British Football Best XIs (1863-1939)

Yes, it seems that way (with some exceptions on certain cases like the guy who placed Hapgood in his XI for example - the complicating factor there too might be that Hapgood was no longer playing the same left back position as the older guys too, but more like a modern one I suppose).

It does seem accepted that the most accomplished British teams, and forward lines, came before the 1920s/1930s, though many guys still accept James for example as a good option for an overall XI. What is maybe less certain is how much these 'judges' could see of Sarosi, Meazza and suchlike, and what their assessment might have been had they been British players (playing in either the time they did, or an earlier time), and whether they'd then find a place for them in their XIs. The World Cup was not such a big deal in England in that time of course, and there were limited International games to potentially attend (or maybe catch some highlights footage from).

Of course in your post you are referring to views from outside Britain too (I didn't mean to ignore that!). That is maybe an interesting avenue to explore, because at some point several 1930s European players became accepted as ATGs, moreso than older British players (or more famously) didn't they....(like the ones I mention and some others).

As you showed on your other thread, at some point it seems a view that James was the best all-time player was attributed to Pozzo (the manager of Meazza, Piola for example) anyway. Though you also showed that Kubala saw Josef Bican as the best ever quite a few years down the line from here (maybe based on his time in Czechoslovakia, though it's not impossible Kubala did see Bican while he was still an Austria player in the 1930s of course)....

 

John Goodall it seems is rarely present in these teams. I know people like @Tom Stevens rate him quite highly.

I also wonder if British players of the Interwar period were generally rated higher than their continental counterparts. I guess this is indeed the case with Alex James, but is it the same with Hughie Gallacher, Charlie Buchan, or anyone else?

 

Most of the folk picking these teams probably never saw John Goodall at his peak, if they saw him at all.

British football remained isolated from the rest of the world after WW1. Buchan appeared in only a couple of internationals in Europe and Gallacher in only one. Arsenal's reputation abroad grew during the 1930s so James became well known, even if few outside Britain ever saw him play.

When British sources pre-1940 talk about best-ever footballers, they are talking about best-ever British footballers. There was virtually no media interest in football or footballers from elsewhere.

 

After WW1 English football became almost exclusively a working-class sport and nostalgia was less of a factor than in other walks of life. But there was still a certain hankering for the Belle Epoque before the war.

Pre-war the game was slower with more individuality and less teamwork. During the years before 1914 there was plenty of criticism of the state of English football. Strength over skill was a common complaint. Scottish football was criticised for lack of pace.

At the time, Crompton and Pennington were considered good full-backs, not great ones like Arnott and Nick Ross. They made quite a lot of mistakes, often covering up for one other. Crompton, the more highly rated of the two, had a habit of raising his game on the big occasion and was an outstanding captain. Day in day out, it is doubtful whether he was better than Hapgood, a key contributor to Arsenal's unprecedented success.

In 1914 it was still widely claimed that the greatest English club side had been Preston back in the 1880s. Maybe this was another case of old men reflecting fondly on their youth.

 

György Orth, while playing centre-forward, had a style very similar to that of Matthias Sindelar and Englishmen such as John Goodall and G. O. Smith. He was not an incisive a gente like Pedro Petrone, for example, but a player that the team adapted to his style, not just the offensive line.

Between Orth, G. O. Smith and Sindelar there is an interesting dispute, but only interesting, but nothing more than that. G. O. Smith was widely regarded as the best British centre-forward of all time. He, moreover, was considered by some on the continent to be the best centre-forward that ever existed. Orth, in turn, even after Pelé's peak, was considered the best player of all time by many specialists who saw him. He was a spectacular player, very complete with an repertoire of ideas far superior to some of the greatest players in football history. As for Sindelar, he was the best centre-forward of the 1930s, but I don't see him having the caliber for an eventual dispute between G. O. Smith and Orth.

Of the three, Orth was by far the most complete, in addition to being the most brilliant of the three and having a goal-scoring ability above the other two, especially in the aerial game — aspect of Sindelar and, mainly, G. O. Smith were far behind. Orth was proportionally more robust than the other two — Sindelar was the most fragile — and much more artistic, genius. Even those who played with Sindelar — Gschweidl, for instance — agree that Gyuri was a better player. Actually, back in the day it was not even a debate.

About the other centre-forwards mentioned, well, I don't see them on the same level as the three already mentioned, especially Silvio Piola. Dr. György Sárosi was both an exceptional schemer and a natural goalscorer, but I always considered him better as a centre-half. Giuseppe Meazza was widely known as a right inside forward, but he played many more games as a centre-forward in his peak, and he has commented several times that his favorite position was to be centre-forward himself.

Meazza was well adapted to the right inside forward position even before he had enjoyed the exceptional 1929/30 season, when Nerazzurri's centre-forward was the highly technical and tactical Fulvio Bernardini — who played several times as a centre-half, too, including Italy. What happened to Meazza, and this in his own words, is that it was preferable to have him playing alongside another centre-forward, as Italy no longer had great right insiders by then. In his own words, Vittorio Pozzo followed Hugo Meisl's thinking in adapting two centre-forwards — Matthias Sindelar and Friederich Gschweidl. Thus, consequently, the duos Meazza-Schiavio, Meazza-Borel II. were born, and the best: Meazza-Piola.

Leônidas da Silva followed the line of jugglers and acrobats in South America, in the same way that Erico was, Petronilho was and Libonatti. I would place him above Piola, but below Sárosi and Meazza.

As for José Manuel Moreno, even though he was already an exceptional player at the end of the 1930s, there were better options for the inside forward position in South America, as was the case with Héctor Scarone himself as a right inside forward. For Argentina, I see Antonio Sastre and Manuel Seoane as superior options.

 

Article in bottom right hand corner of Athletic News page may be of interest. Title Hapgood's Day. Claims he completely subdued winger Jackson.

 

We all look at different sources and interpret them differently, which is great. The more sources the better, which is why all these teams you are posting are so valuable.

Another source is veteran English journalist Brian Glanville's Top 100 footballers, published by The Times in 1997. British players whose careers were (mainly) pre-1940 were placed as follows:

James 9, Bastin 19, Dean 25, Gallacher 27, Hapgood 30, Buchan 38, Meredith 44, Bloomer 49, Jack 52, Roberts 57, Doherty 59, Carter 62, Cullis 65, Hibbs 75, Jackson 76, Elisha Scott 84.

Only Meredith, Bloomer and Roberts are from before 1914. Looking at this one might conclude that the 1920s and 1930s were a golden age for British football, and that there were not many good players before WW1.

The context is that Glanville was English, born in 1931, and supported Arsenal. He was also writing for a traditional English newspaper with English readers of a certain age, at a time when folk were looking back at events of the twentieth century they remembered.

The non-British pre-1940 footballers in his list were: Sindelar 12, Piola 24, Meazza 26, Sarosi 41, Zamora 66 and Planicka 67. No Latin Americans.

Hapgood was for a long time considered England's best-ever left-back and had a very successful career for club and country, captaining both. He was not as popular with the public as Crompton. At a time of economic hardship, wealthy Arsenal were an unpopular club whose manager and players, including Hapgood, were sometimes perceived as arrogant.

There is a strong case that Crompton was the more outstanding captain, leading a fairly ordinary Blackburn team to two league championships.

 

Catton is an important source with vast experience. Link below.

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/05/07/james-catton-football-journalism/

 

The way I'm reading that mate, it looks like the team was picked by Steve Bloomer (perhaps not considering himself) and Mr Slater is recalling it from memory.

 

Ah, yeah, it is this same one again isn't it actually? I'll leave you the rep I just gave on the newer post as I realise I hadn't repped the older one! I think it does seem to be Bloomer's team, as relayed to the other guy at a dinner though.

This one below is perhaps the more recent and/or 'official' selection by Bloomer I guess, given it was in his book (although if the other one was at an event many years after he retired possibly not?)?

 

I'm not sure whether this is the best place, as going a little off the original topic, but here is apparently a Giussepe Meazza all-time XI, from 1966:
SP on Twitter: "In 1966, when Jeno Boskovics interviewed Meazza, Meazza chose him in his all time XI, and what was more surprising is, that it possibly was not even his best position ! https://t.co/MQSA8j5rcU" / Twitter
Zamora; Domingos da Guia, Facchetti; Kupfer, Sarosi, Lazar; Matthews, Eusebio, Braine, Pele, Orsi

Matthews is in as a British player anyway! Both Braine and Pele, who he referred to as the best ever at one point or another. Sarosi as centre half, in an old 2-3-5 seemingly (Facchetti in theory perhaps out of position, certainly based on his pre-1967 version - I use 1967 not to say he developed as a central player then but because it's after 1966).

Almost certainly Meazza would have seen/known little if anything at all of Bobby Walker, GO Smith et al of course.

I found it after just doing a curious search on 'All-Time XI Meazza Sarosi', not really expecting to find much, especially as I was typing in English, but found that tweet among others about Sarosi (from the guy with the Silvio Piola Twitter name interestingly - the quotes by Piola about Sarosi I/we knew though anyway, as they've been brought up before), which include suggestions he was now better (or could get better is it?) than Orth (so these might be better on another thread in some way too, dedicated to Sarosi, but that older vs newer player as of the 1930s is on-topic here I think). Not unexpectedly it's around the time of a major Sarosi performance in 1937 that those sorts of comments occur
SP on Twitter: "SportHirlap, 22/09/1937 Planicka : "Orth is the best hungarian forward, maybe..... Sárosi could be even better https://t.co/zLxsKoR0vp" / Twitter
Planicka : "Orth is the best hungarian forward, maybe..... Sárosi could be even better
SP on Twitter: "by the time he was 24, he was already seen as the greatest hungarian of all time 26/05/1937 : "Sárosi is our greatest player today" "He was already in the line where Schlosser, Schaffer, Orth, Kalmar once moved" https://t.co/AnQq9NHLun" / Twitter
26/05/1937 : "Sárosi is our greatest player today" "He was already in the line where Schlosser, Schaffer, Orth, Kalmar once moved"

EDIT - On Facchetti, it depends exactly what role Sarosi is being placed in I suppose; whether in effect it's almost like a WM selection (although Domingos Da Guia was predominantly a central defender wasn't he, and it looks like an old 2-3-5 or maybe an Italian 1930s type formation, Metodo?, although that would make Braine an outright CF with Eusebio and Pele coming from behind which I'm not sure would seem right would it, and possibly Eusebio and Pele would even have been shown a line deeper if that was intended?)