A case could be made IMO. It’s arguable, but he’s my favourite defender of all time from what I’ve seen. His performance in Brazil vs Italy 1994 WC final performance still plays in my head tbh.
Not only one of the best libero's and football brains, but one of the toughest man-markers to play against too.
It's a very close comparison for me. My "favorite" is Baresi. Based on those terms to parameterize a defender/libero, I think that nomination could be debatable due to Elías Figueroa. Maybe for no other.
I voted maldini but its difficult. Maldini is probably the best LB ever. Whilst baresi is one of the best CB but not the best. Reason i vote maldini is that he is slightly more versatile then baresi And for me versatility is very important (thats why i rate finney higher then Matthews for example) But no matter what, both rank top 5 all time for their position so its quite close actually on who is better.
Hello tony, good to see you back here. He is undoubtedly the single best left back of his era but I'm less sure whether he is the single best ever. I think there are some myths flowing around. One of them is the famous 'if I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake'. As if he avoided tackling and sliding much less often than others. In truth, this was not so much the case: Given no one was even collecting data during large parts of Maldini's career, this is one of those made up stats like Zidane never being caught offside.FWIW, at World Cup (23 games) he averaged 3.9 tackles/match.In Serie A from 2004 to 2009, it was 2.5 per game. https://t.co/Jup0EVlllz— Orbinho (@Orbinho) May 25, 2019 (Orbinho is part of OptaJoe) That era had in general higher tackling for sure, but this is certainly not super low for a defender. If you want to have someone who could avoid tackling for an entire match and offer protection/defense: Albertini, Baresi or Rijkaard. I also think even at his very best he had his positional mistakes. This was when he was just elected World Soccer player of the year, and this too (more obvious). He averaged about one positional mistake per match, to be honest. In his strong periods. That is nothing to be ashamed of, but the imaginary standard has become so high that no defensive full-back (Ashley Cole for example) can match it. I also think Maldini was rarely among the best three or four players of his team, unlike Baresi. Baresi was both a center back and a libero, that speaks for him. Few liberos have matched his pure defensive ability. At his best he was positionally close to flawless for several years, and he was a good footballer too. I also think he became error prone in the last three or four years of his career and often needed fouling to survive (@wm442433 and also Gullit's own book mentions this, and that is where Maldini looks better I think - Maldini was smart to work with his upper body strength and prevent clear fouls). In the end, both are among the best ever in their position. Maldini was lucky to have a more fortunate age than Baresi, and find himself immediately in a good team (without being among the four or five best).
Here's Romario scoring a beauty! pic.twitter.com/ngdPFa5KQF— 90s Football (@90sfootball) February 17, 2020
if the thread turns to that, now there is one that is perhaps a bit less known : it's a friendly. and to continue on this topic, here's another one that comes to mind : but it probably has been posted countless times already.
Romario in his prime was also reduced to a peasant by a 34 year old Franco baresi On a side note this is possibly/probably in contention for best ever world cup final performance Others could be zidane vs brazil 98 Pele vs Italy 70 Geoff Hurst vs west Germany 66 I dont think this baresi performance looks too out of place unless of course we are expecting him to put on a masterful defensive performance and score a hat trick He did is duties to an absolute elite standard. I see hardly any If any mistakes here There was the great chance he created too for massaro prime romario who flopped in the champions league 93/94 because he was saving himself for the world cup Saving himself to be completely neutralized by Franco baresi
If you are really attentive to it you can find many of those 0:45 in the video Again, nothing to be ashamed of, but people have unrealistic standards in their mind.