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
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):
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
exactly, that's why you have a doublestandard to count Puskas goals (Hungary leagues) and not included Pele with Brazil leagues
yes that did - even many leagues (or mainly divided by 2 biggest regions called Paulista (with Santos, Pamerais ...) and Cariocca (with Botafogo, Flamengo ...)
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 ). 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 ...).
Nice list, mate. There's another one, with all cummulative votes, maybe @PDG1978 remember where it is?
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.
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
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.
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.
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