A list of all time great players, and the pantheon of greatest ever

Sure, yeah, I guess at club level that if Vegan's info about Serie A match grades continues there might be some pointers when we get to about 1997/98 (and moreso 2000/01 probably) in terms of league games. I'm not sure it will though - as per the title of the thread it wasn't going to go even as far as it has initially.

Perhaps Brazil vs Scotland (where his actions did result in the 3 points), Morocco or Chile in the 1998 WC come to mind, but those are relatively early stage games of course. I know there was the Rome Derby when he was flicking the ball over Nedved's head, so with Roma fans maybe that qualifies (I haven't seen his overall display though)!

One thing I did belatedly think about was that if the Ballon d'Or rules didn't change for 1995 Klinsmann would actually have won it, or alternatively if they did change for 1994 Stoichkov most likely wouldn't have done (because of Romario, unless things would have gone very different to the FIFA award - they did go slightly different in 1995 because Maldini was in between Weah and Klinsmann).

And I suppose the flip side of Klinsmann's high placing not matching team success (so could he have helped his team do better or is it indicative of his true level of play?), is that Stoichkov's could partially owe to it (so maybe it's because he's crucial to it, or maybe he gets the credit for his team-mates helping him be on a winning team in La Liga and making last 4 at the WC). Again, not an argument or continuation of one though - just a final thought/perspective on that one.

 

Another thought I'd put forward is looking at awards they are mostly calendar year based, and sometimes some players would do better overall with seasonal based ones.

This post can help with it but unfortunately the era we're talking of now only has a winner of the UNICEF award, not a top 3 as previously - noting that Stoichkov does take a season here (actually 1991/92 vs Van Basten/Laudrup etc, not 93/94 which goes to Maldini not Romario) and Klinsmann doesn't to be fair, with Litmanen scooping 1994/95 which is over and above how high he came in any Ballon d'Or calendar year vote (which could therefore be a case in point, although it's different sources/voters of course) - according to the ESM post season voting for 94/95 Litmanen didn't have the very highest number of inclusions but again that was Maldini and in a different position/role with less alternative names even if often voters were picking 3 AMs as well as 3 forward players (and Litmanen and others could fit in either the midfield or attack)

I think Bergkamp, who you referred to Tom could be one who'd have done better for 1997/98 (although with a few prominent options, even including a Del Piero if it was voted on before the World Cup) than for 1998, considering his great start to the season and being injured before the World Cup for a few weeks. I know he only got 1 vote for the whole of the ESM season 96/97 (which I'd think was too low, so maybe he was going under the radar more that season), but a good amount in 97/98 (again could have been higher though arguably I'd say).

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Here's another hot hot take. Highest trigger warning.

Figueroa was never at that level. Europeans never perceived him as anywhere near the best player in the world. I'd say the highest he might have gotten would have been Krol level, and that's being very very generous.

But what about his three awards from the 70s, people ask teary-eyed? Those awards say as much about the state of the SA-game at the time as they do about Figueroa's ability. I know there are crazies around who have devoted their entire lives to come up with every revisionist lie in the book to mess with people's perceptions, but now you've heard the truth here.


About Cafu, he wasn't really seen as a big deal at all until the 00s, really (I should know, he was like my fav player in those innocent times ). The Roma title-winning season is around the time when his rep leaps forward. He's one of those longevity over peak guys who I guess get the retirement overhypes treatment. Now Bob Carlos, on the other hand, was so highly rated he was heavily campaigned to win the BdO. That's why it's interesting when I (sometimes) see them retroactively grouped as being on par with each other. I wonder how much of that is clouded by them at the end of their careers, when Cafu is the NT captain and RC is the guy who leans into his knees at corner kicks?

 

That is a bit of a puzzler (maybe the IOC 3rd Place more than German Player of the Year in a strange way, just because it could be a retiring player gets career recognition and sometimes the further back we go the more those things get reflected I tend to think in 'Player of the Year' awards)!

Gregoriak should be able to help more with the back-story indeed, but I can show the Kicker page for his 1978/79 season which shows he had a run of 2 ratings (Kicker ratings are lowest number = best rating so it's maybe like 8/10 or similar) at the end of the Bundesliga season in the games he did play...and his team won the UEFA Cup of course (no ratings shown for his 3 appearances in that):
https://www.kicker.de/hans-hubert-vogts-13209/spieler/1-bundesliga/1978-79/borussia-mgladbach-15
You need to scroll down to near the bottom to see them.

 

He was actually very productive in that one, more productive than emblem Totti so maybe wasn't unfair. He had 12 assists in the league or so (maybe not the most difficult type of assists).

Before the 1998WC a few pundits saw him as the weak link of the Brazil team. Wrongly, as it turned out.

I remember the likes of comme saying the 1988 team is one of the most fondly remembered euro teams, but you show well the downward tendency to turn it into another Greece. Your default attitude is to 'not rate' and that "all talent" is in only four players. There is really a triple handicap there.

Now it's true those four monopolized all the Ballon d'Or votes, but remember voters could only fill in five players and there were also other countries that could play football. International managers named in 1991 and 1992 MvB as best player in the world. It doesn't necessarily mean the fifth best player isn't an elite level player.

The likes of Winter (check DBScalcio) or Wouters still got some domestic awards (both for multiple teams, in multiple leagues), in a similar way to how some 'Golden Generation' players had a couple domestic plaudits but barely registered in ESM or Ballon d'Or. Despite some favorable circumstances working for them.

In this case not a double handicap, but a 'second chance'.

The whole 'golden generation' tag was by the Sky-Hypers stolen from Portugal (to a lesser extent and at a later date Ajax) which was the original golden generation. The Portugal generation with two Youth World Cups but in the grand scheme of things still performed at international level and had a few UEFA Cup and CL winning players (as starters).

For England it was not a tag applied in hindsight during/after the 'failures'. I think the brand surfaced around 2003 when Rooney made his debut as the youngest player ever.

I do not deny it had some good and great players but the proportion looks out of place imho (also compared to other earlier mentioned countries). What I said: they have always their own elevated domestic awards to fall back on, where they get elevated near/above Carvalho or Vidic.

Largely agree.

Personally I think Lampard, Beckham, Terry and Cole are the best of this, relative to their position in their time. Gerrard is imho the Klinsmann of this group (often all over the place). Ferdinand and Campbell (great for England, not fully convinced for club where at times he was dragged out of position) are in between. Terry was slow but a genuine proper defender.

Ferdinand I thought/think was initially underrated (at Leeds), then overrated (the early Man United years, when he was very error prone) and then when Evra, Vidic, VdS joined he played like he was the world's best in his job. He always remained a relatively error prone defender though; watch a few Man City derbies. But that he has a favorable starting point compared to Modric (initially completely ignored despite playing great) or Van Dijk (great for Southampton, check WhoScored too, with 0 errors leading to a goal) is clear.

The key is though your natural inclination and also that the criteria are not applied even handed. Right or wrong, despite favorable circumstances, some of above players - as acknowledged by yourself - barely registered in the BdO and ESM and thus it's not done even handed.

Beckham is often called 'overrated', but actually I always felt he's one of the English players to have been the main protagonist (or close) in a successful European Cup winning campaign. Later on in 2002-03 he lost a step and some of his work rate, resulting in Solkskjaer used as a right-winger instead of him.

 

I've gone over that before but if you look in the Placar archives even they didn't believe Zico or Figueroa was the world's best. The one they said that about, until 1979, was Cruijff (the more so after he played there, with Figueroa on the same pitch!) and even Keegan at the end of the 1970s, who himself - as reigning EPotY - mentioned these two players.

I wouldn't necessarily say though he was seen at a lesser level than Krol - defenders are hard to rate anyway, even now, with some aspects like impact or 'howler-ratio' only visible over a prolonged period of time.

 

this Placar magazine from 1976 says that he was the God from Beira-Rio and the main reason from Internacional great national status. and that his presence even made Gremio fight to be a better team.
https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br...lacar-figueroa-flavio-costa-n350-ano-1976-_JM

Placar also placed him at the 19 position in an all time ranking made in 1999.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...-down/340?cb=20090728231811&path-prefix=pt-br

 

Here is the GDS ratings page for 88/89 Serie A (in relation to Laudrup/Maradona as I said before)


I thought it might be a bit hard to find in Vegan's thread!

I'll dig out the ESM votes for 94/95 since those were mentioned too, and Tom may not have seen them potentially.

 

Emphasising again that calendar year votes can turn out different to seasonal assessments though, and all competitions is different to league football alone, I'll show the page for the 1989 IFFHS World Player of the Year vote (precursor to FIFA Player of the Year award), with a Milan 1-2-3 of Van Basten, Baresi, Gullit and a clear 1st place verdict (Van Basten also taking 1988 ahead of Maradona, and Matthaus taking the final one in 1990):
https://www.iffhs.de/index.php/posts/275

Attached is the 1994/95 ESM voting (9 publications only and end of season voting rather than month by month)
Using the snipping tool I can show the individual votes on the thread too (note: Don Balon's vote includes Frank de Boer not Ronald seemingly as confirmed by an overall vote count, which makes sense since he is placed in defence)


I know Arriaga has seen it as he provided it originally of course, but I don't know whether Tom saw that thread or not, and....

On a similar note, I might as well show the voting for Eastern European Player of the Year (first place only voting from a pre-determined shortlist provided by the East German organisers it seems)

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https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/newspapers-best-players-from-eastern-european-nations.2109938/

 

I will give some extensive thoughts later but for now I want to say that imho Kompany is a much better candidate for that tag than Courtois who a) is still young for a goalkeeper and b) has been up and down from time to time (not just in perception but also statistically).

 

The 1978 World Cup had been dissapointing for Germany and particular the captain Vogts. During preparation of the new season Vogts got himself severely injured and he missed most of the 78-79 season. During his absence, Borussia Mönchengladbach struggled immensely (they had lost three very important players Heynckes, Bonhof and Wimmer, either due to retirement or being sold). So when Berti Vogts was fit again in spring 1979, Gladbach was fighting relegation (they were 2 points clear of a relegation place when he returned) and it looked pretty grim for the club (despite its good UEFA Cup run). When Vogts got back into the team, it stabilized defensively with Vogts playing as sweeper and to top it off, they won the UEFA Cup after a bad domestic season and Vogts' return was seen as perhaps the most crucial factor in that happy ending.

So the 1979 German footballer of the Year award given to Vogts despite only playing in 10 games was a bit of a sympathy vote (he retired in 1979) but mostly for his crucial role in helping saving Mönchengladbach in the limited time he had at his disposal.

 

Current Pantheon has 97 players. 13 are goalkeepers and 26 defenders (including old-fashioned centre-halves). There are 25 Latin American representatives. Breakdown by country:

Brazil 11
Argentina 9
Germany 9
England 8 (four pre-1920)
Italy 8
Netherlands 8
France 6
Former Czechoslovakia 5
Hungary 5
Scotland 5 (four pre-1920)
Spain 5
Uruguay 4
Portugal 3
Austria 2
Sweden 2
Former USSR 2
Bulgaria 1
Chile 1
Denmark 1
Wales 1 (pre-1920)
Former Yugoslavia 1

Omissions that one might normally expect to see in a Top 100 include Ronaldo (Brazil), Garrincha, Romario, Ronaldinho, van Basten, Matthews, Moore, Rivera and JL Andrade.

 

What I remember from the past about the 1979 final is Monchengladbach had not a very hard route (Sturm Graz, Benfica, Wroclaw, Man City, Duisburg - I think Benfica was the hardest of the lot but still not as good as earlier or a few years later).

I also know they won the final vs Red Star thanks to a comical own goal (diving header by Red Star player) and a controversial penalty given by the Italian referee Michelotti, often designated as a "easy gift". In the Spanish, Italian and Dutch press there were scathing reviews about the officiating (preventing both teams to play football). Also by the newspaper of record:

https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=KBNRC01:000027098:mpeg21:a0095
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010621107:mpeg21:p013
https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ABCDDD:010840671:mpeg21:p033

 

I think someone like Kanté is a glaring omission but will return to all of this later.

 

For this period I'd give special consideration to Diego Forlan. His main weakness is the non-existent Champions League record (therefore strange he is way above average in the Europa League, including finals). For the rest I think he had a great career (this shows a glimpse). Maybe he will not be remembered that way but I have him down as one of the more remarkable players for that 2005 to 2015 period. He also didn't win an awful amount but given the circumstances it's hard to argue he didn't do extremely well. He was the Gigi Riva (and club Maradona) of his era so to say. He's a bit similar to Griezmann in style I think.

I've explained it before but struggle to see why Rooney is all-time material and Van Persie is not, although I get Rooney wins it in the awards and is hurt less by injuries. Van Persie however generally the higher rated player when both were in the same team. 'Fink Tank' (by the London Times) shows him higher, 'GoalImpact' shows him higher, has virtually the same amount of Champions League goals (against great teams, too) and - not to forget - also performed for the national team against the big boys with a few fantastic goals. WhoScored had him higher for every season between 2009 and 2014; on non-penalty goals + assists per 90 minutes he goes ahead and has also a strong record against the Big Six. Even very early on he contributed to an UEFA Cup win for Feyenoord (individual move and assist vs stacked Inter in semis). Rooney the better athlete but not in technique and movement, the finer subtleties. One of the few Premier League players to top both the goals and assists chart (and the only to win the topscorer title for two different clubs), and a PL record amount of game winning goals in injury time (also relative to games played a high amount).

Hummels despite his errors maybe an all-time great? It's easy to forget he was a lot better than now at his peak, before injuries kicked in (2010-2012). In terms of creating direct danger as center back, I guess there's only Bonucci significantly ahead of him (for a more defensive team).

Sneijder is a special case. Has only three good/great league seasons, but a more steady contribution at national team and Champions League level (against the big teams, in CL). Plus (most probably) the main protagonist in one of the few Champions Leagues the Spanish clubs didn't win, and very talented. Depends on what is done with Valderrama and the likes. Your amount of ATG for Holland might be a bit low whereas pantheon is on the high end possibly.

I don't see Maicon and Julio Cesar as all-time material. Even in that window Maicon was lauded as the best right-back in the world, he got skinned by Bale and in the World Cup by 'Holland'. Was lucky to not play against Ribery in the CL final (who was suspended; Gazzetta dello Sport gave his partner Robben the highest grade of all Bayern players).

Evra, despite his controversial character, for all-time great? Only thing against him is the national team career? (still decent and reliable at euro 2016 I think and he was brought back from exile with a reason I guess, that's also a sign of strength). Not many defenders played in more CL finals than him, and he's one of two players to play for three different clubs a final.

Of the pantheon players, and I know @wm442433 thinks/explained similar, I'm the least sure about Casillas (but I'm aware of his accolades). Mainly for these reasons.

1) The main point against the pantheon is he declined rather early, for a goalkeeper. For the first two Champions Leagues (2000, 2002) he was in and out of the team. In the 2002 final he was even a substitute, where he admittedly performed superbly well. In the 2014 final he was a liability, and that's not a hyperbole.

2) are his statistics really that great? Only once in his career he had the most clean sheets of the league, 2007-08. This is probably his best year, where he had also work to do. This is the only league season in his career with the most clean sheets and also the only with the least goals against. After that it declined (74% saves for 2006-2012 is good, but not outstanding and it was his main strength; compare this to the PL, page 43 for keepers in/past their physical prime).

3) great reflexes but less good positionally and weak with his feet, although admittedly by GI and such it might still have been influential (but also there not as good as Neuer, VdS, Buffon and Cech). Also not good with aerial balls (luckily for him didn't play in northern leagues). Not a very well-rounded keeper.

4) I do think he passes the test for the national team. In two tournaments he was #1 in save percentages, in one #3 and for the rest outside the top five. He has a lot going for him there, clean sheets records and such. But if you take the Champions League, there is even the thought Keylor Navas was an upgrade on him. The amount of league titles won by him, and Champions League with own input, are more limited than is tentatively thought.

5) there is possibility his 2008 peak is the highest of anyone since we have credible data (league and national team, less so Champions League)? So I'm not doubting he's all-time material, just a bit short in performance window, and lop sided in performance to the national team (and not very well-rounded).

 

Since 1970 Netherlands has more Pantheon players (8) than any other country. And that is without van Basten. One more than Germany, three more than Brazil, France and Italy, five more than Argentina and Spain, seven more than all the British nations combined.

 

Yes I agree completely with that. Now, as discussed by others before, whereas many other countries have a number of players who performed/peaked on only one level, almost all of the best Holland players did their thing against the best teams on all levels with deep runs (for national team and for different club teams too). That helps enormously (for those four 1988 players, in which "all the talent" is located), but doesn't help England clearly for pantheon and also not Italy for pantheon (their very best national team players not always matching with a proper club peak/career and vice versa). It also helps Spain for the last 20 years.

 

Italy is also hurt by only opening up in the 1980s (the UEFA ranking of the league was outside the top 10 around 1980), and Spain + France reaching their most competitive level later.

 

I have to admit that I also viewed with certain caution the opinions that placed Figueroa among the best in history, but as I have read, I think he deserves a place on a very high echelon. It is also very significant that Julio Maldonado "Maldini" places him among the 50 best footballers in history, with special emphasis on his excellent game overlooked.

 

This is that top 50 of the Madrid born and based journalist:

50. Sócrates 49. Gordon Banks 48. Oleg Blokhin 47. Schiaffino 46. Frank Rijkaard 45. Elías Figueroa 44. Omar Sívori 43. Dennis Law 42. Kevin Keegan 41. Daniel Passarella 40. Roberto Rivelino 39. Luís Figo 38. Gianluigi Buffon 37. Kenny Dalglish 36. Ruud Gullit 35. Raúl González 34. Carlos Alberto 33. Zlatan Ibrahimovic 32. Ryan Giggs 31. Teófilo Cubillas 30. Hugo Sánchez 29. Lothar Matthäus 28. Bobby Moore 27. Zico 26. Paco Gento 25. Luís Suárez 24. Lev Yashin 23. Roberto Baggio 22. Andrés Iniesta 21. Iker Casillas 20. Gerd Müller 19. Ferenc Puskás 18. Zinedine Zidane 17. Xavi Hernández 16. Michel Platini 15. Romario 14. Garrincha 13. Bobby Charlton 12. Van Basten 11. Eusebio 10. Ronaldinho 9. George Best 8. Franz Beckenbauer 7. Cristiano Ronaldo 6. Ronaldo 5. Johan Cruyff 4. Alfredo Di Stéfano 3. Pelé 2. Leo Messi 1. Maradona


While I think he was an elite level defender (as I responded to @Ariaga II ), I'm not sure how 'very significant' that really is. Because;

1) he is below Keegan and the others who were "best players in the world" in his own time (Rummenigge is not in but peaked after Figueroa his peak).

2) it's also below Passarella, perhaps incorrectly, and below four other defensive players with overlapping careers. On the flip side however, it's funny and strange no Italian defender makes the cut (not Baresi, Nesta, Scirea, Facchetti etc. and his namesake Maldini).