C. Ronaldo, best WF of all-time?

CR7 was like between Jairzinho (AM to wide FW) to Garrincha/Best (winger to wide FW) in term of position and role a forward to wide forward and verstile to play as SS or CF

Gento, Mathews and Dzajic were true wingers (or traditional one) like Giggs Overmars ...

 

yeah me agrees..

matthews, gento and dzajic where different.. they where typical wingers..

george best is hard to rank...

based on talent alone best is in the top 10 all tiem for sure..
but ofcourse we all know his career was really short (at least his prime was) due to his lifestyle..

personally i rank best above c. ronaldo.

as for garincha...?? different kinda player but what he has in common with c. ronaldo is that he is a fysical phenomenon..
ronaldo has great fysique is build very good is powerfull etc etc.. garincha not but garincha ws also a phenomenon because he could do things with those strange legs that not many could do..
so totally differetn players but both fysical phenomenons..

as for pure talent i rate garincha higher as ronaldo...

both best and garincha where heavy drinkers and did not live for their sport...
c. ronaldo is a pure athlete he lives and eats healthy etc etc..

imagine how good best and garincha would have been and what they could have achieved if they lived for their sport like a real proffesionnal ????

 

If you were going to rank CR7 among the wide forwards I would say he has a very good claim to being the best ever in terms of accomplishment. Best and Garrincha both only had 2-3 club seasons where they were in consideration for the best player in the world and performing at an all time great level. CR7 has about seven seasons at that level.

I would say Best and Garrincha's club peaks are not clearly superior either. Best was amazing in 67-68 leading Man U to the champions league and from what I have read decisive in almost every round. In 07-08 CR7 led United to the Champions League EPL double, where Best's United failed to win the double in his best season. Both were top scorer and had similar roles at this point in their careers, a left forward with free license to pop up anywhere and interchange with other attackers.

Garrincha's 62 is famous leading Botofogo to multiple titles but I would not say that is clearly better that CR7 scoring 60 in 55 games and leading Real to the title over Barcelona and 11-12. Garrincha obviously has the great World Cup performance on his side that CR7 does not, but other than that he did not have that same type of career for Brazil as an undisputed starter and important player the way some of his contemporaries did (Didi, Pele, Santos, Santos etc).

 

Yes CR7 will be among the very top all time wide forward no doubt

1- CR7 got the longevity and number of trophies to back him up against Best - arguably and dependently on criteria one set.

2- CR7 looked better than Garrincha at club level but Garrincha left one of the best individual WC62 + WC58 among the all time there. No way CR7 would surpass Garrincha.

3- Same as Garrincha (WC performance) there were many other greats wide forwards i.e. Lato, Stoitchkov, Cantona or even Ronaldinho Rivaldo ... (for their Barca and some Brazil NT in same position as wide left) they are very very comparable and at least equal in talent as CR7

 

Let's take a few greats and place them in wing or wide FW: ( I might have missed some names though)

1- Winger:
Garrincha Best Mathews Czibor Dzajic Gento Jairzinho Figo Stoitchkov Lato CR7 Giggs Ressenbrink Lawton Cantona Overmars Rivaldo Nedved Beckham Ronaldinho Pires Robben Ribery ...

2- Wide FW:
Garrincha Best Rivaldo Jairzinho Ronaldinho Stoichkov CR7 Lato Dzajic Czibor Cantona Gento Mathews Ressensbrink Lawton Robben Ribery Pires Figo Nedved Overmars Beckham

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Note that we do not consider Cruyff, Rivelino Kopa or Messi .. into the list

CR7 will move up the ladder closer to the top3 "wide FW" if we do not consider Rivaldo Ronaldinho or Jairzinho in that list

 

You're right my bad ... I meant Tom Finney ( don't know why I wrote Lawton)

 

Every time ... you never, ever mention Jimmy Johnstone in the wingers...


Also, am I getting the wrong end of the stick here or has Cantona been mentioned as a winger!??!

Are we talking about a different Cantona?

 

Very good call for Johnstone (another legendary winger/wide FW) - often forgotten for he played in Scottish league!

Yeah Eric Cantona was a FW but often he was playing on the left winge or of 4 3 3 or wide left behind striker (4 4 1 1 )

 

The discussion is about the best, not the most talented. Unfortunately, although Ronaldinho was probably more talented than CR7, he sort of wasted some of his skill and couldn't maintain his effectiveness for long enough to warrant being mentioned in the same breath as CR7.

 

1- the best player should have great (or best) talent to start with = YES
2- the REAL question is that CR7 is good enough to be in SAME breadth as Ronaldinho or Rivaldo? NO
3- Usain Bolt only needs less than 10 seconds to prove he is the best or fastest man on earth. It did NOT matter Raul/ Giggs had longer longevity to make them any better than Basten or G Best?

Gigg could prolong his time to another 5 years (so to speak) he will never reach BEST

 

Clearly, Garrincha, Best, Matthews, Stoichkov, and Ghiggia must be placed ahead of C Ronaldo.

 

I do not think Ghiggia deserved same breadth with Garrincha Best ... and CR7? just bd he scored the winner vs Brazil 50?

 

CR7 not good enough to be spoken of along with Rivaldo? That is an insane comment, even for you James.

 

I think Ghiggia was pretty great but he was at no point considered the best player in the world or even the best player on his own team in my opinion.

Garrincha and Stoichkov could both be ranked ahead or CR7 if you place a very large value a performances in World Cups as they both have good ones where CR7 does not. CR7 has a significantly better club career though.

I would rate CR7 above all of them, but to me the discussion of kind of pointless as I would rate him as a forward.

 

So you are championing Willy Dullens as the greatest dutch player ever?

 

I've bolded the ones that I think could be put into a wing forwards category (including himself). Maybe others like Amancio for example, but I'm not sure. The comparison to Littbarski would be imperfect as Littbarski would still have played more of a set-up role and C.Ronaldo is more focused on scoring (beyond this just being where their respective abilities lie the most).

Anyway, I think a minority of them could be in the same category even though teams did used to play with '5 forwards' hence the wingers being classed as forwards (they were still predominantly wide players I think - hard to tell with someone like Bastin though).

I suppose you could argue Garrincha could be in that category too considering his role in the 1962 World Cup, but I don't think it sits right overall.

Dzajic became an outright winger/wide midfielder when the team had 4 midfielders I think, but I thought in the 4-3-3 he just about qualifies for the categorisation, albeit I don't think he played in a similar way to C.Ronaldo.

 

You could very easily add Bobby Lennox as a wing forward most certainly.

The only reason he didn't score more goals was due (so many believe) to the fact that linesman struggled to keep up with his pace off the mark and he was incorrectly called offside on numerous occasions.

Still, he is easily classified as a wing/forward moreso than a standard winger I'd say.

 

Stoichkov was part of the Barcelona Dream Team, which won four consecutive La Ligas and the CL, not sure that C Ronaldo has a greater club career. Stoichkov is also a greater talent than CR7 and as you mentioned a greater WC player, which is all enough for me to place him ahead. As for Garrincha, he is almost always part of any top ten of all time lists, must be ranked ahead of CR7 without controversy.

 

I agree with you that the general consensus is on your side putting Garrincha ahead of CR7. I think Garrincha may be a bit overrated in the big picture because of his legendary world cup performances. He only had two great club seasons from what I can gather (61 and 62) and would have been very unlikely to have played a game in WC 58 if Julinho had not gone to Europe and may not have even overtaken Julinho for the 62 world cup first team spot. Julinho was the clear first team winger until he went to Italy, and even then he was still attempted to be recalled to the national team for the 58 World Cup, which he refused, and national teams back then never called players playing abroad. Overall I think Garrincha is very lucky Julinho decided to move abroad or his career would have been very similar to someone like Canhoteiro, as oppose to being rated as on of Brazil greatest players ever.

 

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Football = talent + using talent on pitch (wherever) and win things
Like many SA fans love Magico Gonzales (great technical), and even Maradona once said, this guys is even betetr than me, but he did not use his best properly