Yeah, fair comments. Like I say, I think it is the max placing as per Big Soccer voters (considering you two recent voters voted them as high as anyone, although I think krokko either put Messi first or near the top and his vote isn't included in the 2013-present collection). But the current overall standings are the low estimate for the reasons you give. On the other hand, make every voter in your poll watch 10 great performances (or a few less) of Cruyff, Pele etc etc and does that poll change substantially too with many more giving them the vote as best player ever? Among some maybe there would have been a default assumption players like that were the best ever, but that probably doesn't apply to the voters in your poll. Maybe I'd be wrong to think they hadn't seen much of them playing or didn't even know much about them though - it could be that many do still think Messi is now the GOAT and likewise plenty think the same thing about C.Ronaldo (or it could be loads of their fanboys had a vote-off - really hard to say fairly).
Poll doesn't matter here i made it just for fun. I think that Messi and C. Ronaldo have approximately the same number of fans, Ronaldo probably even more but Messi has 3x more votes which shows that a lot of people who are not really fans of any of them voted for Messi, I for instance have seen a lot of great players live on TV and a lot of footage of older players (around 5 to 6 hours all together for the all time greats and 1 or 2 for some other players), and I honestly think that Lionel Messi is the best, and my system just confirms it for me, many experts have said the same. This is and interesting article: http://proudbarcelonista.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/quotes-about-lionel-messi/ On the other hand I also respect opinion of other people and their point of view.
You might like to vote on stcv's new thread instead mate: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/best-football-players-of-all-time.2011432/ But of course, if you still want your vote registered on this thread too then I can add it on with no problem. The criteria on stcv's thread is 50% prime form and 50% consistency/longevity I think basically. For this thread, various methods were used I think so you could even cast slightly different votes. So yeah, you can still vote here if you like (although it is winding down now, I would add your vote on to the results) but I'm sure it'd be good to have your vote on the new thread.
PDG1978, I just see your question for now. I think it will be perpetually update as only one legend has a large number of info and videos to study enough for a project so it is unimaginable for studying more than 50 players who are also closed in overall level. Thereby the rankings has been often moved base on new discovers (primarily Bigsoccer experts contribution), idea or new systematic improvement (by myself). Anyway, at least top ten has been quite stagnant aside from progress of active players like Messi who is ready to be rated higher all the times.
Ok Dearman, cool. Yes, I thought that was basically what you did (adjust your ranking quite often based upon your criteria and new discoveries/perspectives). I think this thread may have come towards it's end maybe anyway (although I don't say that new votes aren't still welcome, and I may look again sometime at how the standings look for top 30 lists only). Perhaps you could put a listing on stcv's new thread yourself sometime, or even put your updates on there (but I think he does follow your posts on Xtratime anyway). I think my top 10 is also very similar to what it always was during this thread's history (I think Puck remarked on that too)! Although I did alter it a bit for stcv's thread, to put more weight on longevity as instructed (wheras I didn't give instructions in this thread - I know you consider longevity quite substantially anyway yourself, in producing a 'greatest' list just as comme, Peru FC and others do).
Danish tabloid Ekstrabladet published this mildly excentric 100 all time athletes: http://ekstrabladet.dk/sport/100bedste/top-100-han-er-verdens-stoerste-nogensinde/5369397 Only eleven footballers made it to the top 100: 7 Pelé 15 Diego Maradona 22 Franz Beckenbauer 33 Alfredo Di Stéfano 39 Eusébio 53 Lionel Messi 60 Zinedine Zidane 67 Ferenc Puskas 72 Ronaldo 75 Johan Cruyff 78 Cristiano Ronaldo
Thanks. Maybe relevant to the discussion here: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/pele-vs-michael-jordan.1359219/page-9 I think, while with football-only lists, exposure to certain players/leagues varies, when people try to do an all-sports list it is inevitably even more guided by the sports that are familiar to them as it's difficult to compare different sports and their players and certain sports are much more popular in certain parts of the world than others. The sport itself maybe has to be 'ranked' even subconsciously before people start to think about how talented certain players were at it, or how much better than normal excellent players they were. I feel like Cruyff is a bit short-changed, with overall position as well as being 10th footballer. Interesting that O'Sullivan is there to represent Snooker - if not done mainly on peak form/talent then I guess his longevity (which outdoes Hendry/Davis as a top player now to make up for a not so great consistency in peak I suppose) helps. In terms of others from other sports I might have thought could get a spot, as well as the likes of Sella/Blanco/Klammer/Zurbriggen/Lara/Ballesteros etc (there are no Cricketers or Rugby players though I don't think, but a few Skiiers and Golfers) that I mentioned on that thread, perhaps David Rudisha, Phil Taylor? Platini seems unlucky to me if so many footballers are in (yet, yeah there could have been more and I'd likely end up including more if attempting something like that).
I don't agree with Muhammed Ali as #1. I do agree with Federer in the top three. I had him a few years back as #7 (it was an approximate ranking...) but he should move up to #3 or #2 in my view. I had Jordan as #1 back then. Merckx, Stenmark and Borg are roughly at the places I imagined. Can't agree with Lewis at #12... Cruyff so low is ridiculous, with the 'galactic emperor' as #22. That is insidious propaganda. I feel fine with leaving him out of a top 100 entirely, but so should others of his generation. Females shouldn't be compared with males in my view. Graf at #9 and Navritalova at #18? Really? Serena Williams many places higher as Sampras, Court and Evert is another oddity.
Yeah, although the comparisons are very very hard anyway, probably putting in females either over-rates them in literal terms or under-rates them in terms of greatness in their own competitions. It's feasible though that players like Graf could have been among the top players of their generation in a mixed gender sport (I'd expect Edberg/Becker and later Sampras would have too much for her overall), but that is also uncertain (also in theory the expectations re: Edberg/Becker/Sampras). I think it's ok to see Stephanie Roche's goal in this years Puskas Award shortlist though as it seems as impressive in quality as the other goals nominated, and with some great directional control, like you are discussing on the other thread, and imagination.
i agree. on the list of best "athletes" one would expect the likes of haile gebrselassie or sergei bubka, with 27 and 35 world records respectively.
Maybe, but take tennis for example: how to compare 10 women Grand Slam titles with 10 men Grand Slam titles? Incorrect or maybe not, it's widely believed that women tennis is of a lower level and less competitive (as a women sport not of an equally high level). Which 'exchange rate' should be applied? Very difficult..
Yes, Navratilova had an 'easier' time adding to titles as compared to Federer now for example, that's true. Maybe also Graf did compared to Sampras (with Agassi around for example)?
the bold parts showed the ... credential work of that survey LOL I do not mind to rank Women and Men side by side - even though I agree with your good point
I am not to sure of that ... In case you do not know, Navratilova did even challenge Jimmi Connor (at 40) but turned down to face off with Mc Enroe Many joked *but true that Navartilova was not a woman - so that she was fenomenon in that pool LOL I do not think any of Venus (sis) could dare to challenge Federer
@PDG1978 Some quite interesting (and in my opinion fairly accurate) views of Wenger on a few of the great teams. FC Barcelona: Bayern Munich: FC Porto: Juventus: http://www.myvideo.ge/?video_id=2443089&elapsed= Then I can also mention this interview which I saw about four months ago: But some of the concise and elegant analyses in the video above are interesting to hear.
Interesting approach to measure players peak by 'goalimpact' through an algoritihm: http://www.goalimpact.com/p/blog-page.html It has altered/tweaked the algorithm a few times though. In current day context it means for ex. that C. Ronaldo and Messi have swapped 'highest peak' (at the older algorithms C. Ronaldo had the higher peak, which means a higher impact on the goal-difference and/or result). This are the peaks after the newest tweaks: New all time highest peakThomas Müller 218Férenc Puskás 211Luc Nilis 210Cruyff 209José Santamaría 208Özil 202Messi 202Gorostiza 202— Goalimpact (@Goalimpact) April 8, 2015 http://www.goalimpact.com/2015/04/new-algorithm-released.html http://spielverlagerung.de/2013/12/06/turchen-6-zinedine-zidane/
Thanks Puck - that seems to be an extension/variation on the idea behind your thread about results with and without specific players in a team (in your earliest days around 2011 IIRC). As with any stats approach, 'conclusions' thrown up might surprise even the compilers I guess (they probably don't think of Thomas Muller as the best player ever!) but it's interesting to see and I'll take a proper look later on. As you've mentioned by PM the results seem to be a bit era-dependent which I guess makes sense in terms of scorelines and trends within a particular time being different to other times. Since the thread has been bumped, I'll post another one of those 'best ever players' videos I found recently - as with all of these (including the ones I did - I remember thinking afterwards that I could have included some clips I didn't for some players, or could have shown more of an aspect of a players game) a perfect impression can't be provided for each player but still entertaining to see. I think the Platini clips are maybe a bit Euro 84 focused, and his passing and invention is a bit neglected. And maybe Muller's are a bit too WC70 focused, although to be fair one great diving header by him is in there. Interestingly, after discussions on other threads, Matthaus is edged ahead of Van Basten but perhaps a case of MvB being lower in 20th than in some choices, moreso than Matthaus being a lot higher:
It always depends a lot how the data is weighed to the other. How to compare the results of different countries - how to compare the different competitions and the older results. But - Müller up there is not a coincidence. He is pretty young and started his career already on the top - so there ain't much "older" results in worser teams. He has a history of getting substituted out and then the team lost - especially in semi-finals or finals. Whereas his teams have always won when he is playing in this matches. The German team - even in friendly matches - seldom had negative results during the time he was on the pitch - but often without him. And all of that international 7 or 6 goal matches of Bayern or the German team happened with Müller on the pitch. The most interesting on this algorithm is the comparison between Kroos and Müller who most of their career where on the pitch together. The 40 points difference are the matches in which one of them played without the others. Then Müller played the hanging striker in a 4-2-3-1 between Robben and Ribery - or Kroos played his role as more conventional no. 10 or even more another 8 in between them. The goalimpact is not really about the best individualist as it somehow counts the team success. But having somebody leading it who apart from his own goals and assists excels in off-the-ball-movement and is team oriented maybe shows how important it is to have the right combination of players.