accusation of hipocrisy from you. No league has a perfect record. One can have a great league but poor NT performances (Spain). One can have a great NT and good league performances, but going through periods less succesful (Italy between 1968-1984). So on and so forth. I could find holes in practically every league's record.

What I find it ridiculous about you is how you feel the need to belittle one of the greatest schools of football in the world in your crusade to champion Maradona and Serie A. I never once seen you giving the brazilian league any credit whatsoever. In your facile attempt to place Maradona at the top of tree, you pick on whatever imperfection you can notice in the Brazil league, totally ignoring any historical context, all the advantages which Brazil had, with the only purpose as not to acknowledge them as one of the elite leagues of the world, at the same time sweeping over any similar weaknesses which the other leagues (be it Spain, Italy, England or whatever) may display.

I always believed Pele to have been the best player ever, yet I always accepted the idea that something like this cannot be determined with 100% accuracy and the fact that players like Maradona, Di Stefano, Cruyff, Beckenbauer have all rightful claims to be the best and you have never seen me trampling on any of those player's accomplishments in order to put Pele up. You have already made a ton of stupid statements on the subject in the past and I called you on them. Heck, I wouldn't even argue for Pele if the posters championing other players wouldn't always try, almost to a fanatical level, to discredit Pele by any method possible.

Coming back to your points :

1. I already acknowledged the fact that the argentinian and uruguayan sides of that time were top-class. I don't see what your point is about this argentinian/brazilian comparison. It just show that the south-america had enough quality.

2. Your point about argentinian clubs not having any advantage is off. In the knock-out stages, when both legs ended with a victory for each opponent, there was a play off... which took place in Argentina or Uruguay, not exactly a neutral ground for the brazilian sides.
In 1965, Santos played a play-off against Penarol in... Buenos Aires, at Monumental. Besides that Penarol was itself a phenomenal team, playing in Argentina wasn't quite ideal for Santos since there were only 2 years since Pele was racially abused by the argentinian crowd in La Bombonera.
In 1968, Palmeiras played the play-off against Estudiantes in Montevideo. Not exactly neutral ground either.
In 1966, 1969 or 1970, brazilian teams declined participation.

Now, I don't want to make excuses. Brazilian teams lost many times against top-class argentinean ones. Their record in Libertadores for the chosen period should have been better. This is a flaw. Yet, similar claims can be made about many other leagues in specific time periods, I pointed you specific examples and you have constantly refused to acknowledge this.

In a discussion about the best player ever, each candidate should be acknowledged for their skillset, for their historical impact and contribution to their team's success, without such discussion degenerating into trash talk in order to belittle one player's achievements as evidenced in so many of such threads.

[bosterosoy]

2. Your point about argentinian clubs not having any advantage is off. In the knock-out stages, when both legs ended with a victory for each opponent, there was a play off... which took place in Argentina or Uruguay, not exactly a neutral ground for the brazilian sides.
In 1965, Santos played a play-off against Penarol in... Buenos Aires, at Monumental. Besides that Penarol was itself a phenomenal team, playing in Argentina wasn't quite ideal for Santos since there were only 2 years since Pele was racially abused by the argentinian crowd in La Bombonera.
In 1968, Palmeiras played the play-off against Estudiantes in Montevideo. Not exactly neutral ground either.


I can see your point with 1965, but to say 1968 wasn't nuetral is a little off. Uruguay is right between Argentina and Brasil and about the same distance from each country

[Tribune]

I can see your point with 1965, but to say 1968 wasn't nuetral is a little off. Uruguay is right between Argentina and Brasil and about the same distance from each country

Take a map and measure the distances between Buenos Aires/Montevideo and Sao Paulo/Montevideo. The latter it's about 4 times bigger.
Plus there is also the homecrowd support. I would believe that an uruguayan stadium would be more favorable to an argentinian side rather than to a brazilian one. But I could be wrong, maybe an argentinian could infirm/confirm this ?

As I said, I don't want to find excuses. A flaw is a flaw and a defeat is a defeat.
But some things need to be said because there is a certain species of Maradona fans who feel almost a compulsory need to make a case for Diego by denigrating other candidates, especially Pele, by any means.
Just see how this respective argument started. A Pele fan (Kulspruta) was in fact praising Maradona, but someone from the opposite camp had nothing better to do than to open the can of worms again by making the brilliant statement that "Pele was not a genius", simply because Kulspruta just compared the styles of both players. And again the usual bla, bla, bla which we all heard about 1000 times on these boards.
It's obviously that no side would never back an inch, so the wise thing to do would be to argue for one player without actually pissing on the other players, especially with arguments which are questionable.

Anyway, enough of this. This is about Maradona in the end.

[JumpinJackFlash]

Oh, please. It's really comical to hear the accusation of hipocrisy from you. No league has a perfect record. One can have a great league but poor NT performances (Spain). One can have a great NT and good league performances, but going through periods less succesful (Italy between 1968-1984). So on and so forth. I could find holes in practically every league's record.

What I find it ridiculous about you is how you feel the need to belittle one of the greatest schools of football in the world in your crusade to champion Maradona and Serie A. I never once seen you giving the brazilian league any credit whatsoever. In your facile attempt to place Maradona at the top of tree, you pick on whatever imperfection you can notice in the Brazil league, totally ignoring any historical context, all the advantages which Brazil had, with the only purpose as not to acknowledge them as one of the elite leagues of the world, at the same time sweeping over any similar weaknesses which the other leagues (be it Spain, Italy, England or whatever) may display.

I always believed Pele to have been the best player ever, yet I always accepted the idea that something like this cannot be determined with 100% accuracy and the fact that players like Maradona, Di Stefano, Cruyff, Beckenbauer have all rightful claims to be the best and you have never seen me trampling on any of those player's accomplishments in order to put Pele up. You have already made a ton of stupid statements on the subject in the past and I called you on them. Heck, I wouldn't even argue for Pele if the posters championing other players wouldn't always try, almost to a fanatical level, to discredit Pele by any method possible.
You make excuses though, rather than been objective because you're a Brazilophile... which is fair enough everybody is allowed to have their own tastes but you should atleast be able to admit that it clouds your judgement on almost anything to do with football outside of that one country. You seem to view the world football debates with one set of standards for yourself, another for everybody else... for example you think "Pele is the greatest. Brazil is the greatest footballing nation ever" and dismiss anybody who disagrees as somehow below you and a "dillusional fanatic". How is that objective?

Its been presented to you, clear as day that in the Copa Libertadores, the competition specifically set to measure who is the greatest in south America that after nearly 50 years of the competition Argentine clubs have won it far more times than Brazil. You've actually resorted to pulling the "race card" to defend Brazilian club football's failures in such a field. Should Henry, Eto'o and Ronaldinho have an excuse to lose in Spain, because some opposition fans are racist? What the crowd says doesn't transform the ability of a real footballer. Ronaldinho still has the footballing ability of Ronaldinho no matter what some idiot in the crowd is chanting.

And then you try to talk this away, by making comparisons to European football (with Italian football) which doesn't even make sense in this context. Italy has won the most Champions League trophies and AC Milan are the most successful club in the world... how is that situation comparable to Brazil's club football so to form any sort of an anology? Basically the only excuse you can present to throw something at Italy is like "if Liverpool didn't murder those Juventus fans, etc".

As for the decline of English football on European level, its blatantly clear here, English clubs won the final for six years in a row, completely dominating.. then they failed to make it to the 1982-83 final at all, then the following season won narrowly by a penalty shoot out and then lost in the murder match the following year. If you don't see how that is a "decline" compared to the six seasons before then there really is no helping you. You make it sound like English clubs winning it would be guarenteed.

1984-85 Juventus FC 1 - 0 Liverpool FC
1983-84 Liverpool FC 1 - 1 AS Roma (eventually Liverpool won on pens 4-2)
1982-83 Hamburger SV 1 - 0 Juventus FC

1981-82 Aston Villa FC 1 - 0 FC Bayern München
1980-81 Liverpool FC 1 - 0 Real Madrid CF
1979-80 Nottingham Forest FC 1 - 0 Hamburger SV
1978-79 Nottingham Forest FC 1 - 0 Malmö FF
1977-78 Liverpool FC 1 - 0 Club Brugge KV
1976-77 Liverpool FC 3 - 1 Borussia Mönchengladbach

Lets go by what actually happened in the footballing world, instead of what "could have happened". Fiorentina "could have" won 10 European Cups in a row, but they didn't, so wild fantasies have no place in an factual discussion of footballing history. I'm confuse as to why you have to bring Italian football into this anyway since this is about SOUTH AMERICAN football... but maybe you have other reasons for wanting to take random cheap shot at Italy for political reasons; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/02/witaly202.xml