Who is the next Maradona?

[bosterosoy]

Well maybe if your point wasnt so off the mark I may not have been confused. The point you were making is that Teams playing in that Brazilian tournament would face more elite teams than those in the European Cup. Thats a load of rubbish, Brazil are great but to suggest their whole country is as good as the whole of Europe is Ridiculous.

I was making a modern day comparison which if you had read what i said, "the equivalent of Derby now". Derby for all their problems are a big club.

Maybe you havent provided answers to other points I made because you know youre wrong.

no, to say that the top clubs in Europe were better than the top clubs in Brasil, Argentina and Uruguay (especially at that time period) is off the mark

and Napoli were not like Derby. They were in Serie A and usually finished mid table/lower half but not really relegation. Maradona took them to champs from that level. unlike Derby that is like in League One or the Championship

[Tribune]

Well maybe if your point wasnt so off the mark I may not have been confused. The point you were making is that Teams playing in that Brazilian tournament would face more elite teams than those in the European Cup. Thats a load of rubbish, Brazil are great but to suggest their whole country is as good as the whole of Europe is Ridiculous.

I was making a modern day comparison which if you had read what i said, "the equivalent of Derby now". Derby for all their problems are a big club.

Maybe you havent provided answers to other points I made because you know youre wrong.

Lol. This is funny. I can easily prove your point wrong. Let's take those two years already mentioned.

In 1959, the Champion's League was won by Real Madrid. Let's see whom they played 7 games against :

Besiktas, Wiener Sport-Club, Atletico Madrid and Stade de Reims (this last one only once in the final).

In comparison, in that brazilian tournaments, Santos played 7 games against brazilian tradional powerhouses Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo, Palmeiras, Corinthians, Vasco Da Gama and FC Sao Paulo (if you want to convince yourself, check the silverware of those clubs - wikipedia can be of help ; all of them have won the Brasil national league, formed after 1971, and four - Flamengo, Palmeiras, Vasco, FC Sao Paulo - also won the Libertadores. They also have countless state titles in their record).
Out of those 4 opponents Real Madrid met, only Atletico and Stade de Reims were just as good.

In 1960, Real played against : Jeunesse d'Esch, OGG Nice, FC Barcelona and Eintracht Frankfurt.

In 1961, Benfica played against : Heart of Midlothian, Ujpesti Dosza, AGF Aarhus, Rapid Wien and FC Barcelona.

In 1962, Benfica played FK Austria, FC Nurnberg, Tottenham Hotspurs and Real Madrid. That's the hardest campaign of these 4 examples, Real and Tottenham were really tough, and Nurnberg was very good, and still it's less elite teams than in that brazilian tournament.

So the point I made isn't as rubbish as you thought. And it isn't because I suggested that Brazil is as good as entire Europe, it's because of the format of the Champion's League at the time. You had to win the league in order to get into CL, and this excluded many great sides from Spain, England, Italy or Germany to compete.
This was partially counterbalanced by the fact that at the time world football was way more balanced, the current top 3 (Italy, Spain, England) not having a total supremacy as today.

And, from this case alone, I wouldn't bet if I were you that "I know I'm wrong", but I'm not going to use all my free time arguing with you off-topic on the internet.

Just one more point though : the Bundesliga could also be considered a "regional league" since Germany was split in two. Did that prevented them from being a top-class league ? Maybe Sao Paulo should have proclaimed their independence from Brazil... :p

[gmonn]

..
Just one more point though : the Bundesliga could also be considered a "regional league" since Germany was split in two. Did that prevented them from being a top-class league ? Maybe Sao Paulo should have proclaimed their independence from Brazil... :p

Great point...

[Gregoriak]

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.



People make the mistake of only looking at the Champions Cup. The UEFA Cup back then was actually more like the CL is today, featuring more good teams than the European Champions Cup competition.

If one looks at the UEFA co-efficients, it becomes clear that England was actually improving by the mid-1980s in terms of English teams performances in international competitions, despite the streak of back-to-back Champions Cup triumphs having come to an end by 1983.

The Bundesliga actually performed better than the English league from 1975 to 1983, because German clubs did better in the UEFA Cup. England actually lost a starter in the UEFA Cup in 1980-81 because English clubs had done badly the two previous years.

If one looks at the years in question, it is noticeable that the English league was actually on its way up at the time the Heysel ban came:

1974

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. English First Division
2. Dutch Eredivisie
3. German Bundesliga
4. East German Oberliga
5. Italian Serie A

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. East German Oberliga
4. Dutch Eredivisie
5. Portuguese 1a Divisao

1975

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. English First Division
2. German Bundesliga
3. Dutch Eredivisie
4. Italian Serie A
5. East German Oberliga

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. German Bundesliga
2. Dutch Eredivisie
3. Soviet Vysshaya Liga
4. Yugoslavian Nogomet Liga
5. Spanish Primera Division

1976

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. Dutch Eredivisie
3. English First Division
4. Soviet Vysshaya Liga
5. Italian Serie A

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. Belgian Division d’Honneur
2. German Bundesliga
3. Dutch Eredivisie
4. Wales
5. English First Division

1977

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. Dutch Eredivisie
4. Soviet Vysshaya Liga
5. Spanish Primera Division

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. Spanish Primera Division
2. Belgian Division d’Honneur
3. German Bundesliga
4. English First Division
5. Italian Serie A

1978

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. Dutch Eredivisie
3. English First Division
4. Belgian Division d’Honneur
5. Soviet Vysshaya Liga

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. Dutch Eredivisie
2. Belgian Division d’Honneur
3. East German Oberliga
4. Spanish Primera Division
5. French Divisione Nationale

1979

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. Dutch Eredivisie
3. Belgian Division d’Honneur
4. English First Division
5. Spanish Primera Division

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. Czechoslovakian I. Fotbalova Liga
4. Yugoslavian Nogomet Liga
5. Spanish Primera Division

1980

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. Belgian Division d’Honneur
4. Spanish Primera Division
5. Dutch Eredivisie

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. German Bundesliga
2. French Divisione Nationale
3. Dutch Eredivisie
4. Spanish Primera Division
5. Yugoslavian Nogomet Liga

1981

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. Spanish Primera Division
4. Dutch Eredivisie
5. Belgian Division d’Honneur

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. Dutch Eredivisie
2. German Bundesliga
3. English First Division
4. Wales
5. French Divisione Nationale

1982

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. Dutch Eredivisie
4. Spanish Primera Division
5. Belgian Division d’Honneur

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. German Bundesliga
2. Belgian Division d’Honneur
3. Yugoslavian Nogomet Liga
4. Spanish Primera Division
5. Swedish Allsvenskan

1983

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. Spanish Primera Division
3. English First Division
4. Yugoslavian Nogomet Liga
5. Belgian Division d’Honneur

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. Scottish Premier Division
2. German Bundesliga
3. Portuguese 1a Divisao
4. Belgian Division d’Honneur
5. Spanish Primera Division

1984

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. German Bundesliga
2. English First Division
3. Spanish Primera Division
4. Scottish Premier Division
5. Italian Serie A

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. English First Division
2. Italian Serie A
3. Soviet Vysshaya Liga
4. Austrian Bundesliga
5. Scottish Premier Division

1985

UEFA-Five-Year Ranking

1. English First Division
2. Italian Serie A
3. German Bundesliga
4. Soviet Vysshaya Liga
5. Belgian Division d’Honneur

UEFA Country Co-Efficients

1. Italian Serie A
2. Soviet Vysshaya Liga
3. English First Division
4. Greek Etniki Katigoria
5. Austrian Bundesliga

[JumpinJackFlash]

People make the mistake of only looking at the Champions Cup. The UEFA Cup back then was actually more like the CL is today

This is glue sniffing talk. The UEFA Cup is BELOW the European Cup in rank, always has been always will be. What next? Is somebody going to start farting out Intertoto Cup rankings and claim that the clubs who progress in it are actually far superior and definitive of the era than AC Milan, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc in the Champions League?.

I suppose if Bert Kassis put that Intertoto Cup was more important than the Champions League on his unofficial unrecognised by UEFA website (http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/index.html) then all the delusionistas would gobble it up. Keep in mind, this website claims Everton is currently the third ranked team in all of Europe LOL.

[Gregoriak]

This is glue sniffing talk. The UEFA Cup is BELOW the European Cup in rank, always has been always will be. What next? Is somebody going to start farting out Intertoto Cup rankings and claim that the clubs who progress in it are actually far superior and definitive of the era than AC Milan, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc in the Champions League?.

I suppose if Bert Kassis put that Intertoto Cup was more important than the Champions League on his unofficial unrecognised by UEFA website (http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/index.html) then all the delusionistas would gobble it up. Keep in mind, this website claims Everton is currently the third ranked team in all of Europe LOL.


Don't be silly.

In order to gauge the quality of a league, it is evident that a competition that features up to 4 or 5 clubs from the best leagues is more significant than a competition that only features 1 club from each league.

Of course the UEFA Cup has always been below the European Champions Cup. No club would have preferred winning the UEFA Cup to winning the EC. However the CL today obviously is more similar in its composition of teams to the old UEFA Cup (pre 1997) than to the old European Champions Cup.

One could say in this regard, the Champions League today actually is the old UEFA Cup plus the national champions added to the competition (not in terms of reputation and standing, solely in terms of the composition of teams taking part).

By the way, on that site you linked to it says that the results of the Intertoto Cup are not available.

[bosterosoy]

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.

Can you think of a better neutral site? to be exactly the same distance it would have to be in Brasil (clearly not neutral. Another possible site is Asuncion in Paraguay, but that is right on the ARgentinian/Paraguayan border. I understand your point, but Montevideo was probably the best option and the cheapest option for both clubs at that time.

Plus, using similar logic, most of the Champions League finals are pretty unfair and flawed as well. When Milan won twice ('07, '94) in Greece against Liverpool and Barcelona, or when juventus ('96) won the final in Italy, or Borussia Dortmund ('97) winning in Munich, or Liverpool ('78) winning the final in Wembley against Club Brugge, or Ajax ('72) winning in Rotterdam against Inter, or Manchester ('68) beating Benfica in Wembley or Inter ('65) winning the title in their own stadium against Benfica and Real madrid ('57) doing the same against Fiorentina etc etc

[roykeanes_safc]

no, to say that the top clubs in Europe were better than the top clubs in Brasil, Argentina and Uruguay (especially at that time period) is off the mark

and Napoli were not like Derby. They were in Serie A and usually finished mid table/lower half but not really relegation. Maradona took them to champs from that level. unlike Derby that is like in League One or the Championship

And Argentina and Urguay were mentioned by me where?

This was Derby up until a few years ago.

[roykeanes_safc]

Lol. This is funny. I can easily prove your point wrong. Let's take those two years already mentioned.

In 1959, the Champion's League was won by Real Madrid. Let's see whom they played 7 games against :

Besiktas, Wiener Sport-Club, Atletico Madrid and Stade de Reims (this last one only once in the final).



so all those teams Real Madrid played didnt win their State championship?

4 won the Libertadores, youve mentioned 3 who won the European Cup. Hardly proving my point wrong.


And, from this case alone, I wouldn't bet if I were you that "I know I'm wrong", but I'm not going to use all my free time arguing with you off-topic on the internet.


So what do you call your previous post:rolleyes: The old i dont have time excuse reeks of someone losing a debate.

Just one more point though : the Bundesliga could also be considered a "regional league" since Germany was split in two. Did that prevented them from being a top-class league ? Maybe Sao Paulo should have proclaimed their independence from Brazil... :p

So the East German region would be as strong as the Bundesliga would it?

your argument is that the two regions are as strong as each other and provide the standard for the country. If you were to class the Bundesliga as a regional league you would still have to use the East German league statistics when finding statistics for the country as a whole.

I dont really see anything youve provided to strongly change my opinion. the words straws and clutching spring to mind.

[bosterosoy]

So the East German region would be as strong as the Bundesliga would it?

your argument is that the two regions are as strong as each other and provide the standard for the country. If you were to class the Bundesliga as a regional league you would still have to use the East German league statistics when finding statistics for the country as a whole.

I dont really see anything youve provided to strongly change my opinion. the words straws and clutching spring to mind.

yes but you wouldn't have to compare them to see if they were as good as another one. If the Bundesliga was better than the East German Region why would the fact that the East German Region is worse make the Bundesliga not as good?? They don't play each other anyways

[Kulspruta]

1 - Madonna
2 - Pele
3 - Best

http://itsfashionlondon.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/madonna_9.jpg

:rolleyes:

[Moishe]

1 - Madonna
2 - Pele
3 - Best

http://itsfashionlondon.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/madonna_9.jpg

:rolleyes:

That would have to be pre 1995 Madonna, because after that she really lost form and her career became a bit average at best. Now personally if you want to mention Madonna, why not place Janet Jackson at the very least up there with her. More consistent form, better looking and less injuries. Surely she deserves mention over Pele and Best based solely on MTV performances:D

[comme]

This was Derby up until a few years ago.

The problem with this argument is that Notts Forest went from Division 2 to European Champions in the 70s, Leeds went from Division 2 to League Champions in the early 90s. What Maradona did was not as exceptional as you are trying to make out. Teams did go fom being crap to being champions rapidly in that era.

[Gregoriak]

Was Serie A really the strongest league in Europe while Maradona was operating there? This point is often made by fans of Maradona in order to create a contrast to Pelé who supposedly never played in the strongest league around at the time he was on fire. We all know Serie A began to dominate European football in the late-80s for about 10 years in an unparalleled way, but it didn't really start before 1989. Thus most of the seasons Maradona played in Italy, one cannot state Serie A was the top dog in European football. In terms of prestige and star factor it was but not in terms of results in European competitions. With the exception of the 1989 UEFA Cup win, Maradona's Napoli itself was humbled time and again in Europe. If one looks at European stats from 1984 to 1989, Serie A's achievements are not outstanding (in contrast to 1989 to the mid-1990s). So when people argue that Maradona proved himself in the world's strongest league, they actually have Serie A of the early-1990s in mind, when Maradona was already gone.

[JumpinJackFlash]

Was Serie A really the strongest league in ...

Maradona, Platini, Baggio, Van Basten, Maldini, Rummenigge, Gentile, Baresi in the same league, at the same time. I can see how it could be mistaken for a league of nobodies. Its an easy error to make!

[Gregoriak]

Maradona, Platini, Baggio, Van Basten, Maldini, Rummenigge, Gentile, Baresi in the same league, at the same time. I can see how it could be mistaken for a league of nobodies. Its an easy error to make!

As I said above, in terms of prestige and star power, it was second to none. However it did not prove to be the out-and-out strongest league in European competitions of the time (1984-1989), a claim which is often falsely made.

[roykeanes_safc]

yes but you wouldn't have to compare them to see if they were as good as another one. If the Bundesliga was better than the East German Region why would the fact that the East German Region is worse make the Bundesliga not as good?? They don't play each other anyways

Because the lower quality of the Eastern region would bring Germanys (East and West) average stats down and they wouldnt look quite as impressive.

his argument was that both regions were as good as each other not there was one strong region and a weaker one.

I could use the statisitcs of the top 4 to paint a picture English clubs are dominant in Europe, however the rest of the league and Uefa cup results would tell a different story. The premier league doesnt dont represent the whole of England just like the Bundesliga doesnt represent the whole of Germany and the Sao Paulo region doesnt represent the whole of Brazil.

[roykeanes_safc]

The problem with this argument is that Notts Forest went from Division 2 to European Champions in the 70s, Leeds went from Division 2 to League Champions in the early 90s. What Maradona did was not as exceptional as you are trying to make out. Teams did go fom being crap to being champions rapidly in that era.

you obviosly know very little of Serie A at the time or you wouldnt have made such an ill informed comment.

This was at the time where Serie A was the place to be, English clubs were barred from Europe, La liga wasnt so good and Serie A had the cream of the worlds elite players.

Serie A was the dominant league by far back then and for a small club like Napoli to win the scudetto at a time where it was the best league on the planet was sensational.

[roykeanes_safc]

As I said above, in terms of prestige and star power, it was second to none. However it did not prove to be the out-and-out strongest league in European competitions of the time (1984-1989), a claim which is often falsely made.

I would class players who play in a league to be a sign of the strongest league not European success. There was no other league in Europe at the time that had the players Serie A had.

[lanman]

you obviosly know very little of Serie A at the time or you wouldnt have made such an ill informed comment.

Let's take the case of Verona. In 1981 they finished 16th in Serie B, only just avoiding relegation. The following year they won promotion to Serie A and followed it with league finishes of 4th, 6th and then 1st. Certainly an indication that it was possible for a team to go from being a poor side to champions in a relatively short period of time, even in Italy.