Final thought on that topic now! There is always a reluctance of course to vote for players that get knocked out relatively early, when it comes to Player of the Tournament votes (eg James Rodriguez; although to be fair Elkjaer had been among the highest voted players 4 years earlier than the 1990 WC). Less so when it comes to including players in best XIs (or obviously when it comes to average ratings, unless excluding players with less than a set(high) number of games). Everyone except Roger Milla in the top 6 went to the semi-finals, and Milla went to the quarters (Scifo going out to England 1 round earlier than Milla did), plus had a persuasive impact/story. The factor of Scifo being more of a permanent fixture in the team than Milla (super sub) or Baggio (prodigy used sparingly) wouldn't come into it so much, unless Belgium go further I suppose (which would also give him further opportunities to shine). Just as this year if Croatia go out early-ish, then despite Modric playing great vs Argentina for example he'd be nowhere near winning the Golden Ball. Whereas Mbappe might actually be an example of a player who was less in contention for it due to being prime candidate for the Young Player award (the bookmakers either didn't factor this in, or were being clever and inviting bets on him). I could see people thinking "well I can't vote for Scifo among the top 3 overall, but he is going into my XI for sure".
I checked the La Vanguardia digital files to see if they had a team of the tournament for 1990. They did not. But found this: -right before the final Platini said he would not be surprised if Argentina won as "they have gotten better through the stages while Germany has done the opposite just like the very Matthaeus". http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1990/07/08/pagina-44/33445447/pdf.html?search=Matthaeus -also right before the final, little survey for the three best players of the tournament from six Spanish press representatives: most mention Matthaeus, then Klinsmann and Schillaci get several mentions too. Milla a couple and Maradona, Caniggia, Gascoigne and others are mentioned once: http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1990/07/11/pagina-23/33445426/pdf.html?search=Maradona -Now after the final, former player Pichi Alonso offers some comments and his Best XI: Says that wingers have disappeared, that Italy 90 has shut down the stars, the Gullits, van Bastens, Koemans, Viallis, Butragueños, Polsters, Ruben Sosas or even the very Diego Maradona. Instead, other -a priori second tier players- have shown great form, like Donadoni, Scifo, Stoijkovic, Matthaeus or Littbarski. Plus some nice surprises like Schillaci, Makanaki, Oman Biyik, Rincon, Estrada, Conejo and the most complete player of all the tournament, Paul Gascoigne. Best player in a single match was Klinsmann in Germany vs Netherlands. Cameroon vs England was the most fun to watch and Germany vs England the one of best quality. His Best XI would be: Illgner; Parker, Baresi, Walker, De Wolf; Donadoni, Matthaeus, Gascoigne, Valdo; Schillaci, Oman-Biyik http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1990/07/10/pagina-33/33446652/pdf.html?search=Maradona
A contact of mine had that one. Yeah, that’s also useful info and I’ll see if I make a recap of all those ideal teams to reach a final outcome. That too. Also difficult considering that some of those players (as you mentioned) didn’t get past the second round and also it’s important to mention the competition they faced.
Did I base it off memory, I may have looked at an online archive. La Prensa NY provided the best football coverage in USA at the time, not sure how it does now since I don't buy newspapers anymore. For WC90, there were not shining stars particularly for offensive players. Diego Maradona must be in the all-tournament team on stature and also by the uniqueness of dragging a dysfunctional team to the final, at times on presence alone.
Always good to know someone on this forum was there in NYC at the same time as me... and watching the games either in Spanish on Univision with Longo and Cantor or on the American commercial coverage of TNT.. jijijiii good times those were.
I was a kid back then but definitely followed football as much as I could from the soccer hinterlands that the USA was at the time. Norberto Longo was dour and often harsh, but he had a good sense of humor and a deep mind for the game. Gone too soon, I miss such deep insights he would offer and the always hopeful "Vamos, Andres!" at kick off. This match could be something special, even when often it wasn't.
Yeah, Longo was quite a personality, always had something to say about the officials, he always made me laugh with the irony that he brought with his commentary.... Don’t know if you remember Tony Tirado, he was before Andres’s time, but he was also a crazy broadcaster, wild as hell and exaggerated but nevertheless cool. I miss those days.
I've heard of Tony Tirado but I was living in South America most of that time. From the little I watched him I thought he was awful.
Just to clarify (unless I'm mistaken, but this was the case for Euro 96 for example, and it looks like it here too): France Football's 'best XI' shows simply the ones who accumulated the most points in match ratings (not the ones with the best average ratings, as it's done on a cumulative basis). That's why it's dominated by players whose teams went far, and why the average ratings posted earlier differ.
Pelé was asked after World Cup 1982 his opinion and picked Conti as the best of the tournament and chose his ideal team (no mention of Zico or Rummenigge, two main world stars at the time). Don Balon magazine
Yeah, that's another great find by you and a nice call for Conti, plus recognition of Scirea (seeing him as a top 3 player of the WC I think) who wasn't in the All-Star team (I don't know whether that was virtually picked by the time he had a very good final game or not - perhaps in those days it was done a bit later). Both those two did have a very good final game it's fair to say I think actually, but no doubt he's picking them out for the whole tournament anyway.
Although it’s the criteria of the publication, but after reviewing all Brazil 1994 games to refresh my memory, it’s extremely questionable how Taffarel got the top spot at goal. He had like maybe 10 or 12 saves overall and even then committed some basic errors, particularly vs the Netherlands. The Brazil backline kept mostly every opponent under control and rarely suffered. In a World Cup that produced many goalkeeper errors, I have little doubt that Belgium had the best keeper.
I just added La Stampa's XI (and 5 subs) to comme's main thread about this World Cup, here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/t...e-1986-world-cup.1981497/page-6#post-40465722 Pfaff (Belgium); Josimar (Brazil), K-H Forster (W.Germany), Brown (Argentina), Amoros (France); Burruchaga (Argentina), Yakovenko (USSR), Ceulemans (Belgium), Matthaus (W.Germany); Belanov (USSR), Maradona (Argentina) Mentions/subs: Zaki (Morocco), Julio Cesar (Brazil), Alemao (Brazil), Lineker (England), Laudrup (Denmark)
Thanks to Vegan's work (and others) this thread did turn into a general players/XIs of World Cups one I suppose, so I think adding something for 1982 from La Stampa too is ok (if you wanted it in a specific 1982 thread comme for example, I guess you could copy it over anyway): La Stampa (1982-07-14) : Editrice La Stampa : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive XI of Eugenio Bersellini (who was moving from coach of Inter to coach of Torino that summer) XI of Roberto Bettega XI of Massimo Giacomini (who had been Torino coach in 81/82) XI of Sandro Mazzola Two more to be posted (shown on the page I linked already) as attachment images, including one from Trapattoni (I seem to think Vegan, Puck or someone might have posted his XI before from somewhere, but I'm not recalling any of the others, so maybe there are some previously unseen ones here anyway). Actually, I remember the Bettega one has been shown before I think (maybe I even doubt the Trapattoni one having been posted before more if anything now) as I recall the lack of Italians, which Trapattoni's also happens to have as it happens.
Paolo Rossi is circled because I searched for his name (originally I had Scirea and Conti included in the search before narrowing it, otherwise their names would be circled still too - that led me to notice on page 1 of this edition of the newspaper that apparently Tottenham were preparing to pay a million pounds for Bruno Conti though too!) XI of Paolo Carosi (Calgiari/Bologna coach during 1982) XI of Giovanni Trapattoni
Actually, looking at post 1 by Puck, on this thread, I think this is maybe the XI of the Italian media, or 'press' (stampa) overall, and maybe based on average ratings. It is the same (and with the same subs) as Puck had posted.
Bob Paisley's XI (selected for the People, and published on the day of the Final so not considering that or probably the 3rd Place Play-Off either I guess) Shilton; Amoros, Forster, Bossis, Branco; Scifo, Maradona, Platini, Tigana; Elkajer, Careca Subs: Zaki, Lerby, Julio Cesar, Laudrup, Lineker