100 Greatest Players Of all time according to Wiliam Phil Gracek

This assumption, that defenses of the classic age were a joke compared to those of present days, I don't agree at all with it. Nowadays you can see players taking their time to take aim, and defenders letting them prepare the shoot so as to "place" the ball. Add the different quality of pitches, balls and boots, and you cannot but praise players of the good ole days for scoring nearly as much. In the eighties you'll never see an attacker being given the time to accurately prepare the shoot, he always had to rush the conclusion. Defenders would slide all the time, since they would not be unavoidably sanctioned in case they hit a leg instead of the ball, reducing the time slot available to strikers to get to hit the ball. That football of the classic age was a kind of golf (in terms of athletical intensiity of the game) played with feet is nothing but a myth.

 

Dear flat earther


Can you please stop posting fake statistics and fake facts?

First it was about Johan Cruyff having 300 pre assists “that you saw with your own eyes” and now this





Thank you

 

Only just realized Maradona isn't even listed in the options, lol.

 

Not even better than Pedro



And if international trophies won as a starter are the argument then Pedro has those

many in fact

Now at lazio his goals prevented Inter from winning the title and he is nearly 40 years old

Napoli fans were chanting his name
https://onefootball.com/en/news/vid...-after-scudetto-favour-against-inter-41154981

 

So the reason you rate zagallo as a top 15 all timer
One place below Diego Maradona is because of some tackles,clearances and interceptions he made in 6 games in World Cup 1962?

Tackles and clearances “you saw with your own eyes”

You ranked him higher all time than Didi and you are literally the only Brazilian in history who thinks Zagallo had a better overall World Cup career than Didi(this the direct implication of your rankings because even you wouldn’t dare compare Didi and Zagallo in talent nor would you dare compare their club careers).

You don’t “give a shit” about Dani alves the footballer even though his career was built not just on collective titles but on producing more defensive actions than any single player of his era in La Liga

937 - @DaniAlvesD2 won 947 of his 1209 tackles in #LaLiga since at least 2005/2006 season (77,5%), more than any other player in the competition (@filipeluis 903). Power#AskOpta#AskOptaJosé#StayHome #StayAtHome @FCBarcelona @SevillaFC https://t.co/P5NateN1Ss pic.twitter.com/aNNGrjKPkV

— OptaJose (@OptaJose) May 21, 2020

Tackles that you apparently love so much but your real love is for football on black and white television



more assists than anyone in La Liga during 2009-2015 except 2 players

Dani Alves: Only Messi (85) & Ronaldo (65) have picked up more assists in La Liga in the last 6 seasons than @DaniAlvesD2 (51)

— WhoScored (@WhoScored) May 22, 2015

More chances created in La Liga than anyone except 2 players

Dani Alves: Only Messi (312) & Ronaldo (308 have created more chances from open-play in La Liga since August 2009 than @DaniAlvesD2 (252)

— WhoScored (@WhoScored) September 2, 2014

These stats shit on any defensive or creative stats you could possibly conjure up for Zagallo

And the real reason we are talking about zagallos tackles instead of his goals(he was a forward and not a defender)is because he scored 0.11 goals per game for flamengo and 0.15 goals for Brazil





He is not a top 50 all timer for Brazil let alone the 14th greatest player of all time.


But Ok Mr Bernardo O Higgins

I am confused and you are enlightened

OK

 

Personally, I think that since William Felipe values much the "all-rounder", "total" footballers, whose plays are relevant from coast to coast as they say in the NBA, and since he is a brazilian too, he should have Toninho Cerezo quite in a high position in his ranking.

 

I would say most lists that prioritize big moments and big occasions, especially for the national team, would produce an entirely different list than the list for players that proved the most in European club football.

If this is a list of players that didn't disappoint their national team, and in fact was underrated from a more European-centric viewpoint, maybe Zagallo complemented the star-studded Brazilian team like an older version of Freddie Ljungberg, full of energy, tactically intelligent off-the-ball, and filling in the gaps left behind by others. Maybe a player like Zagallo would have helped the most successful generation of the Brazilian national team more so than somebody like Neymar. Spectators want more individualistically brilliant players, but sometimes the team appreciates hard-working and tactically complementary players more, especially if that's the scarcity in resoure.

However, I personally have questions over the hypothetical scenario, where even if Zagallo was available in his full glory in today's market, with his fitness levels, technical prowess, and general tactical knowledge brought up-to-par with modern day players (that scales with his approximate standing and quality at the time), would he warrant such market interest across the entire European professional club scene, as peak Neymar, for example?

Just because he helped the Brazilian national team with his particular assets, that happened to be complementary with some all-time greats, does that mean he was truly levels above someone like Neymar, or does it simply mean he was a better fit for that particular set of circumstances?

The best possible missing piece for the Brazilian national teams of that time, may not be the most valuable player across all possible configurations of circumstances, and judging by my very poor knowledge of Zagallo's club career and legacy, maybe he wasn't the total footballer that could elevate all sorts of teammates, of all types and standards to warrant a 14th place ranking. Maybe he is just the corect profile of player, that was just what the Brazilian national team required due to their make-up of the squads.

Also, is the statistic below accurate (for Zagallo specifically)?

Some Stats on X: "Más asistencias en la historia de la #FIFAWorldCup : 10 Kopa 10 Walter 10 Pelé 09 Seeler 08 Zagallo 08 Maradona 08 Schäfer 08 Didí 08 #Messi #Qatar2022 https://t.co/XUUXB7ljTC" / X

 

David Beckham who he doesn’t rate at all(not in the top 100 and not in the top 200 all time)

had 2 fewer assists

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Beckham (6 assists)
🇧🇪 De Bruyne (4)
🇩🇪 Kroos (4)
🇳🇱 Sneijder (3)

🅰️ David Beckham impressively registered 6 assists in 13 #WorldCup appearances. https://t.co/0nhdZuTxFm pic.twitter.com/EFxM3TN74b

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) April 14, 2021

I’ll bet anything that Beckhams assists(even at World Cup tournaments)were of higher quality than Zagallos
And that Brazil in the 50s and 60s was scoring at a far superior rate in World Cup tournaments than England in the 90s and 2000s.


If work rate and defensive contributions is something we should be placing great importance to Beckham was one of the best in this regard(for a player in his position).

He covered more blades of grass than any of those so called athletes in the 50s.
Anybody who knows anything about football wouldn’t even question this.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2001/oct/14/sport.englandundersven


James Milner was the work rate merchant of our era and even he does not compare.

 

If I were to guess, it would be because those defensive assets and workhorse-like quality gets registered better, when we have emotional investment for certain teams, and we tend to notice individualistic/performative traits in games we watch merely for the occasion or entertainment. David Beckham's was maybe being judged with the mindset of "go ahead and impress me", rather than, a pure analytical mindset of who helped the English national team the most. I certainly think he was pivotal for the English national team.

Ze Roberto was a Brazilian that seemed quite hard-working and high in utility also, but since he is associated with the disappointing World Cup 2006 Brazilian national team, I guess all that quality goes down the drain.

I think the qualities of successful members are celebrated more, even if the exact same quality found in another player who was forced into different sets of circumstances, happened to be better honed. It is why greater sample size helps negate that sampling bias, but in the end, legacies are built off the memories of spectators, who want to be impressed and entertained, or associating repeating patterns success from a certain player as being absolutely irreplaceable no matter what, rather than measuring the added competitive value across various circumstances.

I was essentially insinuating that Zagallo may have indeed added significant competitive value for the Brazilian national team that won the World Cup back-to-back, but perhaps that wasn't due to his individual brilliance alone, but due to being the right player at the right moment in time. He could have indeed been the irreplaceable cog that completed the greater machinery, which in turn created amazing experiences and pride for an entire nation, but I am also questioning whether that would have been true across a greater bredth of circumstances, which I am more interested than pure high stakes moments, even if they are of much greater consequence in terms of creating lasting legacies.

 

If I had the ability to draw all the information I required off watching grainy video clips on YouTube and reading gaming statistics, I wouldn't be here discussing football. You watched him more than me, so tell me what I'm missing because I still don't know. This is what I've gathered thus far:

1) Mario Zagallo was a left-winger who played a complementary role in two winning World Cup sides (although his role in the 1962 squad was larger).

2) He wasn't the most brilliant winger in terms of individualistic solo-threat traits like dribbling, even amongst Brazilians of the times, nevermind of all-time. However, he had the correct tactical profile of characteristics that synergized well with the more solo-istic players in the squad.

3) His World Cup legacy is well appreciated, perhaps more so by the Brazilians. It seems to be at the bare minimum very respectable, I'm not trying to dismiss it.

Now, the question I'd like to ask for each of those points I've managed to get from what I've read and watched, is as follows:

1) Do you think Zagallo was the perfect fit for those specific squads he came across, or that he was just the ultimate utility player that had the necessary toolkits to complete any squad in history better than all other utility men across all of time?

2) Out of the wingers whose main attributes aren't being dangers with the ball at their feet, who else would you hold in high regard? Defensively competent wingers who can fill multiple tactical roles aren't listed that often on your list, so what made Zagallo that much better than the others known for this trait?

3) If his 1962 World Cup is enough proof, and maybe it is, is there literally nobody else that you can think of, that can fill the role of a defensively-competent winger, who has the correct tactical read and athleticism to back it up?

How do you know somebody like Pavel Nedved never could have filled the role of being the complementary piece to Garrincha's one man dribble show that is the 1962 World Cup?

Are you sure you are rating the actual attributes of Mario Zagallo, or are you measuring the subsequent consequences of his positive attributes? The man that feeds you bread when you are starving, isn't necessarily in possession of the greatest amount of kindness. He could be merely the kindest man that you personally came across.

Is it possible that a world-class player whose profile fills the role of a more defensively-minded winger, can help Garrincha win back-to-back World Cups without being an all-timer? Even if Zagallo ranks in the top ten of all-time for that particular missing piece to the puzzle, how do you know for sure that he wasn't just world-class outside of that circumstance?