The greatest footballer of all times.

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by Krokko, Mar 31, 2013.

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Who is greatest footballer of all times?

Poll closed Oct 31, 2013.
  1. Beckenbauer

    3.7%
  2. Cruyff

    6.1%
  3. Di Stéfano

    2.4%
  4. Eusébio

    6.1%
  5. Garrincha

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  6. Maradona

    22.0%
  7. Messi

    17.1%
  8. Pelé

    31.7%
  9. Platini

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  10. Puskás

    4.9%
  11. Ronaldo Fenômeno

    6.1%
  12. Zico

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  13. Zidane

    13.4%
  14. someone else

    7.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    it's not about population but "quality" that we talk about.

    I agree, that many (Europeans) underrated Brazil leagues (divided into 2 big regional leagues like NFL in America : East and Est conference for the country is so big to have ONE league ... due to limit in transportation )

    But by WC58-62, and by Pele leading Santos to destroy many big Europe CLubs ... that Brazil leagues of 60's getting more and more respect.

    In other hand, Hungary league was a low league in 50's, but thanks to the WC54 team that brought attention to many with Puskas, Kocsis , Hidegkuti Cziborg Bozics ... and right after, many were bought to play in ligas
     
  2. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Not to disprove what you say James, and I should think you are right and I think Pele played in the most competitive competitions within Brazil didn't he....

    But this is interesting to see anyway (Honved beating Botofogo 6-2 - of course a few years later Santos with Pele had a great record on tour in such 'friendly' games):
     
  3. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    You can't judge quality with exhibition matches or a single a match in a season.

    1954 Hungary was World Cup finalist, only half of 1958 Brazil was from Sao Paolo.
     
  4. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    it's not one season...
    - Pele led Santos to win Libertadores 62 and 63 and there to have chance to beat AC Milana and Benfica in 2 consecutive seasons (offcial not exhibitions)

    - After WC58 (many started to know Pele ) and hence many European clubs started to invite Santos with Pele to play against - (in order to see how they fare up with Pele and his co) ironcially, Pele got a fairly great stats win and goals.
    Those "exhibition games" spreaded well from 59 to 69 = over 10 years OK?

    exactly so .. only half (regional Brazil) in the winningteam meant the level of Brazil leagues at time was SO HIGH and well competitive between Paulista and Cariocca
     
  5. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    As I said, you can't judge quality in leagues with 1 or 2 games in a decade.
     
  6. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    I said
    1- Pele led Santos playing in no less than 100 games vs all Europen top clubs and leagues : from Liga (Real Valencia Aletico, Barca) to Bundesliga (Schakke04, Dormund ... munchen ...) to SerieA (Milan Inter Juve Roma) to even Belgium, Holland, Russia and otehr leagues in SA

    2- Look at intercontinenal Club Cup in 60s
    Intercontinental Cup
    1960 Real Madrid
    1961 Peñarol
    1962 Santos
    1963 Santos

    1964 Internazionale
    1965 Internazionale
    1966 Peñarol
    1967 Racing Club
    1968 Estudiantes

    1969 Milan
    1970 Feijenoord

    Out of 11 cases, SA teams won 6 and Europe teams 5. Guess what only Santos of Pele and Inter (Mazzola, Fachetti, Bugnich) won 2 in that decade.
     
  7. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Pele played 5 competitive games against 3 European teams.

    You can't compare Hungarian league in the 50's to Sao Paolo state league in 60's by comparing few games consisting European and South-American continents.
     
  8. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    To be fair though they were probably more like semi-friendlies (these teams at least wanted to play well vs the great Santos).

    Just like at NT level, the England vs Hungary 'friendly' was also dubbed Match of the Century.

    Not completely but I think in the past some 'friendlies' were more like one-off 'Test Matches' as per Cricket.

    I could be wrong but I think it was more like that. Teams didn't play their second choice teams or make lots of subs in those games I think.
     
  9. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    More like Santos wanted to show how great they were by taking them seriously.

    Nowadays teams prepare tactically even in friendlies because it's so easy, I don't think teams in the 60's cared about that.
     
  10. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    I did not compare them
    I said in common knowledge back then Hungary league 50-60 was a low league and even much lower now than then
     
  11. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Hungary were World Cup runner up in 1954 and Olympic winners 1952, all playing in Hungarian league.
     
  12. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    wrong. That's what you "THINK" and it's not even close to reality

    At times 59-69, many top teams tried to fare up with pele and tried to STOP him so those were seriously prepared games and more so than now:
    For example: Argentina w.o Messi could beat Germany team after winning WC, but just one month before even with Messi there, Argentina lost to Germany in WC final
     
  13. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Do you have ADHD? Because you can't seem to be able to concentrate on one argument at all.
     
  14. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    did not I say, after WC54 many of those players were bought in to play in bigger leagues like Liga?

    Kocsis Cziborg for Barca in 56, and Puskas for Real in 59
     
  15. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    And Puskas scored those 400 goals before 1955.
     
    JamesBH11 repped this.
  16. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    exactly, that's why you have a doublestandard to count Puskas goals (Hungary leagues) and not included Pele with Brazil leagues
     
  17. Bada Bing

    Bada Bing Member+

    Jul 13, 2012
    Finland
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Because Brazil didn't have a league.
     
  18. JamesBH11

    JamesBH11 Member+

    Sep 17, 2004
    yes that did - even many leagues (or mainly divided by 2 biggest regions called Paulista (with Santos, Pamerais ...) and Cariocca (with Botafogo, Flamengo ...)
     
  19. Buyo

    Buyo Member

    Real Madrid
    Spain
    Dec 20, 2020
    This list is not definitive but it is approximate of what I consider the best players in history.

    It is true that any of the first 5 could be considered as number 1 but since you have to choose today I have ordered them in this way (I say today, tomorrow maybe not :D).

    1-2 Pelé-Messi

    3-4 Di Stéfano-Maradona

    5- Cruyff

    6-8 Puskas-Beckenbauer-Cristiano

    9-11 Eusebio-Zico-Platini

    From here things get complicated but more or less it could be like this.

    12-15 Müller / Matthäus / Ronaldo Nazario / Zidane

    16-24 Maldini-Yashin-Meazza-Moreno-Zizinho-Garrincha-Charlton-Best-Van Basten


    Logically from the 16th, other players could also enter and the list becomes complicated (of course it is not a closed list and there could be changes, they occur to me as possible candidates for Gullit, Kopa, Didí ...).
     
  20. msioux75

    msioux75 Member+

    Jan 8, 2006
    Lima, Peru
    Nice list, mate.

    There's another one, with all cummulative votes, maybe @PDG1978 remember where it is?
     
    Buyo repped this.
  21. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Yes, the voting ended quite a while ago now, but using the helpful summary of peterhrt that was taken from the latest points tallies I had calculated from everyone's votes, I can show what had ended up as a Big Soccer 100 from all the votes since the thread opened in 2009 (with a few voters replacing their original votes cast, but also some voters voting near the start of the thread and not changing anything since):
    I do think when it comes to a top 25-27 as per what buyo posted, a lot of people probably will end up thinking of a similar group of names, with just some differences in perception/valuation etc changing the placings around...which makes sense. According to my own most recent idea for example, I don't quite have Matthaus or Maldini (or Gullit) in there and don't feel convinced enough to put in Moreno, Meazza and Zizinho although understand the historical merit, and instead have Baresi, M.Laudrup, Bobby Moore, Figo and Baggio among the names. Likewise rather than Didi and Kopa (who again I don't rule out from such consideration from what I saw/know by any means, and if doing a more balanced historical merit list they'd be prime candidates too), I think of Ronaldinho being a likely option, and then Gianni Rivera and Kenny Dalglish. But that's all on the fringes of the 'top 25' pretty much, and we probably all start to feel a bit uncertain by that stage, and it can be based on our own 'criteria' etc.
     
    msioux75 repped this.
  22. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Actually, I can't be sure now that that list of 100 does correlate to the voting since the start of the thread, using all voters.

    This, from over half a dozen years ago now (so compiled between 2009 and 2014, without everyone continually updating votes) might be the latest overall points update I did on there, but for sure there are other people posting top 50 votes (and extending it beyond that, up to as much as 125 names) on the thread since that time, but it's just that the tallying up had been stopped (maybe peterhrt calculated some things himself to add more votes in even and that can explain things as he'd be showing a more updated/recent list, but I just forget exactly now)....

    I'm not fully sure how that 100 that peterhrt posted was arrived at though, or whether there was any misunderstanding, so I thought finding what seems to be my latest points update and posting that too was the best course of action. It did result in me making this video based on the 'results' at that point:
    25 of the best football players of all-time - YouTube
     
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  23. peterhrt

    peterhrt Member+

    Oct 21, 2015
    Club:
    Leeds United AFC
    The two lists are virtually identical.

    65 of the Top 100 are in exactly the same position. 7 are one place different. 24 are two places different, mostly as a result of being overtaken by Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

    That leaves just four players. Messi and CR7 themselves, who move up 15 and 25 places respectively, Hagi who drops from #84 to #89, and Tostao who enters the Top 100 at #99.

    The updates took account of votes and comments from new posters on various threads over a period of four years.
     
  24. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Thanks mate for clarifying. I was possibly aware at the time you did it and forgot the details, but yeah I knew pretty quickly this morning you'd have added some votes onto the latest tallies I'd posted.
     
    peterhrt repped this.
  25. Naubi

    Naubi Member

    Spain
    Mar 26, 2018
    1 - Messi
    2 - Pelé
    3 - Maradona
    4 - Cruyff
    5 - Cristiano Ronaldo
    6 - Di Stefano
    7 - Beckenbauer
    8 - Platini
    9 - Puskas
    10 - Zico
    11 - Zidane
    12 - Ronaldo
    13 - Matthaus
    14 - Eusebio
    15 - Xavi
    16 - Maldini
    17 - Muller
    18 - Gullit
    19 - Marco van Basten
    20 - Charlton
    21 - Baggio
    22 - Meazza
    23 - Luis Suárez (ESP)
    24 - Garrincha
    25 - Romario
    26 - Baresi
    27 - Best
    28 - Henry
    29 - Kopa
    30 - Ronaldinho
    31 - Yashin
    32 - Buffon
    33 - Moreno
    34 - Sindelar
    35 - Rummenigge
    36 - Laudrup
    37 - Sarosi
    38 - Zizinho
    39 - Iniesta
    40 - Rivera
    41 - Figo
    42 - Schiaffino
    43 - R. Carlos
    44 - Didi
    45 - Luis Suarez (URU)
    46 - Bergkamp
    47 - Rijkaard
    48 - Robben
    49 - Facchetti
    50 - Totti

    I made a top 1000 applying a mathematic method or points system and it resulted in this. Active players between 50-100:

    52 - Ibra
    54 - Neymar
    68 - Lewandowski
    69 - Neuer
    83 - Modric
    87 - Dani Alves
    93 - Ribery
    99 - Casillas

    How do you feel about this? Waiting for your answers, proud of being part of one of the best football forums.

    P.S1: Modern players can be "inflated" by the points received for their titles.
    P.S2: Attack players are favoured because I think attack is more diferential than the defense so I tend to value them higher
    P.S3: Sorry for my poor English hehe
     
    Gregoire1, afar, carlito86 and 2 others repped this.

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