Sifting through the Italian magazine of Guerin Sportivo I game across the Allstar 1982 WC team comprised of varios team selections by different publications from around the globe. They also had another starting team by opinion of a reporter and each player by position.
Peculiar that Platini is so high and also Passarella in some way. I remember Vegan10 saying too that Passarella wasn't so great in 1982 iirc
I view Passarella overrated in that tournament, ditto with Ardiles. I don’t know what the pundits saw in them. Passarella was viewed as a solid leader, great in the air, etc, but his mistiming and thuggish defending was a real problem for Argentina. I tend to agree with Brian Glanville about Ardiles, he was ‘indifferent.’
This is L’equipe’s team after the quarterfinals of World Cup 1990 This is their average ratings after the semifinals of World Cup 1990 Unfortunately missing the final team but should be similar to the one after the quarterfinals.
Maradona gets clearly a free pass. Luckily there were also many sources who did not rate him so high for his volleyballing. His pass accuracy was woeful.
Guerin Sportivo “Hit Parade” Top 10 best World Cup 1990 players and top 3 worst below. GS best 11 of World Cup 1990
World Cup 1990 top 3 best players, according to FIFA journalists 1. Schillaci 1,629 points 2. Matthaus 1,036 points 3. Maradona 802 points
Found back the ones by France Football and kicker: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/to...ce-in-wc-history.857945/page-28#post-32718599 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/interesting-best-xi.325564/page-35#post-31895386 La Stampa here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/all-star-teams-of-1986-world-cup.1979342/#post-26886419
Yes, excellent find. Do you know of other best team selections of 1990? (but not retrospective lists).
So thus far the World Cup 1990 best teams from different sources around the world posted here look like this: Team elected at the same day as the Golden Ball poll was: Taffarel; Jorginho, Bergomi, Baresi, Buchwald, Brehme; Donadoni, Matthaus, Scifo; Schillaci, Klinsmann Above was mentioned by Puck, but I’m not aware of that one and where’s the source ? El Mundo Deportivo (Spain) Zubizarreta; Jorginho, Simon, Baresi, Brehme; Matthaus, Makanaki, Maradona, Gascoigne; Schillaci, Klinsmann La Stampa (Italy) Goychoechea; Kadlec, Kohler, Baresi, Brehme; Donadoni, Matthaus, Giannini, Hasek; Baggio, Schillaci ABC (Spain) Zenga; Bergomi, Baresi, Buchwald, Brehme; Burruchaga,Donadoni, Gascoigne, Matthaus; Klinsmann, Caniggia Placar (Brazil) Goycoechea; Tataw, Baresi, Buchwald, Brehme; Hassler, Matthaus, Gascoigne, Maradona; Schillaci, Milla. The Associated Press (North America) Conejo, Brehme, Des Walker, Baresi, Jorginho, Scifo, Matthaus, Maradona, Michel, Schillaci, Klinsmann. El Gráfico (Argentina) Goycoechea; Bergomi, Baresi, Augenthaler, Brehme; Wright, Matthaus, Gascoigne, Maradona; Klinsmann, Schillaci L’ Equipe (France) up until the semifinals Zenga; Bergomi, Ferri, Hasek, Brehme; Giannini, Maradona, Matthaus, Stojkovic; Klinsmann, Lineker Guerin Sportivo (Italy) Stejskal; Baresi, Parker, Kohler, Brehme; Stojkovic, Alemao, Matthaus, Gascoigne; Caniggia, Schillaci Kicker (Germany) Conejo, Bergomi, Baresi, Buchwald, Kohler; Gascoigne, Matthaus, Scifo, Brehme, Milla, Schillaci Deporte Total (Colombia) Goycoechea; Parker, Baresi, Berthold, Brehme; Gascoigne, Scifo, Matthaus, Stojkovic; Klinsmann, Schillaci La Prensa (New York, USA) Goycoechea: Bergomi-Baresi-Ruggieri-Brehme Matthaus-Rincon-Gascoigne-Maradona Milla-Schillaci The above team @Pipiolo based off his memory. Note: I’m very familiar with this newspaper (I’ve posted some of their works on this thread) since I used to receive it at that time living in New York, but I don’t have that edition with me to corroborate with what he claims. France Football had ratings but I haven’t seen their team of the tournament.
Ah, and that particular team was conducted from the Netherlands newspaper, correct ? (My Dutch is not very good so you’ll have to excuse me on that one)
Edit: any other lists compiled that were not added to this thread ? I’ve got somewhere the Gazzetta dello Sport team but can’t find it at the moment.
It wasn't.... The team can be found too in many foreign publications. It was voted by the same group that voted the golden ball, but without FIFA approval.
It was always strange though how Maradona got 802 points and finished 3rd with the bronze ball but did not make it into the first team. Any thoughts on this ? I wonder how many were involved to make that team... Edit: Milla and Baggio end up in the top 6 of the Golden Ball voting poll but are not on the starting team either. But it could be they overlap in the same positions of Klinsmann and Schillaci. The Maradona case is curious because Scifo is in the starting team but doesn’t make the top 6 in the final poll but gets the nod over him in the midfield. Stojkovic is in the sub group which means he’d get the nod too. Something just doesn’t add up.
I think with those kind of votes these things can happen quite often. It happens with the PFA voting in England. I think one example (this could be wrong lol, but is off the top of my head and I know there is a similar example and some others I have spotted) might be that for 01/02 David Beckham might have been a nominee for PFA Player of the Year (on the shortlist of 6 based on votes for that among all the players) but that Giggs had more inclusions (among the same players) for a place in the PFA Team of the Season and hence was put in that (PIres is shown on the right to make that possible IIRC, while he actually played more on the left - I assume he did get more inclusions than Giggs anyway). Maybe it was even the FWA team (Football writers) but I have a feeling like I say such an example exists around that time, and anyway others have and it's certainly possible when taking votes for single best player and best XIs separately even though from the same selection of voters (in the World Cup case a panel I suppose). So that would have occurred re: Maradona/Scifo too I suppose. Note that Puck said that the voting for best player was very close, and the top 3 didn't have a big lead of course (I assume the top 6 were also not set apart from the following pack by a lot, although to be fair if the panel was not very big there can't have been a lot of players included if only one was voted for per person which could even mean only those 6 received votes - Baggio did and wasn't in the selection either of course so he must just have impressed a few of the panel a lot while others probably thought his contributions were too limited to put in a team/squad). I guess you know what I mean anyway (hopefully I'm not rambling too much and becoming unclear!).
It's possible, although all-star teams don't always/often follow this, that Scifo looked more like a true/central midfielder in a best XI too, so Maradona might not have been considered (by everyone) to be an option in the same position. Perhaps. But yeah, a majority could have felt Scifo played better, but of the minority that thought Maradona could have been a few or several who went with him as best player, or close to it (if the panel voted for more than 1 player each and allocated points accordingly which like I say maybe they didn't - maybe Puck has more idea). EDIT - Sorry, I think there were quite a lot of votes for best player as the points totals might be quite high (if Vegan posted those above, although Puck was not sure enough to post them on the other thread....).
Yeah, it had not been established here until I posted yesterday the final point total where Schillaci does have a significant lead over second place Matthaus. Maradona is not that far away from second place either. Scifo or Stojkovic are not in the top 6 so that puts them out of the equation. The only thing I could think is they considered Maradona to have played as forward and disregarded him in favor of Klinsmann and Schillaci.
It can be that some voted for the best player and not for the team, and vice versa, but it was the same group of voters. Again: unlike the golden ball this had not 'official' status.
Yeah, it's hard without seeing a breakdown, but that can be one factor but also some individuals preferring Scifo and/or Stojkovic and so putting them in the XI and not Maradona. Both played very well of course, and various selections you've posted in the summary (L'Equipe, Guerin, Kicker, Deporte) have one or both and not Maradona, while others do include Maradona as midfielder (or AM maybe). I'd be expecting that everyone who voted for Maradona as best player (or in a top 3 maybe) would also put him in their XI too though, so it's the ones who didn't do that and also put Stojkovic and/or Scifo ahead of him in their XI that make the difference I suppose.
Oh, yeah, that would make a difference if it wasn't exactly the same set of voters too. Rather than adding another late edit, I'll put this thought in this post too: It can be, especially as including many AMs and creative/attacking CMs in all-star teams has been commonplace, that quite a lot of the voted XIs from people voting for Maradona as best player (or top 3) might also have included Stojkovic or Scifo or even both (others like Gascoigne/Giannini would be taking votes too of course). So in those cases, Stojkovic/Scifo get no points towards the best player voting, but 1 vote (same as Maradona) towards the best XI voting. Probably the number of voters selecting a single playmaker would not be high. And the number of people seeing Stojkovic/Scifo as among the best 4 midfielders also justifiably high. Then there are the ones who included them but not Maradona (thinking they played better, or sometimes considering them, especially Scifo maybe, more as central midfielder). I can see how it can happen anyway as differences are inevitable for these sorts of reasons when two different votes are conducted I think, especially if things are not so clear in terms of who the best players were (ie Maradona wasn't consistently brilliant, while Scifo did play some really excellent games).