Best football players of all time

Discussion in 'Players & Legends' started by stcv1974, Sep 19, 2014.

  1. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    What do you mean with that? :unsure: Three titles with Brugge as the main man and captain is worse than three titles with Anderlecht? Where Scifo was good but not necessarily the man.
     
  2. wm442433

    wm442433 Member+

    Sep 19, 2014
    Club:
    FC Nantes
    Also, he won 0 league titles during Scifo's time (Scifo won 3 in 4 seasons).

    I don't know how it works, but perhaps the coefficient of the Belgian league was inflated due to the good runs of Brugge in the late 70s (when Ceulemans was still at Lierse). In addition to the results of Anderlecht fromthe 70s to the mid-80s (until they sold Scifo in Italy, and a bit before let Vercauteren sign a last contract with Nantes). Not to forget Standard '82 in the Cup winners Cup although it's more marginal.
     
  3. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Scifo was in most of those seasons not the driving player though. Case in point: the 1986 title deciders against Brugge. The middle of those three Anderlecht championships.

    Both teams finished level on points and two extra games decided the championship. Scifo was a good player but not the one who made them (imho).

    https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eerste_klasse_1985-86_(voetbal_België)

    That means it was inflated? The bottom half of the league was arguably 'weak' but multiple different teams won points in Europe and had good runs. That led to a top five position until the mid-90s.

    'Inflated' are those forced downgrades the UEFA did, like the 1973 downgrade of the Eredivisie.
     
  4. wm442433

    wm442433 Member+

    Sep 19, 2014
    Club:
    FC Nantes
    I mean it's not the same financial means and squad quality. And quality of play.
    Brugge, it's more the labour when Anderlecht concentrates more talents. They'e both at the image of their clubs in that regard.
    Meanwhile Scifo was a bit apart even in his own country and club because of his origins (he was naturalized Belgian for the Euro 84 even if born in Belgium, he was Italian), had unique playing style (there was no other "fantasistas" like this in Belgian football historically) and had a different way to be too, a different culture in sum. He was not always well seen for all of that and for his style of play wich could lead to some average performances at times if well-marked and not on his day. Ceulemans on the other hand has that advantage to be 100% Belgian (Flemish), 100% Club Brugge (coming from Lierse SK) and that style of play of working-class hero (with a physical force coming directly from the north) with much commitment when the Italian golden boy and innate talent Scifo, in addition to be different by his origins could appear to be the kind of player who doesn't make any efforts (defensively for example), relying only on his natural gifts. If Ceulemans looses a match, doesn't really have a good match it can be : "at least, he has made a lot of efforts". If it's Scifo it's : "oh that little pretentious...". Anderlecht is supposed to dominate and its players to always deliver too. At the scale of Belgium it's like Real Madrid in Spain.

    Some people were just waiting for one thing, to see Scifo struggling I think.
    As for his own words, he talks of "jealousy", very conscious of his talent that he likes to assert but also avoiding to talk about any problem that could be related to his origins.

    In some regards, a parallel could be made between Scifo in Belgium and Hoddle in England. in that sense that there was some "misunderstandings" as it is often summed-up.
    But in '90, I think that Scifo definitively shown his mental strenght by assuming perfectly to be the central player of the NT, at the World Cup, in Italy, as wanted and assumed by Guy Thys. Scifo was then 24 years old. We tend to forget that he was only 21 years old when he left Anderlecht to Inter, maybe because he was around since already a good time. 18 at the Euro 84 after his first season in the elite.
     
    Gregoire1 repped this.
  5. wm442433

    wm442433 Member+

    Sep 19, 2014
    Club:
    FC Nantes
    #1605 wm442433, Dec 7, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2019
    Yes it's true but nobody would have bet money on Brugge being an European Cup finalist I guess, that's what I mean.
     
  6. wm442433

    wm442433 Member+

    Sep 19, 2014
    Club:
    FC Nantes
    +1 vote for Scifo with Claude Barzotti (real name Francesco Barzotti) : https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9uagl

    0:35 : "As for me, I think that Scifo was the best in Belgium".

    Much Belgian singers were "wops". Scifo's uncle was a guitarist.

    [​IMG]

    He's one of the Scifo's best friends.
     
  7. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    It's more like that Ceulemans had six times 20 goals in a season (sometimes as forward, sometimes in a 4-4-2 midfield), at his peak in 1980 even 30+ goals, while Scifo didn't. Scifo was never above 15 goals.

    Now goals are not everything but combined with the rest there is the picture he was a more influential player.

    Some examples from the tournaments:

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqx7f9

    10:50 - that is a well taken goal. Also a decent pass at 17:30 I see.

    Counter-attack in 1982 sending them through to the next round.
     
  8. wm442433

    wm442433 Member+

    Sep 19, 2014
    Club:
    FC Nantes
    Scifo has the stats of goals of a Zidane.
     
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  9. tony-soprano37

    Dec 5, 2008
    Club:
    AFC Ajax
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    France editors choosing cantona over kopa ??? WoW its not something i would do also i wonder why and how ? Talent ? Nah. Achievements ? Nah

    England the absense of finney is strange to say the least.
    Finney may have been a better player then Matthews. Matthews was the better right winger but finney was more complete (2 footed) so could play both wings.
    Finney also was a way better goalscorer then stanly Matthews

    Lastly the problem i have with public polls is this : the longer time ago a player played the more he is forgotten so in polls (especially if lots if young people vote) many a times the “younger” players are over representend.
     
  10. TitoTata

    TitoTata Member+

    Jun 26, 2014
    I always thought that David Ginola was more talented than Cantona and certainly more likeable :)
     
  11. Alessandro10

    Alessandro10 Member

    Dec 6, 2010
    Club:
    Juventus FC
    Both great players, but very different. One was a winger, one was a forward/striker. They were both gifted.
     
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  12. TitoTata

    TitoTata Member+

    Jun 26, 2014
    That said .. Ginola was far more than just a winger ..

    He played the same position (a lot of the time ) as Zidane or Ronaldinho and scored many marvellous long range shots outside the box .. he was completely two footed as well
     
  13. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Last month I received the 1974 Ballon d'Or (already posted 1971, 1973, 1976). Make of it what you want.

    [​IMG]
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    Can only post 10 pictures and there is one more to go...
     
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  14. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    This was the write-up:

    [​IMG]

    As shown before, at the end of 1971 he was already compared to Pele and Di Stefano in a few of their texts in the relevant issue.

    [​IMG]

    At the same time, the English voter had him never on top (except 1969), the West German voter had him never on top. The big nations bias?
     
    PDG1978 repped this.
  15. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    What you can say, I think, is that like Soren Lerby the consistency of Ceulemans his passing could be variable. He had his high level matches where it was 'on' but also those with variable success (De Bruyne has also this trait to some extent).

    @PDG1978 made once a compilation with Dalglish I think.



    Here a very nice pass at 3:10 and also right at the beginning of the video

     
  16. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    This is really emblematic for 'the cartel' history writing



    The truth is rather more prosaic

    1. There wasn't a state system like the Russians or Germans had in football. To organize it internally and protect it externally. The same state system also eavesdropped opponents on their soil, and no, that is not a conspiracy theory but a hard fact.

    2. None of that stuff like amphetamines was anything new. Manchester United and Brazil already used it in the 1950s. Rather than being at the forefront, it was a laggard, with the teams making up lost ground.

    3. Certain countries had quite an influence in the relevant authorities (for example: a fixed seat at the FIFA ExCom). Netherlands isn't one of them. As a result, Netherlands has only one recipient of the FIFA order of Merit while others have a dozen of those.

    If there is a country that is good because of drugs (and protecting the ground) it is rather Germany/Russia instead of Holland.
     
  17. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Source here.

    Collectively not taking medicines against the fever and cold because it gives problems during controls (1974 WC), with Scottish players etc. send home.

    https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010619680:mpeg21:a0266
    https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:011016990:mpeg21:a0038

    vs.

    In cahoots and high fives with the FIFA et al.

    New York Times
    Nick Harris on Russia
     
  18. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I noticed, looking at 2019/20's ratings, that De Bruyne actually received an average of 7.34, to probably (because with the next ratings seeming quite a 'normal' level it seems like the season won't be excluded as an outlier) rise to the top of the (somewhat comparable) top 20 actual ratings list (and I'll see at some point whether his adjusted rating will be at the top too even, since the ratings of 2009/10 and 2013/14 will likely be adjusted down more indeed).

    I don't know what the general feeling is about whether he did have a better season last season than in 2017/18? It's hard to really make a definitive call probably in cases like that, based on highlights etc. I remember suggesting on this thread and/or others that I might not quite think of McManaman's 94/95 as better than his 95/96 (as the ratings would suggest) if I tried to make the call and use my memory bank to do it, but actually after looking back at Liverpool's goals from the two seasons (as well as 93/94) when I incidentally noticed the videos for them on Youtube recently, I might lean more to agreeing with the ratings potentially than I would have done (and then he had a great League Cup Final in 94/95 too, while like his team-mates not a great FA Cup Final in 95/96 of course). I wouldn't be sure at all about it (and for 95/96 in football as a whole the Euros is a factor at the end), but the videos perhaps gave the impression of more incisive dribbling in 94/95 (including some contributions to creating goals that didn't end strictly as assists), while already being quite a prominent playmaker in Liverpool's system well before the end of the season, and his individual goals being better overall maybe. I do remember De Bruyne did make a lot of very impressive assists back in 2017/18, but I know the impressions can be skewed by team success as opposed to not quite the same success (obviously 2nd place is not bad though) and things like that!
     
  19. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Expanding on this, with what is now available to see on DBS Calcio:

    1976/77 - 1) Johan Cruyff (Barcelona/Netherlands), 2) Luis Pereira (Atletico Madrid/Brazil), 3) Eduardo Commisso (Hercules/Argentina)
    (Neeskens 6th, Arconada 18th, Pirri 19th)

    1977/78 - 1) Gilberto Yearwood (Elche/Honduras), 2) Pirri (Real Madrid/Spain), 3) Miguel Migeuli (Barcelona/Spain)
    (Stielike 5th, Cruyff 8th, Arconada 10th, Rexach 18th)

    1978/79 - 1) Carmelo Giuliano (Hercules/Argentina), 2) Lorenzo Amador (Hercules/Spain), 3) Radi Antic (Real Zaragoza/Yugoslavia)
    (Stielike 4th, Pirri 7th, Neeskens 17th)

    1979/80 - 1) Pirri (Real Madrid/Spain), 2) Rafael Gordillo (Real Betis/Spain), 3) Miguel Migueli (Barcelona/Spain)
    (Arconada 4th, Dirceu 10th, Stielike 20th)

    1980/81 - 1) Uli Stielike (Real Madrid/West Germany), 2) Juan Manuel Baena (Hercules/Spain), 3) Juan Martinez Roberto (Espanyol/Spain)
    (Simonsen 4th, Gordillo 5th)

    1981/82 - 1) Enrique Sala (Hercules/Spain), 2) Ignacio Kortabarria (Real Sociedad/Spain), 3) Uli Stielike (Real Madrid/West Germany)
    (Gordillo 4th, Simonsen 5th)

    1982/83 - 1) Juan Barbas (Real Zaragoza/Argentina), 2) Antonio Alvarez (Sevilla/Spain), 3) Juan Senor (Real Zaragoza/Spain)
    (Maradona 4th, Stielike 7th, N'Kono 19th, Gordillo 20th)

    1983/84 - 1) Juan Barbas (Real Zaragoza/Argentina), 2) Miguel Migueli (Barcelona/Spain), 3) Manuel Zuniga (Espanyol/Spain)
    (Gordillo 7th, Schuster 9th, N'Kono 18th, Zubizarreta 19th, Stielike 20th, unless Maradona 15th based on 16 games)

    1984/85 - 1) Bernd Schuster (Barcelona/West Germany), 2) Uli Stielike (Real Madrid/West Germany), 3= Miguel Migueli (Barcelona/Spain) & Julio Alberto (Barcelona/Spain)
    (Arconada 11th, N'Kono 18th)

    2002/03 - 1) Nihat (Real Sociedad/Turkey), 2) Carles Puyol (Barcelona/Spain), 3) Iker Casillas (Real Madrid/Spain)
    (Xabi Alonso 6th, Zidane 8th, Makaay 17th)

    2003/04 - 1) Ronaldinho (Barcelona/Spain), 2) Carles Puyol (Barcelona/Spain), 3) Raul Tamudo (Espanyol/Spain)
    (Davids potentially 5th based on 18 games, but otherwise Ayala 6th, Aimar 10th, Mauro Silva 17th, Casillas 18th)
     
  20. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I don't know whether I made a mistake, but possibly it was that ratings were amended with additional sources added or something (although not much seems to have changed overall for sure), but Riquelme is showing as 3rd for 04/05, just above Ronaldinho I see today. Casillas is 5th in the list for that season, Senna 6th, Eto'o 8th, Xavi 9th, Forlan 13th, Ramos 15th.

    For 05/06, Puyol is 4th in the list, Iniesta 5th, Casillas 8th, Riquelme 10th, Aimar 12th, Saviola 15th, Larsson 16th.

    For 06/07, Ronaldinho 4th, Deco 7th, Alves 8th, Aimar 9th, Villa 10th, Kanoute 11th, Milito 12th, Casillas 20th

    For 07/08, Casillas 5th, Sneijder 8th, Robinho 12th, Ramos 14th, Van Nistelrooy 15th

    For 08/09, Eto'o 4th, Forlan 5th, Kanoute 7th, Xavi 8th, Villa 10th, Alves 13th, Toure 15th, Silva 16th, Robben 18th

    For 09/10, Silva 5th, Villa 6th, Kaka 9th, Higuain 10th, Ibrahimovic 12th, Mata 14th, Xavi 16th

    For 10/11, Aguero 4th, Ozil 5th, Xavi 7th, Di Maria 8th, De Gea 11th, Villa 14th, Mata 17th, Joaquin 18th, Alves 20th

    For 11/12, Alexis Sanchez 4th, Fabregas 6th, Xavi 8th, Benzema 9th, Di Maria 12th, Puyol 13th, Joaquin 16th, Abidal 18th, Senna 19th

    For 12/13, Pique 8th, Busquets 9th, Alba 14th, C.Ronaldo 15th, Falcao 20th

    For 13/14, Neymar 4th, Iniesta 6th, Rakitic 8th, Busquets 13th, Godin 16th, Xavi 19th

    For 14/15, Neymar 4th, Benzema 8th, Suarez 14th, Ramos 15th, Pique 16th, James Rodriguez 17th

    For 15/16, Iniesta 4th, Suarez 5th, Neymar 7th, Busquets 9th, Modric 12th, C.Ronaldo 14th

    (To complete a round-up of familiar/prominent names in the top 20 for those seasons too, similar to what I did for Serie A before, although I've been a bit conservative with it as quite a lot of the names are familiar to many fans of course).

    Obviously ratings for the Spanish league have been ongoing from 2016/17 too, but I'll leave it here for now. Spanish ratings/teams of the season etc have been well dealt with on some other threads, but I thought it was worth posting those older ones and the newly published 02/03 and 03/04 ones too on this thread.
     
  21. EnnatzIsTheMan

    Meidericher Spielverein
    Mar 16, 2018
    Quite interesting. I'm wondering how you adjusted the ratings in the initial post. Is this based on some statistical methodology (which would probably be a huge effort)?

    Furthermore, I remember that at some point in some random post an admin (or founder or something) of DBS Calcio explained the methodology used for their media voting system. Apparently, it is far from self-explanatory, so I would appreciate if anyone could post the link to this in here (maybe even the original poster).
    It's quite weird that DBS Calcio is one of the main sources for media votings available on the internet. Of course there are kicker gradings for the whole Bundesliga history, but otherwise it is really hard to find some reliable sources on other leagues. I reckon BigSoccer threads by individual posters, but they are far from complete unfortunately. Then there's this blog. That guy is most certainly a BigSoccer member (the question is which one?) and maybe even related to DBS Calcio, I don't know.
    If anyone has additional sources on historical player ratings apart from that, please feel free to leave them here.
     
  22. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I can explain how I adjusted the Premier League ratings for you mate. I just used the average ratings for 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 19th, and 20th players in each year and divided them by 8 if I remember correctly, to determine an estimate for the top 20 players. Then I found the average of those estimates, over all seasons with ratings available, so that I could add on or subtract to each players totals the difference between the average of all the estimates and the estimate (based on the average of 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 19th, 20th) for the season in question. Obviously I'm still showing the original ratings too separately, but it gives a guide as to how things change if the ratings are made more equal over all seasons (maybe sometimes this can be misleading to an extent, because there would be legitimate reasons for various players to get exceptional ratings in some seasons in any case, but certainly there can be trends and also quite big deviations in ratings in certain years and sometimes it might be based on adding in other sources that weren't used previously I guess). Like I say 2009/10 and 2013/14 are the main outliers.

    I think DBS Calcio (for the media voto column) just average out the ratings of multiple sources. I guess they started the project with Italian ratings and then added more, since it is an Italian site. It is a similar concept to the Guerin d'Oro I suppose, although the sources being slightly different I think for Italian ratings (and maybe varying from season to season). I think for some countries it might be that only one source is used. For some countries there is some sort of conversion of ratings from the system used in that country to a 1-10 rating system. Both those things might apply to Germany IIRC (if they just use Kicker). @PuckVanHeel did know at some stage the sources used for some countries I remember (he refers to the Spanish ones in a reply to me re: the original post I'd made about La Liga ratings, and I think he knew the Italian ones at some point, probably because they were named on the DBS Calcio website (maybe also for England). I'm not sure whether the sources are currently provided on the website though, and in any case the current sources wouldn't necessarily be the ones used for every year I guess (especially with sources that didn't always exist). I think sometimes some sources get added in retrospectively probably, or some re-calculation takes place. Coincidentally I have noticed that Nottingham Forest ratings of 94/95 seem to have become incomplete (maybe they started recalculating something) and only seem to be based on half a season at the moment, judging by appearance data. It doesn't seem to be a common issue though, even for that 94/95 season for English teams in general.
     
  23. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    The DBS rating column might indeed be the result of a formula applied though I think yeah. I always refer to the 'media voto' numbers though myself.
     
  24. Tropeiro

    Tropeiro Member+

    Jun 1, 2018
    I personally think Cruyff has more arguments to be ranked higher in the GOAT position than Maradona. What is considered the pinnacle and probably the best international tournament made by a player (Maradona 86), and many say that it was by far the highest level reached by the argentinian in all his life and matches, Cruyff almost equaled... goals, assists, PK won, pre-assists, performances against great NTs, including being even more influential in the ball progression part of the game.

    While the rest of the Dutchman career is easily more impressive and influential than Diego's carrer, his Barcelona carrer was superior (not only his La Liga 1973-74, but actually higher ratings in 76-77 and 77-78 compared to Maradona's 82-83 and 83-84 according DBS Calcio) and what he did for Ajax is definitely above what Maradona did at Napoli.

    Cruyff has longevity, consistency and maybe even peak on his side in this comparison.
     
    Gregoire1 repped this.
  25. Legolas10

    Legolas10 Member

    Real Madrid
    Jun 5, 2020
    How does Cruyff has longevity to his side? Maradona was the best player in the world for about 10-11 years ( 1979-1990) . Cruyff if i'm not wrong started being world class in around 1967 and went to NASL after 1978 . So its similiar amount of longevity. And talking about consistency part, Maradona hardly played in some super dominant team like Cruyff did for Ajax and Netherlands . Reading some of your posts in other threads, i guess you would know consistency, production etc depends heavily on the kind of team you're playing.

    Maradona suffered from hepatitis and heavy injury during his time at Barcelona. From the footages and matches i saw of him at Barca, he was very good whenever he was on the pitch . Even his stats were good in a sort of not that dominant Barca team. He missed lot of matches in both the seasons. You have to consider that.

    Then,rest of the Dutchman career is easily looks more impressive and influential than Diego's career because the formers had more team success while the later didn't . Maradona is unlucky in a way that he didn't get to play in European Cup/Libertadores in his absolute prime years (1979/80-86/87 for me ) because his team was nowhere that dominant as the likes of Pele,Messi,Cruyff,Di stefano.


    So these kind of assertions are flawed .
     

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