The all-time highest single season average grade by Gazzetta dello Sport is Platini in 1983-84 with 6.94 (#2 in 1983-84 was Brady of Sampdoria with 6.82). Although they take the job serious, it is ultimately just an opinion ofc. Francesco Totti has the all-time best career grade, and only two players have ever received a 10/10 in a Serie A game; Baggio and Scarpi.
Of course you very conveniently ignore the 1984 ranking where he is 0.27 above his nearest teammate. And another where he is 0.17 above his nearest teammate. A little bit dishonest of you, don't you think? The fact is that these ratings taken together make it clear that prime Platini was rated #1 on his team. 1986-1987 Maradona was not at all clearly #1 on his team. That is telling. And it is quite shocking that you are unable to admit this. Instead, you're resorting to quibbling over how much ahead Platini was. You might very well be right that the relatively small gap in a few of Platini's ratings compared to his nearest teammate demonstrates how well defensive players did in that era's ratings. But Platini was good enough that he was still ranked ahead of his teammates, albeit not always by as much as you may expect. On the other hand, Maradona was often ranking below multiple teammates.. He was not good enough to overcome the effect of the era you've tried to identify, while the other big legend in that era clearly was. How can you possibly act like this is not telling?
We're going down a rabbit hole here that isn't really at all important. But saying a 21 and 22 year old was "approaching his mid twenties" is a little bit silly. The fact is that Laudrup was young and nowhere near his peak. Moreover, he had lots of injury issues in 1986-1987. He then scored 0 league goals as an attacking player in 1987-1988. He was very inconsistent all of these years, capable of magic, but also capable of some really bad matches. That ends up getting a player relatively low averages. Ultimately, he left Juventus to try to jumpstart his career again, since he had not been very good at Juventus. This is all well-known stuff. Perhaps it's a little bit surprising he was ranked 14th. But he's also relatively close to a ton of the players above him, so saying he was 14th makes it sound worse than it is. When you take that into account, as well as his wild inconsistency in those years, young age, and lack of form, it doesn't actually surprise me that much.
I didn't have an issue with the 0.27 and 0.17 margins so I didn't mention them. They are still quite small anyway considering this is a top 10 all time player in his peak. I'm aware that Maradona had off the field problems in the 86/87 season with a public news story about an illegitimate son, and it is reported in some places that it affected his form for some period during the season. A brief loss of form could have a detrimental affect on a season average when all the scores are bunched so close together. There is also the possibility of national bias in ratings when the foreign players were scarce and Maradona is the only foreigner in a team of Italians. I'm borrowing this from @Once http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/serie-a-rankings-legione-straniera-1980-87.1811217/page-6 DBScalcio averages for foreigners 82/83 Top 5 1- Dirceu----- 6.67 2- Platini----- 6.66 3- Falcao----- 6.64 4- Francis---- 6.62 (played half the season) 5- Baradillo and Prohaska both with 6.58 83/84 Top 5 1- Zico-------- 7.00 2- Barbadillo- 6.72 3- Platini----- 6.71 4- Brady------ 6.65 5- Falcao----- 6.65 84/85 Top 5 1- Maradona------ 7.02 (rounded down) 2- Junior---------- 7.02 (rounded up) 3- Briegel--------- 6.82 4- Hateley-------- 6.80 5- Barbadillo----- 6.74 85/86 Top5: 1- Maradona------- 6.69 2- Boniek----------- 6.66 3- Passarella------- 6.62 4- Junior----------- 6.60 5- Dirceu and R. Diaz both with 6.57 86/87 Top5: 1- Maradona----- 6.63 2- Briegel-------- 6.48 3- Passarella---- 6.47 4 and 5- Rummenigge and Dirceu both 6.33 In his first three seasons Maradona is the highest rated foreigner in the league. Is this telling? Maybe it's a better barometer than comparing to Italian player rated by Italian journalists, who knows. I was referring to 87/88 when he was 23. As for the rest I think you are underselling laudrup somewhat. He was not an average player at that point.
He was not breaking his own rules. He is showing you that it is not impossible for attacking players to be ranked first within their teams, something you said was highly unlikely in the defensive Serie A.
Did you follow Serie A in the 80s? I did, as they televised two matches per weekend including most of Napoli's matches and it was clear to anyone, local commentators too, that Maradona was the team's best player almost always. Funny how Napoli all of a sudden wins its first ever Scudetto right after Maradona establishes his legend in WC86, but I guess it was all due to Bagni and Romano.
No I did not, but that is very fortunate of you. Most journalists (probably not all, as LessthanJake point out) watched every game of Serie A during those times. I can't completely discredit them because you think your opinion weighs more than theirs.
I doubt most journalists would watch every match of Serie A, that would have been nearly forty hours of matches per week (not including Coppa Italia), in addition, this was a time before 24-hour sports channels or online streaming. In any event, you completely overlook my comment about the enormous coincidence of Napoli winning its first title right after Maradona finishes WC86. How come Bagni, Romano and Giordano did not carry the team to a title in 85-86, or 84-85?
Perhaps it's a possibility that there was a bias against foreigners. With that said, Platini is a foreigner and he got really good ratings compared to his Italian teammates. And so did Maradona when he actually had a really great season (for instance, 1984-1985). In fact, many of the highest ratings in Serie A history were given to foreigners. That's not absolute proof that there wasn't much bias, but it's a pretty decent bit of evidence. Also, being the highest rated foreigner is all well and good, but you do realize there were only like 25-30 foreigners in all of Serie A at the time, right? Many of them were nowhere even remotely close to Maradona's quality, and a good portion of them were on garbage teams (and, again, bad team --> bad results --> lower ratings). Full credit to Maradona's 1984-1985 season, but besides that season, his rating was getting boosted by being on a team that was getting top results. And there weren't exactly many other legendary foreigners in the league in those years you mentioned anyways. Platini had declined for the last two years. Rummenigge had declined by the time he got to Serie A. Laudrup was nowhere near his prime yet. Zico was gone. Falcao was gone. So who exactly would you expect to be ahead of him? Even then, other ratings did put foreigners ahead of him. http://football-ratings.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/serie-top-rated-players-1981-2014.html That rating puts Dirceu ahead of Maradona in 1985-1986, despite him playing for a significantly worse team than Napoli. I know that rating also put Gullit ahead of Maradona in 1987-1988, Junior ahead of Maradona in 1988-1989, and Matthaus ahead of Maradona in 1989-1990 (I am basing that off knowing they were in the top 3 in Serie A those years, while Maradona was not. Other foreigners certainly could've been ahead too). So once some other foreign superstars showed up, Maradona was no longer the top-rated foreigner (if he even was before those guys showed up; see Dirceu). In fact, here's one rating that puts at least 9 foreigners ahead of Maradona in 1988-1989: http://football-ratings.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/memory-lane-serie-1988-89.html That includes Careca, who was not only a foreigner, but also an attacker on Maradona's own team. You've really got no excuse left in your arsenal for that one. And of course that list indicates that at least 3 Napoli players were rated ahead of Maradona that year. The fact is this. Prime Maradona was clearly not considered beyond a reasonable doubt the best performing player on his own team. You've offered excuses for this. But other star attackers did better in comparison to their teams. Other star foreigners did better too. None of your excuses have held water.
You realize this is based off of newspapers giving every player on the pitch a rating for every match they played, right? And that they often even had commentary accompanying those ratings? They absolutely did have people watching all these matches. This isn't a random end-of-season award voted by people who barely saw anything. It's based on match-by-match ratings.
I do realize that, but didn't @SirWellingtonSilva show that Maradona was joint first on the metadata? In any event, I was going by the commentary outside of Italy for Napoli matches, he was by and large deemed the best player of the season in many places and not talking about Argentina either.
I think we can all agree that Maradona's best club season with Napoli was the 1984-1985 season, right? Yet Napoli was a mid-table team that year. Maradona didn't win the 1986-1987 Scudetto on his own. He had a worse season than he had had in 1984-1985, but the team's results were way better. Obviously, the team around him had wildly improved. Could the other Napoli players have won the title without Maradona? Almost certainly not. But Maradona couldn't have won the title without a vastly improved team either.
He pointed out that Maradona was joint first with Ferrara based on an accumulation of 4 newspaper ratings. But we also have 2 OTHER newspaper ratings that both rank Ferrara ahead of Maradona. So it's very clear that, putting all 6 ratings together, Maradona was not the highest ranked person on his team. So no, the metadata does not support you guys.
The same question could be asked of Maradona, couldnt it? Afterall he was better in 84-85. Why is him winning the world cup pivotal to napoli winning the scudetto?
I agree with the above but don't see how this disproves that Maradona had a tremendous 86-87 season. I'm not very sure that putting a defender ahead means all that much, which is the reason why I never ranked defenders in my top players list for any given tournament. It's clear Maradona was the best creative/attacking player of a team that completed a historic season.
LOL, yeah you can ask the same question for Maradona only if you consider Bagni, et al of equal quality/importance as him The answer to your question is really obvious, in WC86 Maradona was able to harness his preternatural talent into the objective of winning the trophy. He learned he could do it and followed through in the upcoming season.
It's perhaps less meaningful than an attacker being ahead of him, but it's still meaningful, since it demonstrates that he was not beyond a reasonable doubt the best performing player on the team. That's absolutely an important fact. Furthermore, I should note that there's a pretty decent chance that more than just Ferrara is ahead of Maradona if we accumulated all 6 ratings together. After all, Renica and Romano were both ahead of Maradona in both of the other ratings we have. So if they were close in the DBScalcio rating, then they'd end up ahead when all 6 were combined. And while Renica is also a defender, Romano is not. So there's actually a decent chance that a non-defender is rated ahead of Maradona when all the ratings are combined. I guess we'd have to ask if Puck has the information on the full DBScalcio ratings that year, in order to know for sure.
Take all those rates with a grain of salt... If they were hard evidence and a very reliable measure means, then Roberto Baggio was an absolutely ordinary footballer until late in his career...
Set, game, match! And like I said, why did Romano, Renica and Bagni did not lead Napoli to a first ever title in 84-85 or 85-86? Something may have happened before 86-87 that took Napoli over the top
Yeah but Baggio's injury problems are well known. Even at the 1994 WC, he was heavily criticized through the group stage, "if he is that injured, he really shouldn't be on the pitch" was said more than once in several games of his at WC94, including for large portions of the first KO game. R9 post-injury had very similar problems with his game-to-game form, as a result of his knee and general fitness not holding up. So all things considered, I'm not surprised that Baggio would not score highly on a game-to-game basis. But I fail to see how game-to-game ratings serve as some sort of reliable measure for talent? Baggio had amazing talent, which is part of the reason as to why he is remembered so fondly. But Baggio had fitness problems, and this is well known -- this aspect of him as a player will inevitably show up on any game-to-game ratings. That being said, perhaps the ratings are too low even if Baggio was inconsistent? I wouldn't know as I haven't actually read said ratings, but it could be a possibility of course. And to be fair, at least it should be recognized that Baggio getting ordinary ratings at least shows that Baggio being Italian wasn't enough reason for them to give him extra points on a consistent basis. In any case, I just think we shouldn't confuse talent with form. Maradona was undoubtedly the most talented player in his own team, and arguably in the Serie A, and probably in the world. But if he was inconsistent (and we know he was inconsistent) that will show up in the game-to-game ratings.
Officially Platini was a foreigner but maybe the Italian media looked at him differently than other foreign players because Platini's parents were both children of Italian immigrants. Had Platini been around in the 1950s/60s he might've played for the Italian national team (like Omar Sivori/Argentina, José Altafini/Brazil and some others at the time).
No, Italians never considered Platini "almost Italian". To most people, Platoche was very much the symbol of French mentality: they admired his incredible skill, but found him cold and arrogant. Platini outclassed Maradona in the Serie A, but the cult of Diego is by far greater, mainly because he represented his city, Naples, almost impersonating its virtues and vices. Platini never did that, even in proverbially cold and severe Turin.
Maradona spoke close to perfect Italian (after a few years at least). Gazzetta dello Sport once ranked the language skills of various players and Maradona had a 9/10, together with Scifo and Dunga. Funny and true anecdote about a player's reaction to a grade: As for Baggio (as said previously I agree about taking DBScalcio with a pinch of salt), he had very good ratings at Bologna (which made him reclaim a place in the Italian national team) and at Brescia. Also decent to good ones at Fiorentina.
Here you have Baggio´s rates from DbsCalcio: 87-88 Fiorentina 6.26 (5th rated offensive midfielder in Serie A) 88-89 Fiorentina 6.35 (5th rated offensive midfielder in Serie A) 89-90 Fiorentina 6.24 (5th again) 90-91 Juventus 5.73 (17th rated offensive midfielder in Serie A) 91-92 Juventus 6.11 (9 rated offensive midfielder in Serie A) 92-93 Juventus 6.37 (5th rated second striker in Serie A) 93-94 Juventus 6.27 (4th rated offensive midfielder in Serie A) 94-95 Juventus 6.03 (13th rated offensive midfielder in Seire A) 95-96 Milan 5.94 (16th rated second striker in Serie A) 96-97 Milan 6.13 (6th rated second striker in Serie A) 97-98 Bologna 6.60 (best rated offensive midfielder in Serie A) 98-99 Inter 6.33 (6th rated second striker in Serie A) 99-00 Inter 6.07 (too few games) 00-01 Brescia 6.81 (best rated second striker in Serie A) 01-02 Brescia 7.08 (too few games) 02-03 Brescia 6.33 (6th rated second striker in Serie A) 03-04 Brescia 6.62 (best rated second striker in Serie A) Make of it whatever you want. Personally, not sure I would talk of inconsistency when it comes to this kind of players who were more capable of the extraordinary than others. IMO it has to do with the bar they set themselves and what they have to produce in order to the approved. In a highly defensive environment, a 6.50 for a defender or defensive mid is not as valuable as a 6.50 for an offensive player imo.