Based on what he was the world best player in 1979-1990? His hype of the most promising player of the back then reigning World Champions Argentina? His form in the U20 World Cup 1979? His form (with all the propaganda involved) in the argentinian league...with no Ardilles, no Kempes, no Bertoni? Surely not in the Libertadores, surely not in the Copa América 1979 or in the World Cup 1978. Surely not in the Spanish League in 1982 till 1984, surely not in the World Cup 1982. In fact in his highest rated season in Europe (the first one for Napoles) he managed to have less numbers and impact than an arguably past-of-prime 30 years old Zico (19 Goals + 2-3 assists in 24 matches)... vs 14 Goals and 5-8 assists in 30 matches for Maradona; ==> Maradona 1984/1985 (his best rated season in Italy) Maradona +33.5 in 30 matches (1.12 Points per Game) Less improvement in GF as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps in some of Maradona seasons (or tournaments) in Europa he wasn't even the best rated player in the Napoli squad according to Italian Media - usually the ones who are always benefical to argentinians and that hyped him up since his early days. Ajax just before Cruyff started: http://clubelo.com/1964-11-14/Ranking (ranked below the average Eredivisie team) After his last match: http://clubelo.com/1973-08-19/Ranking (first ranked team in Europe) That includes around 45% non-PK G+A influence over 300 matches (perhaps more if you include PK won), three European Cups, four European Cup Finals and verifiable positive on-off impact on his team results. Cruyff also had some heavy and minor injuries while playing for Barcelona, I think a least, but his perfomance were also better according to general media rating and so was the impact on his team results. Barcelona with Cruyff registered a much higher win rate than when he wasn't on the team,,. and I am not talking specifically about his 73-74 season here and his impact to lead Barcelona from relegation level result to the first place in league after 14 years (the other title La Liga title was in 84/85, a year after Maradona). Cruyffs run between 68-69 to 73-74 (including the WC 74 where he matched most of Maradona 86 end product doing even more ball progression in the process) is a higher and more consistent peak than Maradona's one in Europe for me. You can argue that Holland team was dominant... Well, Argentina just won the 78 WC without and before Maradona and two Copa América's without and after Maradona (91-93). Argentinos Jrs also was the Libertadores Champions (1985) before Ajax European Champions again (1995) after Cruyff. I give you that Maradona was likely the best player in the world in his first three seasons at Napoles though (for World Soccer readers only in 1986) , still not the most consistent player and not the most impactful one, but in his best matches perhaps. Cruyffs arguably the world's best in 68-69/70-71 to 73-74 and 76-77 as well as being more impactful in his best period. Cruyff has more argument for me, and it would be a lot clearer if he had won the 1974 title, almost there.
He was elected Guerin Sportivo's player of the year 1979 ,South American's were not eligible for the Ballond'or Based on eyetest of matches that exists of him and other prominent players from that time. Based on fact that he won the South American Player of the year in 1979 and 1980 over a peak Zico (who along with Maradona were better than any other player playing in Europe that time i believe).Match performances like this : Barcelona didn't break the transfer record for him for no reason. Heading into the 1982 world cup ,in a commercial for Coca-cola where they call him 'best player in the world' In the match vs Brazil after he was sent off , the commentator calls him the 'best player in the world' in describing his sent off Listen at 0:40 of this video , what does the English commentator says " the man who's regarded as the greatest player in the world leaves in disgrace" during 1982 world cup. And why are you basing it on numbers of goals and assists only?Its not even far off zico in a midtable team (that time) and you don't have the data for other actions of plays.
Cruyff's reign in Ajax coincided with emergence of that great dutch generation. You are making it seem like he alone changed their fortune which is far from the case. It coincided with the emergence of other players like Neeskens, Krol, Rep,Kietzer etc. I know Napoli grew stronger and bought other players in following years but they were hardly ever a super team like Ajax. Maradona hardly played for a team which had insane production and was super-dominant over other teams in league and continent on average. This is during end of 1971 in eredivisie http://clubelo.com/1971-12-31/NED Look at the difference between Cruyff's Ajax and other teams on average. This is during Maradona's days at Barca (plus he was injured or had health problems) : http://clubelo.com/1983-12-31/ESP This is during his time at Napoli at end of the year they won first scudetto :http://clubelo.com/1987-12-31/ITA See how close the gap between teams were. And he didn't get to play Copa Libertadores during the time he was in South America. And even in his first four /five years in Europe his team didn't get to play an European Cup due to competitiveness, one team qualifying for the competition,his team being not a superteam etc reason. Whereas the scenario was totally different for Cruyff. And about Argentinos Jrs winning a Libertadores later, check where their position was when he joined there. They just grew gradually or something i don't know in the early 80s.
These arguments are not enough to convince me to change my position, btw I knew almost if not all of them. I still maintain the idea that Cruyff has a lot more on his side than Maradona and was very probably a more dominant player too.
Cruyff seems probably to be a more dominant player because the stats, achievements etc suggests it to be . Which depends largely on the kind of team you're playing in. So it comes back to the same argument again. Then by using the same logics, shouldn't Cruyff be over Messi too then? Not only he probably was almost (if not as) dominant as Messi in the club level. Along with that , the fact that his 1974 world cup is significantly better than any of Messi's performances on international stage (even after he got chance to play so many tournaments)? In my opinion, the only way to compare between Cruyff and Maradona is based on how good they were on individual level.
I am comparing this already based on the individual level of each player, and how this level is or isn't instrumental in raising their teams to another levels. Cruyff can be very well ahead of Messi as well. I still think there is a good chance that he really was, in fact.
This count all goals and assists You can cleary see Maradona has been a more dominant player, if not the most dominant ever existed I choose a period of ten seasons only club Maradona 1976 to 1985/86 and Cruyff 1965/66 to 1974/75 Diego Maradona In total played 29096 minutes, scored 212 goals (47 PK) and 119 assists 331 games, GF: 552 (1.668 pg)- GA: 362 (1.094 pg) Non-PK G+A: 0.878 per 90m Non-PK G+A contribution: 57.58% Johan Cruyff In total played 32563 minutes, scored 272 goals (0 PK) and 200 assists 375 games, GF: 1036 (2.763 pg)- GA: 280 (0.747 pg) Non-PK G+A: 1.305 per 90m Non-PK G+A contribution: 47.22% Other players: Diego Maradona (76-86): 0.878/1.526= 57.58% Lionel Messi (10-20): 1.344/2.460= 54.64% Pelé (58-67): 1.600/3.022= 52.95% Gerd Müller (66-76): 1.126/2.210= 50.97% Ronaldo (93-04): 1.010/2.026= 49.83% Cristiano Ronaldo (09-19): 1.163/2.403= 48.39% Romário (88-98): 0.951/1.984= 47.93% Johan Cruyff (65-75): 1.305/2.763= 47.22%
1) Having more G+A doesn't mean dominance. This G+A doesn't count on-off impact on his team, defensive contribution, ball progression, off-the-ball movement, leadership, performances in big matches, finals, tournaments etc. 2) I don't really rate the Argentinian League of the end of 70s. Maradona's average participation dropped a lot while playing in Europe and his goal contribution for the Argentina NT wasn't nearly as good as his Argentinos Juniors or Boca Juniors supposed numbers at that time. He showed glimpses of his talent, that's true... not enough to be the best in the world at that time and he wasn't in most his period in Europe or in his big tournaments (not in La Liga, not in 1979 Copa América, not in the 78 or 82 World Cup). 3) Data is uncertain for many players from the past (and not only from the past too). In Europe (acc Spanish Wiki) Maradona played 346 matches with 161 goals (around 51 PK) and 115 assists (around 328 90s) His teams scored at rate of 1.63 GF per game 0.686 / 1.63 = ~42% non-PK goals + assists while in Europe. For Argentina he had 34 goals (3 PK?) + 28(?) assists in 91 matches (137 Goals scored) Even if it is not correct you still can see that his average goal contribution average for Argentina was still closer to his european numbers than to his early argentina period! 47% non-PK G+A contribution is quite huge as well as his G+A p90 rate of over 1.3 per match, only surpassed by Messi and Pelé (the highest one) as well as his impact on his teams (the main guy behind this evolution http://clubelo.com/1964-11-14/Ranking http://clubelo.com/1973-08-19/Ranking http://clubelo.com/1974-05-12/Ranking) and trophies.
I agree with you here . Football is more than statistics. And his chart is actually very dishonest and inconsistent . I checked a lot of them . He inflates it for some players, deflates it for others. There are many sources for Assists. And different sources defines assists in different ways. For example Spanish Wikipedia is very strict like Opta and the official sources in counting assists (It matches with Opta, i checked for some players) . Whereas sites like Transfermarkt inflates the assists by counting deflection,penalty won, rebounds etc. No consistency is there if u take stats from different sources. Then to actually calculated G/A% of team goals properly , you'd need to know how many goals their team scored when they were subbed in various matches. He doesn't have that. Just use a linear division . Which very much assumes their teams were scoring at the same rate as when they were not on the field. Which is far from the reality in most cases. Then the minute numbers for some of those older generation players i doubt are correct or not. For example his chart assigned a 90 min time every game to Pele's matches.I don't know for Santos but for the National team, i know of quite a number of matches he got substituted . There are many more such inconsistencies
If you are comparing them on individual basis , why are you using trophies, consistency these things where the playing field is not the same apparently. I agree Maradona and Cruyff are comparable based on individual ability. But "how this level is or isn't instrumental in raising their teams to another levels." This is the problem. Do u think Cruyff alone achieved this? That Legendary Dutch generation along with the influence of mastermind like Rinus Michels was there with him. Whereas i agree Maradona did play with good players but hardly any of his team was as strong as Cruyff's Ajax. That's the context here. So the circumstances and condition was not same for Maradona and Cruyff to win say an European Cup. And as i already mentioned he hardly got the chance to play in libertadores and European cup during his prime years. Even Cruyff didn't have that much of team success at Barcelona after he left ajax. And btw, by individual level i meant compare the players based on how good they were on individual basis like in scoring, passing, creation, dribbling, freekicks ,athleticism etc. Yes he could be. Its very close and Cruyff could possibly even ahead although many of fanboys i think will not agree
When I compare players of course I use the same assists criteria, transfermarkt count assists different so I use the data from the wiki in french. For example transfermarkt give Messi 335 assists, but I choose the 302 assists from wiki, the same for all actual players So this table is a fair comparation
Well of course his contribution will drop playing in a league with more level, but his numbers are still really good, I don´t know of any other player who can approach him at that time, maybe Platini or Zico, but I never heard someone who considers them better than Maradona. Maradona is considered the best football player in history for a lot of people not for nothing, to doubt his greatness is simply to be an ignorant.
Looking at what is showing today De Bruyne's 2019/20 average is actually down as 7.41, and it's probably fair to not eliminate the season as an outlier, but for the adjusted ratings I am reducing the scores of the players by a full 0.12, since this top 20 ratings list results in the average of 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 19th and 20th places being that much above the average/standard value for the Premier League seasons since 1994/95 that I determined previously (maybe that average has now risen very slightly, but there's no point changing all the previous calculations based on a new value, in order to slightly increase the 'adjusted ratings' over all seasons): Kevin De Bruyne - 7.41 Bruno Fernandes - 6.89 (only 14 games but including in list, and for purposes of calculating the average of 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 19th, 20th positions vs the baseline average, due to his very high rating and a number of games decisively above 10, even if decisively below 20 - as per the precedence with Van Persie before for example I think; Pulisic would be 20th in the list if Fernandes is omitted though) Jordan Henderson - 6.86 Virgil van Dijk - 6.86 Roberto Firmino - 6.76 Andy Robertson - 6.74 Raheem Sterling - 6.73 David Silva - 6.73 Mo Salah - 6.72 Riyad Mahrez - 6.72 Adama Traore - 6.72 Michail Antonio - 6.67 Sadio Mane - 6.65 James Maddison - 6.65 Mason Mount - 6.65 Trent Alexander-Arnold - 6.64 Jack Grealish - 6.58 Jamie Vardy - 6.57 Raul Jiminez - 6.55 Marcus Rashford - 6.55 So the new standings overall for DBS Calcio Premier League average ratings, are as follows (Fernandes wouldn't be making either list anyway, but is excluded by the games played criteria too).... Top 20 adjusted ratings for Premier League excluding the first two seasons (50% rated games required) 1 - Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City/Belgium) - 2019/20 - 7.29 2 - Luis Suarez (Liverpool/Uruguay) - 2013/14 - 7.21 3 - Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal/Spain) - 2009/10 - 7.20 4 - Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City/Belgium) - 2017/18 - 7.19 5= Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/England) - 2005/06 - 7.12 5= Frank Lampard (Chelsea/England) - 2009/10 - 7.12 7= Juan Mata (Chelsea/Spain) - 2012/13 - 7.08 7= Jamie Vardy (Leicester/England) - 2015/16 - 7.08 9 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United/Portugal) - 2006/07 - 7.06 10= Keith Gillespie (Newcastle/Northern Ireland) - 1997/98 - 7.04 10= Robert Pires (Arsenal/France) - 2001/02 - 7.04 10= Wayne Rooney (Manchester United/England) - 2009/10 - 7.04 13= Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/England) - 2003/04 - 7.02 13= Yohann Cabaye (Newcastle/France) - 2013/14 - 7.02 15 - David Silva (Manchester City/Spain) - 2017/18 - 7.01 16= Patrick Vieira (Arsenal/France) - 2002/03 - 7.00 16= Eden Hazard (Chelsea/Belgium) - 2016/17 - 7.00 18= Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/England) - 2008/09 - 6.99 18= Didier Drogba (Chelsea/Ivory Coast) - 2009/10 - 6.99 18= Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool/Netherlands) - 2018/19 - 6.99 Top 20 actual ratings for the Premier League excluding the first two seasons and the two outliers (2009/10 and 2013/14) (60% rated games required) 1 - Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City/Belgium) - 2019/20 - 7.41 2 - Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City/Belgium) - 2017/18 - 7.22 3= Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/England) - 2005/06 - 7.09 3= Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United/Portugal) - 2006/07 - 7.09 3= Juan Mata (Chelsea/Spain) - 2012/13 - 7.09 6 - Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/England) - 2003/04 - 7.06 7 - Robert Pires (Arsenal/France) - 2001/02 - 7.05 8= Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/England) - 2008/09 - 7.04 8= David Silva (Manchester City/Spain) - 2017/18 - 7.04 10 - Jamie Vardy (Leicester/England) - 2015/16 - 7.03 11 - Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool/Netherlands) 2018/19 - 7.01 12 - Eden Hazard (Chelsea/Belgium) - 2016/17 - 7.00 13= Patrick Vieira (Arsenal/France) - 2002/03 - 6.97 13= Mo Salah (Liverpool/Egypt) - 2017/18 - 6.97 15 - Luis Suarez (Liverpool/Uruguay) - 2012/13 - 6.96 16= Thierry Henry (Arsenal/France) - 2003/04 - 6.95 16= Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United/Portugal) - 2007/08 - 6.95 16= Sergio Aguero (Manchester City/Argentina) - 2011/12 - 6.95 19= Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal/Netherlands) - 1997/98 - 6.94 19= Wayne Rooney (Manchester United/England) - 2007/08 - 6.94
The above (that I posted earlier today) reminded me about this, as it's definitely of relevance for De Bruyne's 2019/20 season, and actually at this point in the current season the top 3 assisters Kane, De Bruyne and Grealish are all players right at the top end of DBS Calcio's average ratings too. Fernandes is next, but his DBS Calcio rating at this point is not so high as his 2019/20 one, although I see this source (which I don't know anything about but spotted today, in the process of looking into 2020 in general - for calendar year in world football they have Messi and Lewandowski at the top, as per on the other link) does have him with the best score: Carteret Analytics on Twitter: "With Carteret Ratings (objective performance measure) of 264.5 & 232.3 respectively, @HKane & #sonheungmin are having a good season. But they are both short of @B_Fernandes8 at @ManUtd who is objectively the best @premierleague player this season with a CR of 314.5 #TOTFUL #MUFC" / Twitter https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ac-table-sport-best-players-2020-v2.jpg So showing the final top assisters of 2018/19, with their final DBS Calcio ratings and then doing the same for 2019/20 (placings as per the media voto page on DBS Calcio, so excluding the likes of Fernandes not showing on it hence other players move up compared to what I posted earlier).... 2018/19 Top Assisters Eden Hazard (15) - 6.85 (6th) Ryan Fraser (14) - 6.41 (48th) Trent Alexander-Arnold (12) - 6.66 (13th) Christian Eriksen (12) - 6.47 (34th) 2019/20 Top Assisters Kevin De Bruyne (20) - 7.41 (1st) Trent Alexander-Arnold (13) - 6.64 (15th) Andy Robertson (12) - 6.74 (5th) David Silva (10) - 6.73 (7th) Mo Salah (10) - 6.72 (8th) Son Heung-Min (10) - 6.50 (23rd)
Here are the other seasons top assister DBS ratings, for easy access again, that were not included in the quoted sections above:
Adding more in this period that are available now I see.... 1955/56 - 1) Julinho (6.92), 2) Francesco Rosetta (6.88), 3) Nils Liedholm (6.74) (Other famous names in the top 20 - Juan Schiaffino, Sergio Cervato, Lennart Skoglund) 1957/58 - 1) Ottavio Bugatti (7.02), 2) Luiciano Panetti (6.96), 3) Giampiero Boniperti (6.96) (Other famous names in the top 20 - John Charles, Sergio Cervato, Kurt Hamrin, Omar Sivori, Bengt Lindskog) 1958/59 - 1) Nils Liedholm (7.33), 2) Giovan Rota (7.15, but only around half the games played), 3) Gaudenzio Bernasconi (7.10) (Other famous names in the top 20 - Giampiero Boniperti, Sergio Cervato, Lorenzo Buffon, Cesare Maldini, Ernst Ocwirk) 1961/62 - 1) Carlo Mattrel (6.85), 2) Rino Marchesi (6.75), 3) Giussepe Vavssori (6.74) (Other famous names in the top 20 - Gianni Rivera, Sergio Cervato, John Charles, Giacomo Bulgarelli, Tarcisio Burgnich, Luis Suarez Miramontes) And going back into the era of Grande Torino!.... 1946/47 - 1) Valentino Mazzola (6.79), 2) Paolo Todeschini (6.67), 3) Riccardo Carapellese (6.66) (Other famous names in the top 20 - Ezio Loik, Carlo Parola, Silvio Piola)
I've been keeping an eye on DBS Calcio (I did notice that like with Forest in 94/95, the Premier League ratings for Everton in 95/96 seem to now be, hopefully temporarily, only showing half a season's worth of games approximately, so I'm not really sure what is happening there but maybe an in progress update with more sources being added although not sure why it seems to be affecting only certain clubs and seems a bit stalled too - what would be great for the Premier League obviously would be if they could go further back into 93/94 and finish off the remaining Premier League era seasons, although 1st Division ones from before then would be fantastic too, but it depends on availability of sources of course). Anyway, I see now the Serie A combined ratings according to DBS Calcio sources for 1962/63 have been provided also: I'm factoring in players with over 10 appearances so Maschio makes it in the top 20 that way, though to be fair he played close to double the games with a similar average rating the previous season at Atalanta.... 1962/63 - 1) Paride Tamburus (6.77), 2) Adolfo Gori (6.74), Francesco Janich (6.72) (Other famous names in the top 20 - Cesere Maldini, Sergio Cervato, Giuliano Sarti, Armando Picchi, Romano Fogli, Mario Corso, Luis Del Sol, Humberto Maschio, Omar Sivori) Fogli's rating was slightly higher the previous season. Probably I didn't put him in as a famous name at the time, but I realise he was a prominent member of the team that went on to win Serie A, so that was probably an oversight by me. Maybe an interesting excerpt from around 40th place (still among the ones quite close in ratings to a top 20 place, and I thought it'd be informative to highlight Rivera's rating and since he's surrounded by other famous names copied them too to paste in this reply) 40 6.300 Trapattoni G 41 6.296 Rivera G 42 6.290 Hamrin K
Redditors believe Cruijff is not GOAT tier and he shouldn’t be mentioned among Pele and Maradona. It’s pretty obvious they’ve watched some YouTube clips of Maradona and Pele, but Cruijff doesn’t have much, so they automatically believe he shouldn’t be mentioned because they never watched his matches. Absolute state of that sub reddit. Cruijff was the more consistent GOAT tier player in comparison to Maradona. Sure, Maradona is more talented and I do rate that higher despite the fact Cruijff is my favourite footballer, but Cruijff is as much as a genius as the other two. Anyways it’s generally considered that three original GOATs are Pele, Maradona and Cruijff. I’m happy with that. Don’t give a damn about these morons on Reddit who never watched any football games prior Messi-Ronaldo era.
Overall career value: 1. Messi 2. Pele 3. Maradona 4. Cruyff Best at their best: 1. Pele 2. Messi 3. Maradona 4. Ronaldo 9 5. Cruyff
More Serie A DBS Calcio ratings here: Serie-A old ratings | Page 3 | BigSoccer Forum For the Premier League I thought it might be interesting to compare the Premier League Players of the Season (since that award is solely based on Premier League games, while the PFA and FWA awards are not and certainly the PFA one is decided before the season is over and I guess to some extent the FWA one normally has been too) with the DBS Calcio ratings. DBS Calcio has actually updated early Premier League seasons I notice, adding more sources I guess (with the occasional error or incomplete data like for Forest in 94/95 and Everton in 95/96 for some reason at the moment I've also noticed). On the whole the order seems to remain very similar, but the numbers are a bit different to ones I've posted previously on here (I think they've generally gone up a bit, so those adjustments I did would themselves need to be adjusted....but I guess with little difference to the end results and comparisons between different seasons). 1994/95 Premier League Player of the Season (PLPOS): Alan Shearer (also PFA Player of the Year) (Joint Player of the Month once, shared with Chris Sutton, in November) DBS Calcio rating: 6.88 (3rd in list on media voting page - sometimes some players don't appear here despite high ratings if they have too few games completed, or if they transfer between clubs/leagues during the season) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Steve McManaman (6.92 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards). *Dennis Wise did have 6.94 over 18 rated games, so on balance it seems like McManaman takes it with pretty much the same rating and closer to a full season of games. FWA Player of the Year was Jurgen Klinsmann 1995/96 PLPOS: Peter Schmeichel (0 Player of the Month awards) DBS Calcio rating: 6.39 (41st in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Sasa Curcic (7.07 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) PFA Player of the Year was Les Ferdinand FWA Player of the Year was Eric Cantona 1996/97 PLPOS: Juninho Paulista (Player of the Month once, in March) DBS Calcio rating: 6.64 (4th in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Sol Campbell (6.87 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) *Gianfranco Zola isn't listed on the media voting page, and previously had had the top average rating and played 22 games, but now his average is slightly behind Campbell's at 6.82 anyway so that is an example of something that has changed with more sources being added - he got one Player of the Month award, for December, and he was also the FWA Player of the Year) PFA Player of the Year was Alan Shearer 1997/98 PLPOS: Michael Owen (0 Player of the Month awards) DBS Calcio rating: 6.56 (12th in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Keith Gillespie (7.00 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) *Dennis Bergkamp was next, and played a few more rated games than Gillespie, and he picked up Player of the Month awards for August and September, and was both the PFA Player of the Year and FWA Player of the Year. 1998/99 PLPOS: Dwight Yorke (Player of the Month once, in January) DBS Calcio rating: 6.39 (not in media voting list due to transfer from Aston Villa to Manchester United, but would be slightly outside top 20 anyway) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Sol Campbell (6.81 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) PFA Player and FWA Player of the Year was David Ginola Here is where the Premier League Players of the Seasons and Months can be found Premier League Awards - Player, Manager & Goal of the Month I'll continue with further seasons another time....
1999/00 PLPOS: Kevin Phillips (Player of the Month once, in October) DBS Calcio rating: 6.56 (9th in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Roy Keane (6.75 avg rating, 1 Player of the Month award, for December). Also won both the PFA and FWA Player of the Year awards. 2000/01 PLPOS: Patrick Vieira (0 Player of the Month awards) DBS Calcio rating: 6.61 (5th in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Kieron Dyer (6.79 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) Teddy Sheringham won the PFA and FWA Player of the Year awards 2001/02 PLPOS: Freddie Ljungberg (1 Player of the Month award, for April) DBS Calcio rating: 6.63 (9th in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Robert Pires (7.06 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards). Also the FWA Player of the Year. PFA Player of the Year was Ruud van Nistelrooy. 2002/03 PLPOS: Ruud van Nistelrooy (1 Player of the Month award, for April) DBS Calcio rating: 6.32 (51st in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Patrick Vieira (6.97 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) Thierry Henry was PFA and FWA Player of the Year. 2003/04 PLPOS: Thierry Henry (2 Player of the Month awards, for January and April). Also won the PFA and FWA Player of the Year awards again. DBS Calcio rating: 6.95 (2nd in list). DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Steven Gerrard (7.06 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards).
Sorry, I should have made a note here that it could be Philippe Albert of course (as discussed a bit earlier in the thread). 20 rated games wasn't enough seemingly to get him in the DBS Calcio Media Voto list, but it's 2 more than Wise in 94/95 (with a bigger gap to 2nd placed Curcic than Wise to McManaman, and with less games for each team to play than in 94/95 too) and only 2 less than Gillespie in 97/98 (and the Gillespie to Bergkamp average ratings gap was also slightly smaller than Albert to Curcic). So Albert's DBS Calcio average was 7.15 for that season. He didn't get any Premier League Player of the Month awards either though, while a couple of his Newcastle team-mates did get one.
I suppose it's not impossible that Albert's top rating would be under threat from Andrei Kanchelskis though, as like I mentioned for some reason currently Everton 95/96 ratings (as well as Forest 94/95) seem to be showing about half a season only. Before new sources were added and ratings adjusted accordingly, Kanchelskis's season average was not quite up there with the Albert's and Curcic's, but it's currently showing as 7.27 over 13 games, which would be up till Christmas 95 probably, judging by Transfermarkt data (the game with 14 minutes played not counted I'd think): Don't look for assists there btw as they aren't recorded. These pages show his assists in that period: Everton v Spurs, 1995/96 | Premier League Everton v Blackburn, 1995/96 | Premier League Everton v Sheffield Wed, 1995/96 | Premier League Everton v West Ham, 1995/96 | Premier League He got quite a few more of his goals in the 1996 part of the season though than in 1995, and picked up his Player of the Month award for April 1996, so like I say it's not beyond possibility the new sources rated him well enough to leap to the top although I guess it's still a bit unlikely a small number of new sources would make that much difference. I guess those 13 games he's been rated for are from 95 anyway, since with Forest in 94/95 it definitely looks to me like it's the start of the season games that are included and second half of season games missing, so without looking in depth I'm assuming similar for Everton 95/96 too.
....unless they have recalculated the whole season's averages for the players of Forest in 94/95, and Everton in 95/96, but forgotten to finally edit the number of games played for those squads (I'm not saying I think this is the case though).... In which case Kanchelskis would now have the top average rating with DBS Calcio for that season.
One more season for this afternoon.... 2004/05 PLPOS: Frank Lampard (1 Player of the Month award, for April). Also FWA Player of the Year. DBS Calcio rating: 6.55 (12th in list) DBS Calcio Player of the Season: Thomas Gravesen (6.93 avg rating, 0 Player of the Month awards) PFA Player of the Year was John Terry. Arjen Robben was actually top for DBS Calcio ratings among Chelsea players above the two mentioned, and 2nd overall from those with a decent tally of games I think (but those 16 rated games not enough to put him in the list, and he was behind Gravesen anyway, but like the other Chelsea players he had one Player of the Month award too).