Who Is The Greatest Dribbler Ever

You are good at joking

 

I'm master of owning trolls.

 

Ridiculous, but whatever helps you sleep better at night

 

Ironically, you yourself are the biggest troll.

 

What helps me to sleep at night is the quest for understanding, logic and truth.

 

Maradona's goal against Belgium.... Great goal, nobody argues that. But just how many of those goals did he actually scored against Serie A defenders? How many of those goals would Streltsov score against the man-marking anti-football tactics of late 1980s and early 1990s Serie A football?

Then you make a case against Baggio, a player who I have seen dribbling his way (literally) through entire teams to then score goals, and you describe Baggio as a player who dribbles one by one?

Well, was Maradona's "goal of the century" not a "one by one" dribbling run? It sure looked like it, if you asked me.

I seriously do not understand the measuring stick that you're using here. Certainly, Maradona was a more consistent dribbler than Baggio, a more resourceful dribbler than Baggio, but to demote Baggio to the same dribbling ability as Michael Laudrup, and then go as far as describing Baggio as a "one by one" dribbler, is just false in my opinion. What was Ronaldo then? I ask because pretty much all of Ronaldo's great dribbling runs in Serie A were "one by one" dribbling runs, yet you seem to rate Ronaldo as a superior dribbler than Baggio.

I look at Maradona and Baggio playing within the same context --Serie A football of late 1980s or early 1990s-- and Baggio scored the same amount (if not more) of great goals: his goal against Maradona's Napoli, goals against AC Milan, Inter, Lazio, Udinese, etc, are great examples of brilliant dribbling in which entire defenses were rattled by just one guy.

Baggio showed glimpses of that potential with his goal in World Cup 1990. Then at the 1994 World Cup he played with an injury, which clearly hurt his legacy in the long run. This is why the World Cup is such a fickle measuring stick, because the possibility of not being fit for such a short tournament is very high.

But anyways, again, within the same context, Serie A football of the late 1980s and early 1990s, very few players dribbled better or scored better goals than Baggio. I certainly would not describe such a player as a "class B" dribbler, and I certainly would not classify Michael Laudrup (who did not hack it in Serie A) in the same category when it comes to dribbling ability.

Laudrup, to me, was similar to Luis Figo, in terms of dribbling ability, more naturally gifted perhaps, but still similar in some way. Baggio was better than both Laudrup and Figo when it came to dribbling, and he did it with faulty knees at that. You might disagree with that, but I just haven't seen neither Laudrup nor Figo consistently using their dribbling ability to dribble past two or three defenders to then score a goal, like Baggio consistently did during his peak years. Not to mention, that La Liga was simply not as defensive as the Serie A.

In other words, if Baggio is a "class B" dribbler, then Laudrup should be a "class C" dribbler, in my opinion.

Also, Serie in 1997/1998 was no longer as anti-football as it was in 1993/1994. This observation is not only apparent in the actual videos of Serie A, but is well represented by the World Cup: the 1990 World Cup was very defensive with the fewest goals scored if I'm not mistaken, the 1994 World Cup was not as defensive as the 1990 version but still quite defensive, and at the 1998 World Cup we saw free-flowing football with high scoring games (including the final), and of course the 2002 World Cup was even more defensively unimpressive than the 1998 version. Surely this shows a tendency or transition in world football?

And for the record, I've seen plenty of Ronaldo with Inter, and I don't think defenders were particularly brutal with him. Fact is, if you're running at speed (like Ronaldo often was), even the cleanest of tackles can hurt you. You might disagree on that point, but that's just what I think. Ronaldo's style of play was "injury prone" back in 1997/1998, and it would still be just as "injury prone" today. Just take a look at Cristiano Ronaldo's first La Liga season, he was brutally hacked by defenders.

 

Guigs - Europeans think all outside of europe are inferior (including any player playing outside of europe even european ones)

 

I agree Baggio was a greater dribbler than Laudrup or Ronaldo9, but I wouldn't say he was a greater dribbler than Maradona. Also, Baggio was one of two forwards for his sides at Fiorentina and Juventus, he never played in midfield unlike Maradona, which would help to see him score more goals off a dribble. Still, Baggio must be one fo the greatest dribblers of all time, top ten for sure.

 

Santos was worst than Napoli and Argentina... but Brazil was loaded.

 

That is some big post

Mate, ''class B'' characterystic was actually my question to James asking him due to which parameters he put Streltsov in Baggio, Laudrup dribblers type. Look at my small post about the best player ever few pages back , and you will see that I believe that Baggio is probably the most underrated player ever. I have read that many agree that if not his injuries at young age he would be close or even equal to Maradona's level, however he was already not badIf not the penalty miss Baggio would got way more talent recognition.

About ''one by one'' dribling I mean the dribbling like Maradona did against England, he owned every player that he faced one by one. It was especially the case with Ronaldo, the brazilian was dribbling like a terminator trough the whole field destroying everyone that he faced The more genius dribbles for me are the goals that for example Pele scored against Benfica in 1962 or against Mexico in the same year, when a player touches a ball for 3-4 times and owns whole team.

As for Ronaldo , even at his one good season at Inter he already had some great dribbles owning 3-4 defenders in a row. Baggio himself said that Maradona and Ronaldo for him are the best players ever, at least that he has seen. And I think Ronaldo was better dribbler than Italian, I have no doubt about that. Ronaldo was the greatest speed dribbler of all times, only Messi could probably equal him with the ability to dribble STRAIGHT to the goal at the immense speed.



Baggio was a great great dribbler with nice touch, but not fast enough to go into legends category(Ronaldo, Pele, Maradona, Messi , Best, Garrincha) He is right behind them.

 

So not weight, but style. And another argument we jump, never seen that before.

 

I agree, that's more or less what I wanted to say but as usual I got carried away. To me, both Maradona and Messi are more consistent dribblers. But to be fair with Baggio, for a forward he played a lot in midfield, many of his best runs and goals he started from midfield. Though again, I agree that Maradona played as an "enganche" and it is logical that such a position would limit his number of goals; though it has to be said, still, that he also played as an enganche when he scored his legendary goals against England and Belgium.

Making a top ten list for the greatest dribblers is very difficult, because we have at least about 25 or 30 players who look like they belong in the top ten. Whilst I'm not sure about Baggio being top ten material, I do think that he was at least as good as Ronaldo (to be honest, I think Baggio was better), and I do think that Laudrup was not that good in the dribbling department.

 

LOL, look at the ball from WC1954, do you honestly think that it's equal to the modern one?

 

Ronaldo never scored a great dribble goal at the WC, Baggio did it twice, in WC90 against Czescolovakia and in WC94 against Bulgaria (first one I think). I would rank Baggio ahead of Ronaldo as a dribbler, at least in big matches.

I agree with everything above but I would say Laudrup was a great dribbler, even if a notch below the legendary ones as Maradona, Best, Garrincha, Baggio and Messi.

Where do you place Ortega as a dribbler? In my opinion he was an exceptional dribbler, the game against England at WC98 is a showcase for those great dribbling moves, but haven't heard him mentioned much here.

 

Really? Because of 2 dribble goals at WC you put Baggio higher? That's all? Ronaldo had a few good dribbles at WC1998 which could have resulted in the goal, after injuries he wasn't nearly the same player as we know. Most of the legends including Maradona and Baggio and Ronaldo wasn't at their best at the first WC that they have played. Romario, Garrincha and Pele were the players that won WC from the first attempt. Ronaldo was simply faster with touching the ball and way faster at the actual speed than Baggio

 

No, but what has that got to do with weight? I was pointing your style of debating, every time you get proven wrong, which is pretty much in every argument you make, you jump to the next one.

 

your constant lack of true INFO and misleading argument is a good TESTAMENT for such (FALSELY) claim.

For example, it is STUPID to say, R9 did NOT do any solo-run at WC, while Baggio did once, and so Baggio was better???

- Judging a player capability = AVERAGE of SUCCESS in career, plus some big games

- If BLINDLY based on WC? (like your RIDICULOUS claim)
Owairan 94 did even a BETTER so-lo run goal (WC94 ) than Maradona 86 and Baggio 90 SO?

 

Not because of two dribbles, Baggio did many of them throughout his career, and he also did it at the highest stage - whereas Ronaldo did not. I just find it strange that a so-called great dribbler could never do it at the WC while playing three of them and nineteen games total. Maybe Ronaldo, as leadleader claims, could only do those dribbles against small La Liga and Serie A sides.

Ronaldo never scored a goal off a great dribble at the WC, the tried often but was always dispossessed before he could score. Nothing special from him at the WC in regards to dribbles, unlike Baggio who scored two amazing dribble goals and he played less WC matches.

The Owairan goal is magnificent but it is not better than Maradona's of WC86, which was voted the goal of the century. But Owairan's goal is better than any of Ronaldo's

 

The balls are clearly not the same in weight category, even small weight differences makes drastic changes because it takes time for players to get used to it, to develop ''feeling in the legs'' for this ball.

That's your subjective perception, for me it was you who was mostly wrong

 

So in your (clueless) list of best dribble, should Owairan make TOP3? and Messi and Romario should be in TOP100 since he was even worse than Ronaldo there? LOL

For your INFO:
- go back and check Ronaldo vs Denmark, Chile and Morocco where he made DF looked stupid ... OK?
- go back and watch Copa97 where he earned MVP with so many great runs and creating chances from dribble runs.

 

There is nothing wrong with placing Owairan as a top 20 dribbler ever, that was his forte. To be top five, a player must have done it everywhere, and of course in the highest competition of all, the WC. This is where Ronaldo failed, despite playing in 19 matches, and thus he is not up there with Maradona, Baggio, Hagi, Cruyff or Garrincha.

 

Here at 1:20 Ronaldo was close to scoring dribble goal at WC if not the GK's save.



Ronaldo wasn't a fluke in a national team like Messi, brazilian star won Copa America and played some incredible matches there where you can see his dribbling talent. Also he is the greatest WC goalscorer which is a huge achievement , at least compared to Messi's 1 goal What achieved Baggio at Euro? Nothing... Ronaldo failed at WC1998 final only due to food poisoning, he performed greatly in WC2002 for an injured and fat player, Baggio on the other hand was poor against Brazil in WC1994 final due to his inner mentality , inability to step up , not external reasons like in the case with Ronaldo. Baggio was also naturally shy which quite influenced his career and Ronaldo was one of the most decisive players ever, he learned it from Romario

 

One of the best Copa America performances ever.

 

Baggio's WC94 performance is better than any of Ronaldo's at the WC. It's funny you mention WC02, it was an awful tournament where most elite players where out of form or injured, and Ronaldo did not play a single inspiring match the whole tournament - except possibly for his toepoke against Turkey. There are far more memorable moments from Baggio in WC94 and a higher level of quality.

Baggio lost WC94 due to pk's (and WC98 too), Ronaldo got blasted in the WC98 final.