At this stage, Van Basten, Gullit, Maradona have all missed the start of the season, but Maradona is about to return.
While Baggio had his breakout season in 1988-89, this is his best season to start. Maradona has arrived after a tumultuous offseason and has made his first appearance off the bench.
I'm keeping an eye on the grades of Brehme (if nothing changes much in the coming games I think his 1989 Gazzetta average will be higher than Baresi's actually - like I hinted at before I suspect Baresi's with Gazzetta for 1988 was actually a fair bit better than his Guerin Sportivo one though) and Baggio (although he just received a 5.5 I see in the last game). It could be the AC Milan contingent will be lower than I might have thought, among the top 1989 calendar year Serie A grades, but there are still quite a few games left in 1989 at this stage so it could change. I am wondering if it might be problematic working out Van Basten's grades though, if appearing on the top 10/11 list requires a certain amount of games played in the current season (I'm wondering if that happened with Donadoni in 88/89 since he suddenly seemed to appear with a very good average near the top for his position, just after mid-season, having not been listed just prior to that.
Toninho Cerezo will be another possibility for very good average grades over 1989 I think. I'll try to see which of the many choices seem the best ones to look into anyway (probably doing 4 players again), but will consider any suggestions and tips about ones I might be overlooking of course. I'm not sure whether any players will be challenging the best calendar year averages from previously but some could be quite close maybe (or close at least to Maradona's 1988 figure). I'm wondering now though whether the best compromise might be to stick with GS for the 1989 part of 1988/89 and do it as a collaboration with Gazzetta which would provide the grades for the 1989/90 games. January 1989 was missing for Gazzetta too of course, and I think the top 10/11 averages by position after week 11 unless I missed it when scrolling through (week 11 being the last week of games in 1988 during 1988/89). But yeah, good start to 1989/90 from Cerezo and Baggio for example for sure, following it seems somewhat of an upturn in form in general in the second part of the previous season probably.
I don't understand that "top 10". I mean, Serena, Voller et al. are regularly in while scoring below a 7 in the grades (at one occasion even a 5.5 for Serena). Meanwhile, the world player of the year (among other players) is ignored when he has an 8 or higher in some games, including the top matches. That on top of some overly harsh grades like the Madrid matches you mention.
Yeah, I haven't really studied it closely enough to comment fully, but certainly the hit parade top 10 does seem at odds with the grades on numerous occasions. I guess it is a matter of one person (who watched the full game) giving a verdict vs the consensus of the GS editorial team about the best impacts in the week (and the 3 most notable disappointments)? On the other issue: certainly I personally would have given some higher marks in some games: that Real Madrid home game as an example, also the Germany game in Euro 88 I think. But that might be a wider issue as I've felt the same about Gascoigne vs the Netherlands in Euro 96 (6.5 though perhaps that was a La Repubblicca grade?), Maradona vs Roma in 87/88 (6.5), Savicevic vs AC Milan in 88/89 (7), Michael Laudrup vs Barcelona 85/86 I think too IIRC, and there are plenty of examples I think for various players (not a surprise maybe I remember an English player, the famous Maradona and two of my favourite players to watch...interestingly against their future clubs) and that is only thinking of ones where we can see the games or the players contributions. I think to get anywhere near top marks the Italian publications seem almost to require substantial end product, from attacking players at least. Maybe that tendency is not completely absent in other countries but I suspect it's less pronounced, or at least more relatively high grades get handed out anyway (in England, Spain etc).
Yes for every 'legendary' player there are differing assessments depending on the source. At the same time, the range can be rather small. The difference between Maradona and MvB for example in 1988-89 is only 0.18. That equals just 6 points difference over 34 games. The difference between Maradona and Laudrup is only 0.08. That is only a 2-3 points difference over a full season. Which can be decided by one goal more or less indeed, or a yellow card. Or the reverse: in GS Maradona is only 0.03 behind Matthaus, which is less than one penalty goal so to say. This also explains why Rijkaard doesn't make the Gazzetta top 10 but is #1 in DBScalcio - that this is very well possible (he won the Guerin d'Oro in 1992). So this is not very odd, but would say an 8/10 against a strong opponent (Juventus), creating some goals and then (more than once) not in the top 10 is kind of strange. Just as Serena being alone at the top with 15 inclusions, with some of them at odds with the grade (with all due respect). Compare also: http://football-ratings.blogspot.com/2012/07/memory-lane-serie-198990.html http://football-ratings.blogspot.com/2011/12/memory-lane-serie-1989-90.html
Yes, true. La Repubblicca seemed a bit more favourable to Milan players than GS in 89/90 then it seems. I think I might be leaning to looking at MvB, Cerezo, Brehme, Matthaus for 1989 grades now. Vialli probably would be scoring higher than he did in 1988 though, and potentially Baresi ditto. Baggio and Rijkaard both had good spells of form during parts of 1989, but unless they have another great one in the last few games I guess their calendar year averages won't be spectacularly high anyway (with GS/Gazzetta at least - like you say it can vary).
Collecting ratings from La Stampa lately, so we can make a comparison between different sources: DIEGO MARADONA Serie A 1984-1985: Gazzetta: 6,87 La Stampa: 6,87 Guerin d'or (4 sources): 7,00 Guerin Sportivo: ? Serie A 1985-1986: Gazzetta: 6,56 La Stampa: 6,60 Guerin d'or (4 sources): 6,577 Guerin Sportivo: 6,67 Serie A 1986-1987: Gazzetta: 6,37 La Stampa: 6,22 Guerin d'or (4 sources): 6,48 Guerin Sportivo: 6,67 Serie A 1987-1988: Gazzetta: 6,57 La Stampa: 6,57 Guerin d'or (4 sources): 6,68 Guerin Sportivo: 6,62 So, according to this, Diego's 84-85 is considered his best season by all the sources. Then the things began to differ: for Gazzetta, his 87-88 campaign was the 2nd best, while La Stampa got 1985-1986 at the 2nd place. Guerin Sportivo put the 1986-1987 and the 1985-1986 with the same average, while the Guerin d'or trophy still put the 87-88 in the 2nd place. There is a very big difference between GS, La Stampa and Gazzetta average for his 1986-1987 Campaign.