Wow ... for a Ronaldo fan (may be fan boy) he should have KNOWN: Zico was Ronaldo IDOL and who inspired Ronaldo's playing style and improvement! Zico played barely more than 1 season at Serie A in 80s (most defensive era in football) and he scored 19goals (1 short from Platini as SerieA topscorer) and both of them were not FW/striker.
That's because AC Milan of Sacchi was so dominant, but teams like Napoli, Inter, Juventus and Sampdoria would have been heavy contenders later in the 90s.
Despite the WC triumph in 1982, Italian football was in many ways very under developed in the 1980s. The lack of foreign imports (borders were closed for 15 years) made the influence of the "total football" of the 70s minimal/inexistent. The pace in most matches was extremely slow and the tactical awareness that some people praise were only a 1/3-of-the-pitch thing. Defenses were brutal and usually well organized, but from midfield ahead most of the little action that actually existed was the deed of individuals rather than schemes or a clear idea of how to play the ball. Scorelines were the poorest of the world, along with the Albanian and Turkish league. When rating players from the past, one has to remember this: all the great players that arrived to Italy in those years simply had to deal with the overall mentality that was still - with Liedholm's Roma as maybe the only exception - diehard catenaccio. The first players that actually helped to change the mentality of the Italian game were Gullit & Van Basten, but that could only happen thanks to Sacchi's curiosity and revolutionary ideas. To say that Serie A was difficult and competitive in the 80s is not quite correct, as I see it. Surely, they had all best players, but football is a team sport and without ideas, where are the quality and competitiveness? Take a team like Inter: they hade players like Rummenigge, Passarella, Bergomi, Causio, Altobelli, Prohaska, Hansi Müller, Liam Brady etc etc, but they managed to lose ten consecutive away games in European Cups back then. It was extremely difficult to perform (except for goalkeepers and overcrowded defenses), but the quality improved only with Sacchi and reached its peak in the mid-90s. This, alas, makes the rating of great 80s players who had their carreers in Italy very difficult, sometimes almost impossible (for those who represented provincial teams and had no referee protection at all in matches vs the big clubs from Northern Italy),
Ronaldo over Cruyff is ridiculous, Cruyff is well ahead of him. I would rate Zico ahead of Ronaldo (and Maradona before Pele), but those are closer comparisons. Nice to see you're back. I only started watching Serie A in the 84-85 season (coincidentally with the arrival of Maradona), I clearly remember how good the football was by 86-87, when Napoli won its first scudetto. Besides the arrival of top foreigners, clubs had the benefit of being able to build a squad over time, and also a great generation of Italian players as a base to work on (the greatest in Italian football). This can be seen on Italy becoming virtually invincible at the WC during those times, winning WC82 undefeated, an aging team lost to France in WC86, a third-place finish at WC90 undefeated, a runner-up at WC94 after losing the first match due to tactical errors, and exiting at the quarterfinals to eventual champion France in WC98 without losing again. Over the course of 5 WCs, they only lost two matches. Back to Serie A, I feel the quality displayed during the years 84-92 was greater than it was during the rest of the 90s, and there are more memorable teams from the mid to late 80s: AC Milan with Van Basten, Gullit et al, Napoli with Maradona, Sampdoria with Cerezo and Vialli, Roma with Falcao and Gianini, and Juventus with Baggio and Ravanelli. Because they had the time to build a team, the play was technically precise which made it free flowing and very entertaining. The results followed, with Italian teams on A European final for ten consecutive years.
There was - from 1982 - an abbundance of great players: virtually every star of the game (except Lineker, Hoddle, Hugo Sánchez, Schuster and a few more) played there. But most of them were frustrated: Platini had terrible arguments with Trapattoni, Schachner repeatedly claimed that Italian defenders were "criminals" that destroyed the game, Zico said more or less the same (but in a more diplomatic way), Elkjaer said it was impossible to reach higher than a 70% level in a league where attacking is so under-prio and forwards so unprotected. I also remember an interview with Brian Clough. He was asked the question: which Italian player would you sign if you had the money? He answered "Italian players wouldn't make it here. The pace in the Italian league is extremely low and they are used to playing only once a week. And when they play, they don't even give 100%". This was a caricature, of course, but it's difficult to say he was completely wrong. What teams like Inter and Milan did with all their money and star players in the early 80s is a mysterium that is still waiting for its explanation.
SerieA in the 80's (especially after the WC82 won by a defensive team) marked out a decade of "ultra defense" league with a mix bag of good (quality) and bad (in term of protection good players) - look at their goals per game barely 1.8 to 2,2GPG in that deccade - SerieA topscorer : Platini, Maradona barely made 15 to 20goals (max) - The top2 left their best rival (#3 or #4) with BARELY 4 to 8points (MAX) Now let's compare to the LIGA (09-13) for fun: - Average 2.78 to 2.82GPG overall (nearly 150% of 80s) - Pichichi: Messi or CR7 with 40-50goals (nearly double the 80s) - the top2 teams left their best rival (#3 or #4) with 30+ t0 40+points Look at the number and it's so FUNNY that Messi's fan boys tried to use his stats to compare to Maradona/Zico/Platini (in the 80s)
Your stats are correct but your interpretation is wrong, as usual. From the mid-80s on, it wasn't because the teams were ultradefensive (like Chelsea against Barcelona) but because they had excellent defenders and midfielders who could maintain control of the ball. There was no 80-20 posession dominance like Barca or Real have had against opponents.
and... your knowlege of the games is as misled ... as often First, in 80's ULTRA defense = man marking + zonal (most of the serieA teams playing catenaccio style at time. Compare to this era, 1- ONLY Chelsea and a few would do bunker, NOT like every team OK? Barca (and Spain NT) shared the same system (midfield core) so that tehir possession is great - that;s ALL , NOTHING to do with the rest of teh teams in the whole freaking 4,5 years! You CAN NOT simply take Barca + Chelsea to describe this era, NO? NUT would do so 2 - This Barca and Real are 11wordlclass playuers team so they got a HUGE advantage to dominate their lesser teams in possession ON TOP of the fact most defenders now are WEAK
There was no such disparity in Serie A during those times, as great as AC Milan was, other teams like Sampdoria, Napoli, Inter, Roma, and Torino could play them with near parity. Like I said, there were no teams dominating their opponents with 80 - 20 possession.
Oh yes... "ultra defensive" is not even enough to qualify what - especially teams battling to avoid relegation - were up to. It was something so destructive that we cannot even imagine it today. But even top matches were usually very poor: many matches between title candidates didn't see one single goal attempt. Of course there were no teams having a 70-80% possession (although Liedholm's Roma could sometimes keep possession in a very elegant manner). 1) Because there wasn't the know-how and 2) because the ideas of how football "should" be played was still dominated by the Herrera-Rocco style, where possession was unwanted. Rocco is famous for his quote before a match, where a reporter said "May the best team win!" and the Milan coach answered, in Triestine dialect, "Speremo de no" ("Let's hope it won't"). Only with Sacchi's Milan there was a team that wanted to dominate matches and was also able to do so. But that was mainly a Dutch revolution - Sacchi's Milan without Van Basten Gullit Rijkaard is unimaginable - just like the step-by-step Barcelona revolution in the last 25 years. I'm writing this to contextualize the apparent "failure" of many great players in Serie A back then. A player like Miki Laudrup was considered a bidone (extremely overrated player) when he made that fabulous 1986 World Cup. People could'nt believe it was the same guy they saw struggle in Serie A matches most Sundays.
True but a major downside was the widespread (and plain obvious) fixing. Think about all the stories regarding Juventus (Turone goal), the climax of 1988 scudetto or the climax of 1990 scudetto (with IIRC five Milan players sent off).
Another downside was the laziness of many star players. Creative/offensive players didn't enjoy themselves much and often became frustrated and wailing. I remember Giancarlo Antognoni, a hugely gifted Fiorentina player who was always moaning that there wasn't a "project" good enough for him. And in the absence of one, he felt he didn't have the duty to work very hard meanwhile. So, despite all the star imports in those years, I'm pretty sure the Bundesliga was still a both better and more attractive league for at least 2/3 of the 1980s.
Sorry, but I really don't remember the football being bad, speaking specifically for the 86-92 period (until right before Bosman changed everything). In fact, it was the opposite, a dynamic, attacking proposition from most teams, many of which relied on crucial build-up from the flanks...it's one thing that stands out to me, the quick one-twos close to the sidelines, with the skill of these players able to keep the ball from going out of bounds and after leaving the defenders behind, with space to carry the ball into the penalty box. Their quality was reflected in Italian clubs dominance of European competitions for nearly ten years, completely uncontested. It wasn't just AC Milan carrying the torch, teams like Napoli, Sampdoria, Parma, etc. did very well also.
Well, the class players were plenty already in 1982, but only in the late 80s the mentality started to change. And when it eventually did - thanks to Sacchi, Zeman, Scala, Eriksson, Galeone and a few more - it soon became the unquestioned #1 league of the world. What I was talking about was the early 80s, when Italy actually won the World Cup. The 1981/82 Serie A season had been appalling and the Azzurri had been criticized throughout the WC qualifiers. They were completely thrashed by a young Danish team in Copenhagen (1-3 could have been 1-5 or 1-6) and the clubs made terrible results in EC, despite all the foreigners: Inter was beaten by Dinamo Bucharest, Juventus by Anderlecht, Napoli by Radnicki Nis, Roma by FC Porto (Fiorentina were disqualified after crowd unrest vs Schalke a few years before). Of course, results got better when 80% of the world's superstars played for Italian teams, but not at all as impressive as one may have expected: Inter were beaten by Austria Vienna in 1984, by IFK Göteborg in 1987, by Espanyol in 1988, by Malmö FF in 1989 (when the had won 26 matches out of 34 in the league); Milan were eliminated by Waregem(!) in 1985 and by Espanyol in 1987; Napoli went out vs Kaiserslautern in 1982 and vs Toulouse in 1986, Fiorentina were beaten by Uni Craiova in 1983 and by Boavista in 1987; Roma were nearly beaten by Swedish relegated team Norrköping in 1982, and went out vs Carl Zeiss Jena in 1981, Zaragoza in 1986 and vs Dynamo Dresden in 1988; Torino were beaten by Hajduk Split in 1985 and by Tirol Innsbruck in 1987, Verona by Sturm Graz in 1983... etc. Even a team like Juventus, that provided a great part of the NT, lost to a team Widew Lodz in 1981, before the arrival of Platini. The reason to this was the tactically underdeveloped coaching style: players went with fear on the pitch, despite being more talented and overall better. A team like Inter invested enormous sums of money in stars like Rummenigge, Brady, Passarella & Co, but in Europe - especially when playing away from home - they acted almost like paralized, by fear of losing oreven conceding a goal. It was only when Italian coaches developed tactics for the entire game - not only defense - that they started dominating really.
That's true. SerieA in 80 to 90 were very competitive in term no much difference between the TOP5,6 teams , on top of the FACT they were ULTRA DEFENSIVE teams Liga inlast 5years became solely 2 horses race as crystal clear as daylight, on top of the FACT that DF quality became much more vulnerable! Look Barca could thrash a lowly team as bad as they thrashed Real Madrid with 4,5 goals different. Thence Real would go out seeking the revenge on other lowly teams with same results - LOL
I don't know if defensive qualities have become more vulnerable. The fact is that teams defend in different ways now compared to 30 years ago. In the 80s, a team that needed defending a lead was usually passive, building meat walls in front of their own box, hoping to get a chance to counter attack on occasions. Today, the best teams can defend in an "active" way, by keeping possession against technically less developed teams, that will have to rely on physical power (that's why most Nothern European teams struggle in big tournaments). If you check the number of goals conceded by Spain in recent tournaments, it is much more impressive than the "old school", like the Italian team before the Milan/Sacchi revolution.
I think some simplifications are posted here. It is not untrue but other countries had their own problems, scandals and issues (and some characteristics that attracted critique). Italian football has always been rather slow, also in their very best years, for example. It is one of their main characteristics. I doubt whether it was seen as particularly unattractive by mid-80s, looking at the match-attendance figures and the money generated by selling match highlights (compared with Bundesliga, English First Division and so on). It is undoubtedly true that Italian football was in isolation during the early 80s, as also seen by the limited amount of seats they had in the UEFA and FIFA. They had declined to semi-periphery in terms of status and power. There are numerous issues in comparing head-to-head records (for concluding "this league was better") but this was Germany vs Italy in the 1980s (green = draw, black = win Germany, blue = win Italy): 1979/1980: Stuttgart - Torino 1:0 1979/1980: Torino - Stuttgart 2:1 [Stuttgart progressed] 1979/1980: Monchengladbach - Internazionale 1:1 1979/1980: Internazionale - Monchengladbach 2:3 [Gladbach progressed] 1982/1983: Napoli - Kaiserslautern 1:2 1982/1983: Kaiserslautern - Napoli 2:0 [Kaiserslaitern progressed] 1982/1983: Koln - AS Roma 1:0 1982/1983: AS Roma - Koln 2:0 [Roma progressed] 1982/1983: Hamburg - Juventus 1:0 [Hamburg wins EC final] 1984/1985: Hamburg - Internazionale 2:1 1984/1985: Internazionale - Hamburg 1:0 [Internazionale progressed] 1984/1985: Internazionale - Koln 1:0 1984/1985: Koln - Internazionale 1:3 [Internazionale progressed] 1984/1985: Bayern Munich - AS Roma 2:0 1984/1985: AS Roma - Bayern Munich 1:2 [Bayern progressed] 1987/1988: Hellas Verona - Werder Bremen 0:1 1987/1988: Werder Bremen - Hellas Verona 1:1 [Bremen progressed] 1988/1989: AS Roma - Nuremberg 1:2 1988/1989: Nuremberg - AS Roma 1:3 [Roma progressed] 1988/1989: Bayern Munich - Internazionale 0:2 1988/1989: Internazionale - Bayern Munich 1:3 [Bayern progressed] 1988/1989: Werder Bremen - AC Milan 0:0 1988/1989: AC Milan - Werder Bremen 1:0 [Milan progressed] 1988/1989: Napoli - Bayern Munich 2:0 1988/1989: Bayern Munich - Napoli 2:2 [Napoli progressed] 1988/1989: Napoli - Stuttgart 2:1 1988/1989: Stuttgart - Napoli 3:3 [Napoli wins] 1989/1990: Borussia Dortmund - Sampdoria 1:1 1989/1990: Sampdoria - Borussia Dortmund 2:0 [Sampdoria progressed] 1989/1990: Napoli - Werder Bremen 2:3 1989/1990: Werder Bremen - Napoli 5:1 [Bremen progressed] 1989/1990: Hamburg - Juventus 0:2 1989/1990: Juventus - Hamburg 1:2 [Juventus progressed] 1989/1990: Werder Bremen - Fiorentina 1:1 1989/1990: Fiorentina - Werder Bremen 0:0 [Fiorentina progressed] 1989/1990: Juventus - Koln 3:2 1989/1990: Koln - Juventus 0:0 [Juventus progressed] 1989/1990: AC Milan - Bayern Munich 1:0 1989/1990: Bayern Munich - AC Milan 2:1 [Milan progressed]
That's son obvious unless you do not want to see it or very limit (in knowledge to see) to it From 80-90 to now: Quality went from North Baresi Scirea Maldini to Thuram Nesta Canavaro and now .... Basturber, Pepe and Ramos LOL YOur example of Spain NT is just a particular SINGLE case. (while I was tyalking a bout 20 teams in SeireA of the WHOLE DECADE_) - Now even you insist to discuss of SPain: In case you forgot they were thrashed by Argentina, Portugal USA by more than 3goals? - Liga *a ka (SPain NT core = just Barca + Real) top 2teams thrahsed other teams AT WILL with possible 4 to 5 goals like HIGHSCHOOL level - Barca went out to UCL like ocean wave with not much resistance (in defense against them) except CHELSEA (10games) and 1 single game of INTERMILAN. After 5years in their reign, I can not name more than 2 teams which can arguably resist barca to defend! NO quality around that's IT
This was probably more the case in Serie A, EPL, Bundesliga. I don't think it's true of La Liga, where Real Madrid with La Quinta, Cruyff's Barca, Aragones' Atletico Madrid did not suscribe to such strategy. Also, in South America you should watch the River Plate team of that era under Hector Vieira, an explosive one-touch style and America de Cali under Gabriel Ochoa Uribe, a team that I consider as a proto-Barca of today for their insistence on passing the ball in midfield.
Generally I agree with the observation that Serie A in the 1980s was not yet the all-powerful juggernaut it became in the 1990s, but I think something like the above can be done with other "big" leagues, as well. I had a look at how English First Division teams (league that won the most silverware during those years) did in the UEFA Cup from 1979-80 until the ban and found the following: 1979-80 Everton FC eliminated by Feyenoord (1st round, 0-2 aggr.) West Bromwich Albion eliminated by CZ Jena (1st round, 1-4) Leeds United eliminated by Universatea Craiova (1st round, 0-4) Ipswich eliminated by Grasshoppers (2nd round, on away goals) 1980-81 Wolverhampton eliminated by PSV Eindhoven (1st rd, 2-3) Manchester United eliminated by Lodz (1st rd, away goals) 1981-82 Ipswich eliminated by Aberdeen (1st rd, 2-4) West Bromwich Albion eliminated by Grasshoppers (1st rd, 1-4) Arsenal FC eliminated by FC Winterslag (2nd rd, away goals) Southampton eliminated by Sporting Lisboa (2nd rd, 2-4) 1982-83 Southampton eliminated by Norrköpring (1st rd, away goals) Arsenal FC eliminated by Spartak Moscow (1st round, 4-8) Ipswich eliminated by Roma (1st rd, 3-4) Manchester United eliminated by Valencia (1st rd, 1-2) 1983-84 Aston Villa eliminated by Spartak Moscow (2nd rd, 3-4) Watford FC eliminated by Spartak Praha (3rd rd, 2-7) 1984-85 Nottingham Forest eliminated by Bruges (1st rd, 0-1) Southampton eliminated by Hamburg (1st rd, 0-2) Queens Park Rangers eliminated by Partizan Beograd (2nd rd, 6-6) Manchester United eliminated by Videoton (3rd rd, away goals) The great Liverpool lost to Widzew Lodz in 1982-83 (3-4) I guess the same can be said about Bundesliga or Primera Division, thus singling out Serie A is not quite fair.