Who do you think were the players of the decade in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's? I'll go out on a limb and say the 60's were Pele's decade and the 80's were Maradona. Other than that it gets a little unclear as the other decades seemed to have a handful of players with equal presence.
Re: Re: Players of the Decades Have to disagree here. Ronaldo was only effective between '96 - '98. Stellar seasons to be sure, but not enough to ear Player of the Decade. You have much more deserving candidates like Baggio, Romario, Stoichkov or Cantona. What is clear is that there is no clear winner for the decade.
Re: Re: Re: Players of the Decades Yeah, I know it's controversial, but yet at this point, when I look at the 90s I also include the first years of the present decade. But even so the other players you've mentioned weren't any greater than Ronaldo.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Players of the Decades Well, that's a matter of opinions, isn't it? At this point in his career, I would rank Cantona and Baggio ahead of Ronaldo, but that's just me.
cantona over ronaldo??? personally ronaldo is twice the player cantona was i would rank baggio romario and maldini higher than ronaldo
Ronaldo might be better than most players mentioned.... but he does not really represent the 90's. Actually, no one does....
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Players of the Decades Eric Cantona is possibly the most overrated player in soccer history. Yes, he lit up the Premier League. But that was when it was in its infancy, and when the English game was still recovering from the Heysel ban. Cantona was basically just a big fish in a small pond - the years of the peak of his career happened to coincide with the years that the English league was the worst that it had been in decades. This world-beater couldn't get a game for his country or for l'OM, and Manchester United under his guidance struggled with teams like Fenerbahce and Rotor Volgograd.
Re: Re: Players of the Decades I'll take all of them but have Maldini instead of Ronaldo, and possibly Di Stefano over Puskas.
50's - Puskas (from 1950-1956 he scored 55 international goals in 60 games, lynchpin of three of footballs greatest ever sides) 60's - Pele (no-brainer really) 70's - Cruyff (Beckenbauer loses out as he split the 60's and 70's) 80's - Maradona (another no-brainer) 90's - most difficult of the lot, as there has been no truly outstanding player over most of the decade, Maldini would prboably get my vote on consistancy over the whole 10 years.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Players of the Decades Though of course, you could argue that soccer in general was in a slump from early to mid 90's, which might explain the absence of a clear "player of the decade". Now, I don't remember the details but didn't his snub from the French NT have more to do with personal issues with the coaching staff than his performance? I honestly can't remember. And ManU's struggle in Europe had a lot to do with the lack of talent, but my feeling was that it had more to do with inexperience in Europe and playing European styles. But fair enough. It was his outsized personality rather than play that appealed to me anyway. And I wonder how the players who excelled in the Premiership's early days would do now. I know that Fowler would not be nearly as prolific if he had played his entire career against today's Premiership defenders.
I'm disappointed by the fact that Eric Cantona keeps popping up on various threads when debating the great stars of the past in the world game. His name doesn't belong in this debate.
A decade is far too long a period of time to say anyone player dominated it when perhaps you refer to one, two maybe even three exceptional seasons that still leaves 7 seasons of a decade. Also to accredit a single player as the player of decade is to exclude at least 5 players who justifiably could claim some kind of parity for this reason i'll name a number of great players from each decade as one from each doesn't work in my eyes. 50's :Garrincha, Pele, DiStefano, Puskas, Matthews 60's: Garrincha, Best, Charlton, Pele, Eusabio 70's: Cruyff, Beckenbaur, Pele, Muller, Riva 80's: Maradona, Platini, Zico, Van Basten, Mattheus 90's: Batistuta, Romario, Ronaldo, Baggio, Maldini, Weah(special mention) 00-present: Raul, Ronaldo, Zidane, Vieri so many names still missing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Players of the Decades Pretty much. He was hot-headed as everyone knows and Aime Jacquet didn't like him. Considering they went with an absolutely powerless offense in 98, they certainly could've used him, but some would argue he would have been enough to disrupt the team unity. Cantona, though not as much as Jean-Pierre Papin and Ginola, was associated with the generation of French players who embarassingly failed to make it to WC94.
This might not have anything to do with what this thread is about, but here goes: The 90's was a revolutionary decade if you consider the progression of the game. All of the players mentioned from Puskas to Maradona all had an integral part in the formation of the game today. What I mean by that is that every one of those players were Super-Stars in their respective decades and sad to say the only ones. In the nineties all that changed. Instead of one bonafied Super Star, many emerged. I'm not going to get into the why's or how's that should be reserved for another thread. (and don't confuse the term "Star" with "Super-Star", there have been many "Stars" but few "Super-Stars") So to get to the point, the 90's cannot be defined by the lone Super-Star. From Baggio to Cantona to Van Basten to Stoickov. I have a feeling that the era of the lone Super-Star is sadly over. On a personal note. If someone put a gun to my head and asked me to tell them who was the player that defined the 90's, I would answer Roberto Baggio.
I post this: A decade is far too long a period of time to say anyone player dominated it when perhaps you refer to one, two maybe even three exceptional seasons that still leaves 7 seasons of a decade. Also to accredit a single player as the player of decade is to exclude at least 5 players who justifiably could claim some kind of parity for this reason i'll name a number of great players from each decade as one from each doesn't work in my eyes. 50's :Garrincha, Pele, DiStefano, Puskas, Matthews 60's: Garrincha, Best, Charlton, Pele, Eusabio 70's: Cruyff, Beckenbaur, Pele, Muller, Riva 80's: Maradona, Platini, Zico, Van Basten, Mattheus 90's: Batistuta, Romario, Ronaldo, Baggio, Maldini, Weah(special mention) 00-present: Raul, Ronaldo, Zidane, Vieri so many names still missing. then you post: You've completely lost me here. All the players i listed were super-stars of the respective decades they represent and they're not the only ones. Could you explain what you mean?
It's a bit of a stretch to put Van Basten in as a player of the 90's. Although he officially retired in 95, his last game was the 93 Champions League final, and he only played around 20 games that season. Two and a half seasons (although 91-92 was probably his best season) does not rank up there with others achievements in the 90's.
Dark Savante. It would be my pleasure. But first, you have a point. It is unfair to think of one player per decade. However, if I had to name one player per decade and only had one opportunity, I would do so. And so would many people. But that of course is debatable. (And that's the fun thing about Football, everything is debatable) My point is that because we live in an information age now, the media has brought to light many many many players that otherwise in eras past, would never have been considered Super-Stars (Not due to lack of skill, but of lack of exposure) The Sport Exploded world-wide in the nineties, so much so, that the media in its search for the next "Pele" or "Maradona" focused it's light on a whole range of players. And that my friend is a good thing. Therefore the nineties really did not have that one player that everyone can look back on and say, "yeah the eighties was maradona". Do you know what I mean?
Rcd, I think I understand the point you are trying to make, however you are falling in the trap of assuming things are so different today. Your initial post said something to the effect that there are so many super-stars today. Let's take the 80s, off the top of the head I'm thinking: Maradona Platini Zico Matteus (sp) Ruminegge Breitner Kevin Keegan Ian Rush Glenn Hoddle Kenny Sansom Boniek Conte Tardelli Cabrini Rossi Passarella Kempes Uribe (remember him for a couple of years?) Kenny Dalglish Gullit Van Basten Riijkard Socrates Falcao Scifo Cuelemans Pfaff Dasaev Blokine Michel Butrageuno Arconada Tresor Kaltz Shilton....and so many more. No less really than a list you could make for this generation. World class players exist in every era. Lack of media had nothing to do with understanding that Maradona was a cut above this distinguished list. If forced to chose one, it would be Diego. Given five..Diego, Platini, Zico, Van Basten, Ruminegge. Media bestowment of super-star status has nothing to do with being able to rank players amongst their peers. It can be done today as it was up to '80s. I'm with Dark on this one (or would that be 'In the Dark'?).
Point taken tpmazembe. But let me ask you this: How many players have there been, that in some way or another had an impact on the game, that never really got the exposure? I'll bet that there were many players of equal or greater skill than some of the legends, that never really got a shot at recognition. Ces la vi, nes pa?
And by the way, of the players that you listed (80's) all of them were and still are stars. But only one in my humble opinion was a Super-Star: Maradona.
I blame myself really. I should've known that writing a thread with the extremely vague title "PLAYER of the DECADES" would've prompted debate about the legal meaning of the term moreso than actual, substantial opinions. The Rules (ha, rules on bigsoccer) 1a-Player means player, not players. 1b-Again, player means player, not players. 1c-I understand things must be written in crayon here, so once agin, player means player, not players. 1d-Want to argue elsewhere? Start a thread called "Player(s) of the Decades". There, I've even given you a title. I don't mean to complain (but I did, funny, huh?) but why does every discussion on bigsoccer turn into an argument over the interpretation of the thread? Oh yeah, because it's bigsoccer. Now that I'm done opressing, trolling and basically doing worse than those I've complained of, please continue.
Damn, I can't even remember that I've started the thread called "Players of the Decades". Very sorry for all the previous bitching. I've lost all bigsoccer credibility forever. And that's about the worst thing a person could do. Bigsoccer credibility?