USSR was a top-4 football nation in the 1st half of 60s (see titles, WCs games & ELO ratings). BTW, i think that "is not a condition" for a player, belong to (let's say) a top-4 nation or league, to be named into the greatest players in their respective era. It could be happen in the 90% of cases, specially in modern times, since Euro clubs had the best players all over the world. I said, since 80s (Serie-A & Spanish league reopening their market. But, before 80s, the difference among difference leagues was closer, because main players were playing in their own countries.
The USSR was competitive in that era and I see your point about the leagues being different because most players stayed home. I feel that Yashin's performances are slightly overrated and I agree with schwuppe that he can't clearly be the greatest goalkeeper of all-time.
A part from IHFSS (with number of votes to show his "clear cut above" everyone) other sources like CNN sports, worldsoccer magazine just put his name up as #1. A few things to reflect why he was #1 1- Arguably the best GK in keeping clean sheets record >30% the games (like he will keep 1 clean sheet every 3games play (wow) - Total: 270 clean sheets over 812 games = 33% - 4 clean sheets over 12 WC games = 33% (very consistent even at WC) 2- The BEST ever Penalty saver: 150saves over 225 penalties kicks = 66% (chance he will turn you down or a striker will need more than 2 trials, to score a pk passed him) 3- The most courage GK who would jump in opponents' legs to get the ball!
1 - But there are GK with better records e.g.: Peter Schmeichel has 178 clean sheets in 398 games for Manchester United. 2 - I call B.S as there aren't 225 PK given in 400 games.
[I saw and reported on this match live in Oct. of '63 and I lived through the era as well. If any of you happen to have any questions...]
Schmeichel was surely among the best (TOP5) GK all time and he happened t play for ManU a great club team (even Van der Sar looked like an ALL TIME with them). However, as rule of thumb, the more you play the worse your stats shall be as you get older and passed your best. I am not sure how many clean sheets he might have after 800games play? Lev played >800games. that number (170/225) was kind of "accepted" by many
I'd think that you were probably the person Schwuppe would most have liked to have heard from Roy. What was your take on why Yashin won the Ballon D'Or that year?
Yashin played 326 games in Soviet league and 80 for NT according to all sources I've found. Where do the other 400 games come from?
Yes, a lot I hope you've got some time - Was this game the main reason that Yashin won the Ballon D'Or that year? - How was the coverage of the Soviet League? Was it even possible to get any information? If not how did it happen that Yashin was regarded as the best GK? How strong was it in your opinion? - When was the first year Yashin was regarded as the best in the world? And for how long did it last? - When did people start to rate him as the best of all time? - How many games of Yashin have you seen? And which? - What is your opinion on his international performances (World Cup)? Weren't they a bit underwheling in comparison to his reputation? - Why was/is he regarded as by far the best GK ever in your opinion? Aside from the clean sheet/PK saves statistics. I'm anticipate your response ... Thanks!
Probably the friendlies. Players in that time played a lot of them. Pele is a case everyone of us knows about, but it's not the only one. Gerd Muller is listed with about 450 games in Bundesliga (and more than 700 competitive ones if you add Cup Games, European Competitions and NT games + his short time in NASL). But the total number of games is above 1200. And the 150 games info, James did not pull it out of thin air. Encyclopedia Britannica says Yashin saved 150 pens out of 207, although I don't know how reliable it is (his total number of games is 812).
Like Tribune has mentioned, in case you don't know that the listed club games do not include national cup, small cups, and friendlies games, on top of international games. For example, Ronaldo was listed 34goals/37games with Liga in Barca, but the total was 47goals/49games for Barca in 1997. Plus friendlies and international games Ronaldo got like 67goals/71games in that year. You can see almost double the number of league games listed. Pele played no less than 3,4 seasons of 100+games in his best form Most players in EPL played even more games in average for the club ~50games a season not including friendlies and international NT games
Pele is the ONLY player that many accepted his "official" 1000goals including friendlies. As long as those friendly games were up to "professional" level, for example, Santos playing friendly vs Liverpool, or penarol! Not like Zidane's friends vs Ronaldo's friends in UNICEF event!
Post #39 in this thread: [Thanks for the kind words, Comme, and I think that I covered your question in post No.39. Just LMK if you happen to have any further questions...]
http://russiateam.com/legends/yashin.html http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/652147/Lev-Ivanovich-Yashin Last link in Russia (to show how many clean sheet in NT team) but Google translate can help! http://www.rusteam.permian.ru/players/yashin.html
Have to bump this to talk about Yashin. I noticed he usually only played like half of his club's league games.** WTF is up with that? Was having a GK rotation a common thing in the Soviet League? Maybe they got this idea from Ice Hockey. **(edit: alright this is exaggerated, I didn't take the change in schedule length into account. however he missed quite a lot of games in general)
The more I look at him, the more I struggle to understand how he can be put as the number 1 keeper of all time. Basically, it's because he won this Ballon d'Or.
NT-duty, I would assume? The Russian league didn't stop for the World Cup, for example. Notice how his smallest numbers are in WC-years.
It's the same as saying Cannavaro is the best defender ever. I wonder how easy was it for the Goalkeepers back then without the back pass rule
Alright it looks like the stats on wikipedia are pretty flawed in general and he played a lot more games. For example the Soviet league had a 2 phase system in '61 & '62, but that doesn't seem to be accounted for anywhere. I found this excellent site which has all Soviet games + game descriptions from newspapers. http://www.fc-dynamo.ru/champ/rezult.php?gd=1963 http://www.fc-dynamo.ru/champ/ The problem with Yashin is that he is just assumed as the default choice and nobody seems to know enough (at least in the English speaking community) about his career to set a benchmark what a GK even needs to do to suprass him.
Looks like you're right about that. http://www.fc-dynamo.ru/igry/rezult.php?gd=1962 Would be 4 games during the WC, maybe some more due to travel + preperation.