It well known and historically established that Cruyff won the duel vs beckenbaur for best European player of his generation That automatically eliminates Der Kaiser from being put on a equal pedestal The 5 kings of football famously coined by Menotti refers to 5 footballers who all have equal stakes and claims for being the best ever in the game He picked Pele/maradona/Cruyff/ADS/Messi Guilliem balague tried to go one better and claim Zidane was the 6th king of football but for a number of reasons that is a spurious claim personally I don’t think platini has a legitimate claim for being the best player Europe has ever produced even though his 84 EC is the best individual display by arguably any European player at international tournaments (Although I would like to know how it would fare in comparison to just just Fontaine and Raymond kopa WC 1958 and yes even Cruyff 74 was less dominant from a statistical perspective but arguably just as influential)
“I think Cristiano Ronaldo is the greatest player of all time He has done it at all clubs he has been at even a champions league with Manchester United best footballer of all time What he achieved for any team he played for is unbelievable” Ruud-Gullit https://www.express.co.uk/sport/foo...-Cristiano-Ronaldo-Barcelona-news-Ruud-Gullit
Basically, all of Beckenbauer, Muller and Rummenigge (three club team mates) have at various points stated (and voted accordingly, as Muller did for the 1989 'Super Ballon d'Or', placing at #1) that El Flaco was the 'greatest' player of that era. You can say he wasn't as successful internationally (although his individual 'peak' was positively higher), but on the other hand there is a case to be made the league record falls in his way, and he has also more semi final appearances (or better) for his club (in an absolute and relative count). More deep runs for his clubs. Now there is of course another confusing variable in that a nominal 'defender' is thrown in the mix, an unknown variable, but I dare to claim that by early 1973 Cruijff was already positively compared to Pelé and Di Stefano (examples: Sports Illustrated, Leslie Vernon) if it wasn't earlier. Today I received this excellent work, from early 1994: More on that later in another thread. Unsurprisingly Rethacker places JC14 in the highest category (the category of Pelé) while Kaiser is described as "belonged for a decade among the best players in the world". Zidane his claims as a 'king' gets enhanced by the successes as a coach (despite, like Kaiser, not boasting a great win percentage perse) while ironically Zidane regards the league as more important. Maybe there is a comparison in 'style' in how both appear to lean on intuition and gut feeling (not saying coaches of the Guardiola type have no intuition at all but you get what I mean). Beckenbauer said he completely "does not care" about his intelligence quotient. He has never had him measured. The IQ is not very meaningful, he believes. "The stupidest solve the crossword puzzle the fastest. Intuition, feeling for situations, power of observation, repartee - that's intelligence - that's what you need in life" https://derstandard.at/737491/Franz-Beckenbauer-haelt-sich-fuer-eitel Some would call it 'streetwise' (for Zidane a fairly appropriate description I guess). There are parallels there I think. Neither are impressive as a pundit.
Bobby Charlton should be on everyones list when it come the greatest european footballers. He won the world cup with england in 66 and was the player of the tournament. He held the record as Englands greatest goal scorer for England for over 40 years even though he was a midfielder. See the video below . Most people don't realise how good he actually was . He was as good as cryuff its just that cryuff looked better because he played with better players . The english football was more kick and rush. http://tinyurl.com/y67ude92
Outside of power shots(from distance) I fail to see a single category where he is comparable and this is actually as clear cut case as it gets Even though I may not necessarily agree with it there is a strong case for his superiority of George best factoring in international achievements and longevity Not Johan Cruyff who at moments looked like the best player that ever lived(and yes even a rival for Pelé)
in every category . pace, dribbling, close control, passing and football brain. I bet your one of those people who believe that Paul Pogba is the best midfielder in the world.
Cristiano Ronaldo played for the best Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus of all history (Club Elo http://clubelo.com/Stats, Manchester 08, Madrid 14 and Juventus 18) and is/was considered the best player in all these teams. How significant/incredible this fact can be?
@carlito86 what do you think of Pierre Littbarski? How high do you rank him? I think of the European dribblers he's amongst my favourite to watch alongside Figo, Futre, Piksi, Cruyff and Robben. Such a smoothness about how these guys handled the ball
https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/06/08/pierre-littbarski-german-footballs-glorious-anomaly/ A very unusual technical player by German standards(I don’t think they produced a similar player before or since) Others as Franz Beckenbauer,Matthaus (and especially KHR and ballack )were more physical then technical I’m not an expert on the player but yes I think he was one of the greatest European dribblers ever
Indeed, he was one of the best EU dribblers. A very fine technician. However, lets not underestimate his athleticism as he wasn't too reliant on just his elite-level technique. He was a fast player, especially over 10 yards, and also very agile. His athleticism was key to his dribbling ability, unlike say a Santi Cazorla who didn't have much going for him physically except the agility associated with his short height.
Your knowledge about Beckenbauer seems to be limited as Beckenbauer was definitely a more technical than physical player.
So Beckenbauer has close control like Littbarski In your wildest dreams mate He was really an open space dribbler as Eusebio and Charlton(known for surging runs in open field but not in close space) What’s next Beckenbauer was a dribbling wizard Like Pelé was a GOAT playmaker Or even as some claimed ADS was an otherworldly technician Just Please spare me the exaggerations
I never compared him with Littbarski in terms of dribbling skills. I corrected your false assumption that Beckenbauer was more physical than technical.
Dude you either misunderstood me or are purposefully misquoting me I described Beckenbauer as more physical than technical within the context of discussing his dribbling technique That should’ve been pretty obvious as the Littbarski video I posted,then commented on is a comp soley focused on his dribbling technique Edhardy asked a question about his dribbling technique The topic was dribbling not overall technical skillset I have nothing more to say here Just to be clear: Beckenbauer was a great dribbler for his position as libero compared to others as baresi,krol and also arguably scirea but this needs more looking into) However he would not make top 100 all time dribblers if all positions were considered You will also never hear of him mentioned on any thread discussing great technical players So let’s also put things into their correct perspective I did not claim what you said But at the same time you exaggerate about his greatness(specifically his technical ability) Der kaiser was Great going forward,a very effective dribbler in open space particularly in his young days(WC66),great ball distributor and very good defensively but still overrated(he was not like a bobby Moore/baresi in man mark and tackle)
To cut this short: What you wanted to say originally was: "Beckenbauer was a more physical than technical dribbler" (you originally said "player" which gives it another dimension). Beckenbauer a "physical dribbler"? Also a false statement.
Show me 2 examples of Beckenbauer weaving past 3 players with close control I don’t care if it’s in the World Cup And I don’t care if it’s against some regional team from southern Germany Just any I don’t mean to be confrontational but Beckenbauer is and always has been regarded a great technician for a player in his position This is facts Compared to at least 15 attackers from his own era he is lagging behind
To help you a bit. I might be wrong but the most famous one, and possibly the best, is against Bulgaria in the heat and humidity Of course, if you look at the OPTA stats, or the map where/when the dribbles took place, he doesn't stick out and 30%+ of his dribble attempts were not successful (probably a big reason why coaches have cut this out over time in later generations of cultured defenders or Clodoaldo screeners). Maybe you have that impression of dribbles in large spaces because of the 1966 World Cup where he's fractionally less refined, still. The only really clear weak point was the shooting and arguably the pace of the passes. Most technically great players have their imperfections or errors, in particular under greater workload, as the modern day tracking of 'poor touches' aptly shows.