Mbappe is all i can think of at the moment, he is amazing.. overall, the best ever has to be Brazilian Ronaldo, doesnt it?
issue here is with defining what a speedster dribbler mean... i see Maradona as a technical dribbler (so does many, i presume) despite being fast.
As shown above maradona was during his pre Napoli days a world class athlete in addition to possessing goat level dribbling technique Maradonas physical and technical abilities are intrinsically linked when it comes to how effective he was at dribbling when his physical qualities declined (i.e. As a result of drug taking,injuries,bad diet)he was nowhere near as potent a dribbler as he was when he was fully fit It is no surprise wc 86 maradona was a demonstrably superior dribbler to the maradona that played at copa 87 And the maradona that played at Barcelona a superior dribbler to when he played in napoli (with the exception of his 84/85 debut season -arguably the greatest club season in history) @Pipiolo @PDG1978
can you refer to someone who was better at dribbling after (or before) their physical peak? if not, that argument hardly makes sense. It's pretty trivial to conclude that the dribbling peak of a player will have a very high correlation with the physical peak of the same player, regardless of what type of dribbler his The same argument can be applied to every type of dribbler (speedster, technical,..) so it brings no solution in how we should differentiate one from another.. do you see my point?
I think I define 'speedster dribbler' different from all of you. All I see here are GOAT technicians who also happen to be quite fast. I don't see a single dribbler named here who actually relied more on their speed and acceleration over their technique and agility. I mean, I just watched almost 30 minutes of Maradona's video posted here, and I didn't see a single kick-and-run move. In my book, you can't be a speedster dribbler if one of your signature moves isn't the simple act of just skinning a defender. The exception is perhaps Ronaldo who could interchange between the two styles with ease. To me, a real speed dribble looks like this: Here is a 4-min video of Henry just running past players A 9-min video of Henry showing off his speed dribbling: Henry wasn't the only one who could skin Zanetti. Bale was another one: More of Bale's speed dribbling You could barely see a moment of elite technique in these videos (exceptions being a few moments by Henry) but plenty of moments of just beating defenders with sheer pace.
Ronaldo became more of a mover/pure speedster dribbler after 2009-10 season. Henry was also technically pretty dope.
I'd feel that's going too far the other way though mate, and arguably not even 'dribbling' at all in cases of kick and run. I agree it's hard to define though - are we talking about only those who were solely/mainly great when dribbling at speed, or those who were generally great dribblers if they might be better than anyone at speed too... On balance I'd consider the likes of Maradona and R9 prime candidates, but also young Giggs or Brian Laudrup for example
To explain further what I mean, I would probably think of this run by Claudio Caniggia as speed dribbling (before he gets hacked down) because he's keeping the ball within playing distance and using body swerve movements etc while touching the ball around players rather than just knocking it well ahead of himself into space: Maybe he is a good candidate himself too. I'd say Messi (especially young Messi) can be too, but although Pele did sometimes prove effective with top speed runs from deep I guess I think more of him as a low/changeable pace dribbler, and similarly Cruyff could certainly dribble effectively at full speed but I think he also excelled the most when he was a bit lower than top speed at least as he could be more controlled and deceptive that way.
Messi does stuff like this: too often too be considered a speedster dribbler. The same applies for Maradona and Pele, imo.
Yeah, that's what I meant in terms of depending on the definition really: Brian Laudrup wasn't purely a speed dribbler either. Whereas Butragueno I'd say wasn't really a speed dribbler at all, let alone a top candidate (even though he could do things like that Messi example and could run fairly quick too). And Roberto Baggio wouldn't be a candidate as his speed wasn't high enough and his most effective running with the ball not at absolute sprinting pace I think, even though actually his best dribbles were when he was in fluent running motion and not from a standing start I think (although he could twist and turn well too).
I was going to say the exact same thing from watching the first two minutes of the henry video. @poetgooner is really streching the definition of a dribble . The super speedy runs in that clip involves kicking the ball and running after it, jumping over the legs of the defender or outrunning them. I know how Bale plays so I didnt even watched his clip because I probably have seen all of his runs and they are very similar.