About a year ago I started a thread asking whether the game of football was in terminal decline. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=618952&highlight=terminal Although I was largely playing Devil's Advocate, the thrust of the question centred around why there are so few perceived all-time greats who have played the game in recent years. A few days ago I was going though an issue of World Soccer from October 1983 and found an interesting article. Eric Batty, one of the original journalists for World Soccer produced an annual World XI, and in this issue he had received a letter from a reader setting out his own all-time XI. In response Batty wrote the following article. "So now to my personal opinions, and I must say that I have found it an extremely difficult task. It is not hard to name a string of great players and I can easily spark off arguments. For instance in this order, the three greatest players I ever saw were: 1. Alfredo Di Stefano 2. Ferenc Puskas 3. Pele. I know that will shock a lot of readers, but in my view it is the great men who play for the team who are truly great, and Pele was a fantastic individual with incredible skills. But with all his talents, he could never have organised the 1958 or 1962 World Cup winning teams the way that Didi did. That requires different qualities. Looking back, especially from the pretty grim days of 1983, I am convinced that the real “golden days” of football were the 1950s. At that time it really was the players who mattered, but today it is all tactics, workrate, getting stuck in and high crosses, and that that was never my cup of tea. On this theme, I can think of only two players who can bear comparison with the stars of the fifties- Frank Beckenbauer and Gunter Nutzer, both of course, West Germans who seemed to be able to produce great players at will, but now it is clear that their supply is drying up. So to my team, for which I make no apologies: -------------------------------Lev Yashin Victor Andrade--Obdulio Varela—Ernst Ocwirk—Gerhard Hanappi ------------------Raymond Kopa-----------Juan Schiaffino Stanley Matthews------Pele----Alfredo Di Stefano—--Ferenc Puskas And I too have named some reserves the most prominent of which are: Djalma Santos, Didi, Ladislao Kubala, Bernard Vukas, Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl, Nandor Hidegkuti, and Fritz Walter. Let me add that if we had such players today there would be no worries about clubs going broke and headlines about falling attendances. " FYI the reader's selected squad was: ------------------------------Gordon Banks Djalma Santos—Bobby Moore—Franz Beckenbauer—Giacinto Facchetti -------------Johan Cruyff—Bobby Charlton—Diego Maradona ------------------George Best—Alfredo Di Stefano—Pele Reserves: Lev Yashin, Ruud Krol, Eusebio, Ferenc Puskas, Garrincha So what startled me about this article is that in 1983 at a time when Maradona, Zico, Platini, Rummenigge, Dalgish, Pasarella, Zoff, Scirea, Falcao, Socrates etc were all in their pomp, a man who had witnessed decades of the game believed that it was in terminal decline and that the physicality of the game was destroying it. Is this not the situation we find ourselves in today? We bemoan the loss of the artists at the expense of cloggers and workhorses? That tactics have got in the way of the the game? So to pose the question again, are the players of today actually any worse than those of 20 or 50 years ago, or is it all just a matter of perception?
Its a good point that you make about the journo not mentioning the likes of Maradona & co, although Maradona hadnt single handedly won the world cup by this time. There was another thread awhile ago about Zidane being an all time great. One of the points that I made at the time was that he had not revolutionised the game the way Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, etc had. I think that as the world has become a smaller place, the talent pool has become bigger. When you think about it I think that we do take players for granted these day. Having said that not one player steps out as head and shoulders above all others. In some respects there are probably at least 10 players in the world today who would have been regarded as legends 30 years ago. Who knows in 20 years from now we will most likely be arguing that Zidane was greater than the best player at the time.....
Football's become much more of a team sport. Even the likes of Maradona would have to carry out his defensive tasks in modern football. That obviously gets in the way of legend making.
I think it merely highlights that nostalgic views of the past prevent most people from objectively rating the present. Even if you have little firsthand experience of the past you are still brought up in a time when the doctrine states the past is always best and nothing compares.
IMO, it's hard to say a player is a legend while he's still in activity. I think the question is, without comparing epochs, what makes a player a legendary one?
Ask this question, which fairly recent player are you going to remember decades from now? I say Zidane.
The real question which has already been asked is what makes a legend? I do agree that nostalgia does play a bit part but in truth how many players truly revolutionized the game in the past 20 years? It definitely will be interesting to look back down the road much like we do now with the past.
We may be past the point were anything new (of significance) can be added to the game. There are only so many tactical formations a coach can use, and only so many feints and dummies a player can pull off.
The year 1983 might have something to do with it. Let's see what happened in 1983: Brazil 1982 was the pinnacle of beautifull football. The Italy-Brazil game was still fresh. I did not know much about Brazil between 1982 & 1986. So I assumed that the world was still in mouning. The great Dutch teams of 1970's were gone, and before the arrival of MVB, Gullit, Koeman. Who was the famous Dutchmen in 1983? Arnold Mühren and Willy van de Kerkhof? The most attractive NT of the 1970's was gone. It depended on when the article was written. Maradona's career could be in jeopardy after Andoni Goikoetxea's tackle late in 1983. Anyway, Maradona was labelled by most after his first season with Barcelona as "overrated" in 1983. He suffered from hepatitis around that time. Germany? I recalled correctly that the Euro 1980 team was aging. Serie A re-opened its door on foreign players in 1982. That must be some excitement. Juventus was the team to beat in 1983. He probably knew about the Danes, but he was unlikely to realize how good and exciting they would become in a few years. It really depended whether Denmark had qualified for Euro 1984 and Denmark suddenly emerged from the backwater. The same applied to France. We don't know how good they would become.
Why does revolutionising the game make a legend> That would make the Belgian, Bosman, among the bets players ever. Maldini hasn't done anything revolutionary, but he is certainly a world football legend. Same with Messi or (Brazilian Ronaldo). Neither revolutionary, but both extremely talented, both legends in 2o years, for me.
Since when does legend exclusively mean best? Those that introduced something new to the game be it a technique, feat or rule will always be remembered for and associated with that. So yes the Belgian Marc Bosman in a sense is a legend. His name being associated with the Bosman Ruling pretty much guarantees that his name will live forever. I'm sure you are right about Messi and R9, people will remember them. R9 for his amazing pre-injury form and Messi for now and what he may or may not do but does just remembering mean legendary?
That's pretty much who I think will be looked at as legends. some of the things these players did were just mind-boggling especially the consistency in which they did it during their prime. As for the current batch, Messi is probably the only one with clear potential.
Considering some of the players I have seen nominated thus far I would say no. However we are not simply here to list and argue about player selection.
Maybe there's a cyclical element to the game. I recall seeing some 1930s and 1940s footage of Argentinian league football and was surprised at the skill level. Some of the tricks being executed then are seen regulalry today (e.g. lollypops) , but I don't recall them too much in the 70s and 80s. So maybe, like music, genuinely new movements are rare. Most of what we see has been preceded in the past, but so many years earlier that not many remember. Or maybe not, like.
Great thread. Actually this question came up in my head recently with one of the other threads in this board asking who is the Player of the Decade for the 2000's. And although I hadn't really given it much thought, since it is 2009, it is an interesting question to ask. Then I looked at the list provided in the poll question and was shocked that I didn't really consider any of those guys the quality that I would expect in a once-in-a-generation type player (granted, I still have some reservations about who exactly should qualify on that list, such as Zidane and Rivaldo, who were sort of late 90's, early 2000's greats). I guess there are a couple factors at play that distort our perspectives, as well as a few real objective facts that may actually result in the game producing less superlative individual players. People do tend to place a higher value on the past, for nostalgic and other reasons. Similar to musical preferences, people tend to identify and relate to the great performers of their own early years, and as new trends arrive, you already have a benchmark against which you rate the newcomers, which is difficult to surpass. On the other hand, it may be true that more legends were produced before than now. To be a legend, a player must stand out consistently from his contemporaries, for a number of years. As noted earlier, it's more difficult to do that today because of the widespread emphasis on tactical development. At the professional level, football teams are like highly-managed corporations where, for the most part, each player performs a functional role intended to make the team better than the sum of its parts, and also to reduce the reliance on moments of individual brilliance. It's a necessity as much as a perversion, because players don't really stay on teams very long, and short-term results are valued because of tremendous fan and media pressure. In a way, this can be compared to the invention of technologies. In earlier decades/centuries, new inventions such as the telephone, the light bulb, the steam engine, etc. were the product of individually brilliant men expending a lifetime of effort and genius. More recent inventions - television, the internet, cell phones - are not credited to individuals, but developed by organizations using collective efforts and division of labor. I think something similar is happening in football, for better or for worse, there is less of a reliance on individual brilliance for teams to win championships, and more emphasis on tactical organization. As a result, teams today are comprised of more workers and less artists.
There is no how to talk about 'legends' without talking about past. There are no 'present' legends (which we know for sure will last). One doesn't 'produce' legends like daily bread (what only enhances the inherent contradiction of the thread's title). Daily bread itself only lasts up to 11:00 a.m. This past deals with diamonds. That means: Bican, Friendereich, Ramallets, Leônidas, Meazza, Ramallets, Schiaffino, Moreno, Matthews, Di Stáfano, Puskas, Walter, Pelé. Past discussed here is the one that lasts. And not merely blah blah blah past. If those names are still pronounced today it's because they DID WEIGH in the history of football. And became legends. A long, slow & difficult process: of which the contemporaries themselves participate. If just belonging to the past conveys 'prestige', nobody would want to be 'modern' anymore. And the Cronaldos of life would have to start commiting serial harakiris in order to become legends soon ...
Good post but disagree. First of all, sure, it's 'more difficult to stand out today', but only for offensive players. Not to defensive ones: Khan's, Materazzi's Ballons d'Ors etc are proof to that. There is an emphasis on tactical development, as you correctly point out, but you forget to mention that that emphasis is basically defensive. Let's not confound 'defensivism' with necessarilly 'more tactical' football. There have been highly organized offensive teams in longinquous & recent times as well. As much as defensive ones. We just happen to be in the end of one of these phases. I say 'the end', because the recent trend on defensivism (which started in 1990) was dictated by the imposition of money in world football relations, which the present world economic crisis is starting to erode. Since true corporations entered the game from 1990 on to our days & their money couldn't run risks, clubs necessarilly had to organize themselves around their own box. Not taking goals became more important than scoring them. Football is entering a new phase, though, specially now that that the crisis is tightening its grip. In order to ‘worsen’ things we won't have World Cups in Europe for the next 9 1/2 years, and, in addition the next 2 WCs will be played in the Southern hemisphere: South Africa 2010, Brazil 2014. Be sure that a new new wave of offensive football is approaching to 'disorganize' those so elaborately defensive tactical 'labour' organizations of yours. Einstein said that WWIII would be the last ‘technological’ one: the next one would be fought with sticks, clubs & spears. The 'new barbarians' are arriving.
Good posts. IMO, your points of view complete each other and can explain a lot. IMO, in the same way, few knowledge on the past prevent people (in common sense) from rating the past... IMO, it's quite the opposite... In general, present arguments are that the game now is "more difficult" due to its defensiveness and many people tend to believe more in what they actually see... The ideal thing would be objectively rating players apart from tactical and monetary influence in the game, as the real question is: what makes a player a legend?
Like I agree with what you said, but wanted to add that the commercialization of the game also had a detrimental affect (as it did with just about every form of music too.) Players are developed to be part of teams that win Cups, rather than to entertain crowds. The concept of an attacker being a "complete" player (i.e. having to chase back and defend) would have been laughable to most teams a few decades ago. As far as the nostalgia and past/present arguments, what about legendary teams (modern teams on average are superior to the teams of the past, mainly for their horrendous defending?) There does seem to be fewer skilled attackers (all-out attacking football is long gone,) but other than Pele, Cryuff, and Muller, there aren't many forwards that could be considered better than (the Brazilian) Ronaldo. And what about legendary midfielders and defenders? Many of the best midfielders came of age in the eighties and nineties (Zico, Maradona, Hagi, Platini, Redondo, Zidane.) Same with defenders (Maldini, Baresi, Mattheus, Gamarra, etc.) As for keepers, virtually the only two from the past that were a class ahead of anything today were Banks and Yashin (penalty-stopping is also becoming commonplace, when it was rare before, and only the top teams in the past had skilled defenders/keepers.) Nostalgia does a play a part in some of this.
I agree that more organized tactics for offensive football are evolving, but I think that it will even further erode the game's capacity for producing true "legends". In organizing their offenses, coaches today look for players that fit a certain prototype. A big target forward, supported by a more technical forward who links with the midfield (and usually the team's star player). It's almost become law. Well, when such a formula is applied universally, what happens is that instead of selecting your 2 best forwards and letting them play together - coaches seek the best individual for each of those specific roles. This small example, in my view, has had enormous real-world implications. Remember in 2002, Argentina's coach Marcelo Bielsa refused to play Crespo and Batistuta together because they were too "similar"? I could go on with further examples, but just think to yourself how many excellent players are on the bench because there is another player on the team that is better than him for a specific tactical role (i.e. Tevez). It is this search for tactical specialists, whether offensive or defensive, that is the focus of coaches, who have long forgotten about trying to find football "geniuses". And again, the corporate nature of the teams, means it's happening at all levels - gone are the days of finding a young Pele kicking a ball of socks in the construction yard. Kids today are given shin pads, cleats and being indoctrinated on how to play a specific role on the team, based partly on their natural ability and partly on the team's needs. I understand the need to resort to tactical offense is a natural response to the nature of tactical defensive strategies, so I can't say coaches are wrong or shouldn't do this. But I think it goes a long way to explaining the question of this thread.