In the McIlvanney book (the 1995 edition, which I found recently, as said in another thread) I read a quote by Menotti and Maradona (March 1982) that fits within the theme of this thread. Not something new, but just a confirmation of what has been said before by various people here.
Zico was a great latent and he also got a great team *Brazil NT to support him in his best form. Maradona was a bit less fortunate with his time for Argentina (in 80's) They both played deep and advance position ... and the difference is their team mates. Look at Maradona at young ages while playing for Argentinos JR and Boca ... his goals per game was like any top top striker (similar to Zico for Bortafogo of late 70's)
And lol at the OP and 1 or 2 others who say Zico had better passing ability than Maradona, please don't even go there. Also lol at the argument of Zico scoring more goals in the weak Brazilian league, compared to the league with the best defenses in history (Serie A of the 80's and 90's). As for the question of the 2nd best player ever, I don't know, but it's definitely not Maradona because he was the best ever.
LOL to your limit knowledge! For your info - Zico was NEVER inferior in passing ability to Maradona. Maradona was more famous and efficient followed his WC86 and his Napoli fame. - Did NOT you realize (may be you should know) 1- Zico was close to be SeireA topscorer in 84? just 1 goal shy from Platini (who had 3 more games played)? 2 - Zico was on course to be the BEST player (and wining goldenboot) at WC82 (before his team collapsed by Rossi's hat trick) with 4goals+4ass/5games! 3- Zico got the BEST GPG as a FW/AM in national team shirt 52goals/72games (yes much higher than Platini/Maradona/Bobby Charton ... with more or less same position) Here obviously Maradona got the worst team along side among them all to be fair!
Was reading through the start of this thread and just noticed this Thought that's interesting, because didn't he do the same thing 4 years later against the same opponent and marker in the world cup final?
Anyway thought its noteworthy as the final is deemed a underperformance by him for some people. A lot of players have got legendary status for being able to stay out of a match and then make the killer moment when it matters. Here he deliberately moved out of position and uninvolved himself from the game which freed up his teammates at the expense of making the play himself, and then made a decisive moment when it mattered. This is a strong argument against the perception some have about him being selfish or not a team player imo.
I know that this was posted a long time ago but i'm interested did you use strict or loose criteria for assists, did you count rebounds and things like that?
those ones good point - I think they look ok ... for Assists However those are just blind stats ... For example Messi could have made 4 assists in a thrashing game (meaningless) where Barca screwed their opponent 6-0 win (or Messi could scored a hatr tcik in a 5-0 win game ) While Maradona could have pulled only one ass but that assissted to winning goal of a 1-0 game (while Maradona might score a goal in 2-1 win) So number is just number - besides the important things: how strong your team are and how eak your opponents are Barca of Messi 09-13 ranked #1 (worst #3) >>>> Napoli of Maradona (ranked 70+ or even outside TOP100 in his time)
I dont disagree with what was said about Maradona and Zico but I feel like phrases like "let the game flow through his teammates, when things weren't working out for him" are the kinds of things you'd associate with laziness, and not trying hard enough if you were to hear about it nowadays regarding Messi or CR7
Well we can look at where they had goals and assists and how many points that brought to their team. As for the ability of teammates to score i completely agree.
I was especially curious about 1989-90 season because by this it looks like his best season, but i wasn't aware that he played that good in that season.
Because the objective was to check the influence on goal scoring, on the results, I used wide rules. Wide rules portray better this, and passing quality isn't on comparison. Also player points are result of taking direct influence (G+A) off, and comparing results mathematically. In a long term it gives good idea of average influence on results. Here's more thorough list: Few points how to read this, 84-85 may seem like the best year percentage wise, but you have to take team position also into account. It shows if the player was a really big fish in a big bond, or rather big fish in a small bond, as it easier to be bigger part of a small team, than a big team. Other than that, percentage of goals and points involved should be the ones which show relative influence the best.
Those are league statistics, as it's the best, most constant way to compare influence. I don't have full statistics.
Napoli goals are pretty much all on youtube (or dailymotion) on that period, you have to go game by game basis which I did.
Yeah i know that there are a lot of games of Napoli but i didn't think that you went through all of them, i thought that you found some compilations. Great job, man! Really great!!