Like, there is the best player at taking-on a defender, and a player who is the best at creating chances whilst in motion with the ball. I know the figure below is about carries, but it should apply somewhat to take-ons also. The art of moving past a defender via dribble, and the art of using that ability in conjunction with chance creation, especially in more centralized zones near the box, should be separate lists with slightly different sets of names, and different ordering for those names. Unless I have the full picture over where Alfredo Di Stefano liked to dribble, how effective he was at utilizing his dribbling to create passing angles, and his preferred zones of operation with the ball at his feet, it seems premature to align him for this specific capacity, with some of the best his era had to offer in these aspects, just because he was more energetic and more rapid with the ball as a younger player. Of course, with the lack of footage and proper data, I can't really provide a proper counter-argument. I just think it is unlikely that a younger Alfredo Di Stefano was peak Johan Cruyff-level on-the-ball threat, but even smarter off-the-ball, with greater field coverage, yet somehow placed below the likes of Moreno, in terms of River Plate legacy.
An interesting article from the 1950s Football is a team game There exists and is intensifying a tendency to view and judge football not from a global angle, but from diverse partial aspects. Undoubtedly, it has been the monotony of the football spectacle that has caused this fragmentation when the time comes to gauge its virtues and defects. Not many years ago, matches were valued as a whole. Just by knowing who had won, we considered that, in fact, we knew the whole story and barely cared about anything else. This has changed. And today, justly or capriciously—a nice subject for controversy—it is considered that the analysis of a match must delve into partial but significant zones. We have become so fussy that the final score itself barely tells us anything. What we want to know is who scored first, how and why they scored, the number of fouls or offsides or corner kicks taken by each team, et cetera. We all agree that football is, par excellence, a "team" sport, a sport in which what counts primarily is the point of intelligence and understanding between the components of an eleven. We all agree on this, and we strive to gauge the performance and possibilities of each formation with reference to this pattern. But this does not prevent us from tending, at the same time and increasingly so, towards an analysis by parcels, which undeniably must result in being counterproductive in the long run. It is evident that a goal scored at home or while visiting usually offers sensible differences between them. It is evident; no one can deny it. But it is also evident that said goals—Inter-Cities Fairs Cup aside—count the same. However, whether thinking of betting pools or simply moved by a somewhat odd itch for precision, it has become fashionable to serve the reader or listener, to give for each team at a minimum, two classifications: the ranking of scores obtained at home and the ranking of scores obtained on the opposing field; classifications that, contrary to what one might imagine, each go somewhat their own way and sometimes one might even say they come to contradict each other. Another of those partial classifications that has already acquired a prestige that no one disputes is the ranking of top scorers, with its prizes and its particular fanfare. The betting pool on goalscorers has not yet been devised, but we feel it is about to happen. Scoring goals is, after all, the objective of every football team, and it is logical that we be informed that the author of the points was so-and-so or whats-his-name. It is logical, but... is it opportune? We rather doubt it. When player X becomes a candidate for the title of top scorer, it immediately determines a state of alert for all adversary teams; the emergence, in his own club, of sympathizing players ready to support him and of rival players ready to ruin his plans; the creation in the player's spirit of a tremendous egocentric tendency, which impels him—it is pure fatality—to forget his obligations as a team player, to pursue a personal success which does not fail to have its rewards. The rankings and trophies for top scorers constitute, essentially, an authentic attack on the football spirit. A conspiracy between press and public to downplay the importance of the material fact of having been the last one to touch the ball before it entered the opposing goal would be an entirely healthy measure. It is about scoring goals, yes; but it is about having the full conscience that we scored them between us all. The contrary is the fostering of egotism and endangering the very essence of that which we call the king of sports. FARRERAS.
Look at this one of Di Stéfano saying that Spain has good playmakers but lacks good finishers, 70 years have passed and everything remains the same "A. — Yes, I need finishers. Spain has great forwards, but almost all of them are playmakers, men who "serve goals on a silver platter." I also need men who convert those prepared goals. Puskas seems fine to me, but he is an inside left and nothing more. Peiró is used to building the play from the back, and this makes it difficult for him to finish. And Pepillo has two flaws. One, that he is doing poorly, that he is not at his best. And the other, that he has no stamina."
I'm going to show some data on why I think Ferenc Puskás, when he was young, used to dribble a lot, probably as much as Cruyff, Pelé, or even Maradona. Some time ago I found a statistical report on players from Hungary from 1955 that includes data such as passes, meters carried with the ball, among other things, and dribbles. What's interesting is that there are reports from the Argentine magazine El Gráfico in the 1980s that use the same categories as those Hungarian reports from the 1950s, it's as if there was a common standard used back then. Although we can't know exactly how many “Opta” dribbles Puskás had in those matches, we can get an approximate idea that he did have a high number of dribbles. For example, Sándor Kocsis averages 5 dribbles across 2 matches, while Puskás averages 22.5 across 4 matches. That means Puskás dribbled about 4.5 times more than Kocsis. If Kocsis had around 2 “Opta” dribbles per match, then Puskás could be averaging about 9. Meters WB: "Meters with the ball" I know it's a very rough estimate, but there's another piece of data that makes me think he might be in that range: Maradona’s dribbles counted by El Gráfico, which we can compare with “Opta criteria” dribbles counted by reviewing those same matches. And the data I have is as follows. In four reports from El Gráfico, using their own criteria, Maradona averages 20.75 dribbles per match. However, using Opta criteria (counted by a user on X), Maradona records 8.25 Opta dribbles in those same games. If we compare the two, the Opta criteria amount to roughly 40% of what El Gráfico reports, and if we apply the same adjustment to Puskás’s numbers, the average would be 8.96 Opta dribbles per game Additionally, we have data on meters carried with the ball, which are very similar between Maradona and Puskás, this is a more precise figure rather than an estimate. In conclusion, although Maradona averaged 8.25 dribbles in those matches, that doesn’t mean he averaged that number over an entire season, we’re looking at exceptional games. His season average might have been around 5-6 or so, and for Puskás we could be talking about a similar range, around 5+ dribbles per match in a good season when he was young and in peak form.
Also Puskás was the player with most Acc Passes, considering that teams in that era only averaged 300–400 passes per match, it's pretty remarkable. Puskás was 1.72 meters tall and left-footed, he literally reminds me of Messi.
These are some fantastic statistical insights, and while I do not think ball carrying distance is indicative of take-on ability, it is a feat in itself. They probably represent different qualities. In terms of forward distance travelled with the ball across the entire pitch, a young Kyle Walker might top a lot of elite dribblers. Even if we limit the distances travelled by only taking into forward distance within the enemy half, take-on artists such as Allan Saint-Maximin has less travel distance than the raw speed demon that is Pedro Neto. In the same vein, Roberto Firmino is a better take-on artist than Curtis Jones, but it seems like in raw forward distance, things might be different. Of course, I am oversimplifying the data, but it does seem that carrying distance does not align with take-on ability. So if the statistical report that Ferenc Puskas had great forward carrying distance with the ball, maybe meant that he had much greater forward momentum in empty spaces as a younger man. Plus more energy and stamina to spare, hence the nickname the Galloping Major? As for the newspaper defined take-ons, I do think Ferenc Puskas had the ability to wrong-foot defenders, and had a wand for a left foot in tighter spaces. Maybe like the footage below, but in greater volume and frequency? Ferenc Puskas shares the same problem as Alfredo Di Stefano that his earlier footage is really hard to find, but I have trouble finding written reports of Ferenc Puskas being able to terrorize entire defenses like Diego Maradona, and waltzing past multiple defenders to score a superlative solo-goal with multiple dribbles. You can for Pele, for instance, even if the footage is not available. Maybe he was just wrong-footing defenders a lot when receiving the ball in tight spaces, as well as having the left-over energy to be running a lot with the ball unchallenged in open spaces, as a younger player, as opposed taking on entire defensive set-ups like peak Diego Maradona could. He does seem more Messi-esque than Alfredo Di Stefano. But Lionel Messi has the sort of nimbleness and non-stop directional changes mid-sprint that even Diego Maradona struggles to match for me, nevermind Ferenc Puskas, no matter how young he was.
I don’t believe Puskas was a generational dribbler. The game we have information about at his peak was the match against England in 1953, in which he performed 3 dribbles. A great number, but not at the level of a Maradona. The guy on Twitter compiled advanced stats for Di Stefano and Puskas in a few matches. Di Stefano has better defensive numbers (tackles, interceptions, clearances) and Puskas better offensive ones (goals, assists) pointing out the regions of the field they occupied. Di Stefano was the man who conducted the team like Zidane (One of Zidane's best characteristics was also the number of progressive carries from deeper zones), while Puskas was the forward, with great talent to drop deep and deliver passes, but still a forward, like Ronaldo. I think Messi is not comparable with either of them. Puskas didn’t play dropping deep as much as Messi, but rather drifting towards the wings. Di Stefano aimed to control the rhythm of play, whereas Messi’s game is more straightforward. The closest player to Messi in style was Pelé.
But the point is this, in those statistics, both Puskás and Di Stéfano were almost 35 years old on average, even Maradona and Pelé, after their 30s, averaged around 2.5 dribbles per match, which is similar to what you see in that small sample. Di Stéfano had a match with 13 dribbles at age 32, imagine if we had matches of Di Stéfano at 20. In other words, there’s a distortion because most of the footage and data we have comes from when they were already older, and in an era when age had a bigger physical impact and players took less care of themselves, in fact, even in those 1955 matches it was already said that Puskás was overweight. So while Puskás at Real Madrid might have averaged around 2.5 dribbles per game, when he was young we could be talking about double that or even more. The data is there, he was among the players who has the most dribbles and covered the most meters with the ball, and he dribbled 4.5 times more than Kocsis. We don’t have the exact number, but it gives you a good perspective to infer that the figure was very high. Pelé also experienced a very sharp decline according to the data we have, in his 20s he averaged around 6–7 dribbles, and then in his 30s he dropped to about 2–3 on average, Maradona the same. Something similar probably happened with Di Stéfano and Puskás.
I have no idea about the thoroughness of the written sources, but I would imagine a younger Ferenc Puskas annihilating defenses with his dribbles would be written about more often, especially mazy runs that end up as incredible solo-goals. Both these players are in their 20s, and in a friendly game versus what I imagine would be comparable enough scenario. 1953 Puskás Ferenc Great Match vs England A (friendly) - YouTube 1955 Raymond Kopa Masterclass vs Great Britain A (Friendly) From what little footage there is available, for me at least, it is difficult to imagine a younger Ferenc Puskas who is on par with Raymond Kopa purely as a dribbling threat.
Yeah, I remember that data set for dribbles being shown on the forum before from the Hungarian source. I guess the most likely thing is is would be 'movements in possession with the ball' though, so quite far removed from how dribbles would be defined in modern stats (further than the Maradona/Kempes data? - I don't know that for sure I suppose, but maybe you'd have some idea how those Argentinian stats were calculated?). In this game I think it could be just 3 'Opta' dribbles by Puskas if all his actions are captured on this video (it is a game with the full footage available): The pitch is wet clearly, and I'd say he's making many good/very good passes (as you can see Hidegkuti is too for example) and likewise for first touches, and maybe here (contrary to the England game from 1953 where I'd say it's moreso Hidegkuti coming from behind Kocsis and Puskas) it could be said too that he's playing more a true/traditional inside left role, arguably more with both him and Hidegkuti playing from behind Kocsis. But I think his play (especially solo play) resembles more a relatively old Bergkamp than a prime Cruyff. One dribble at the start, one before the assist to Hidegkuti in the first half and another minimilistic one to escape a defender perhaps later on? The best dribbling that we'd see as such now on the video might actually be by Bozsik (some plays of some other players are included on there) around 8 minutes I'd say. I don't remember which Austria game it was now in teh dataset (there was a 2-2 in 1955 in Austria also), but there aren't Puskas dribbles in this highlight video for the 6-1 at least: Magyarország-Ausztria | 6-1 | 1955. 10. 16 | MLSZ TV Archív Perhaps he had a dribble or a run with the ball before the cross he puts in from the left side in the second half. He has an assist to Toth with a movement on the ball to make himself the passing angle, but I think it wouldn't count as an OPTA dribble because he stays in front of the opponent, not taking the ball past or around him as such. Comparing to for example: Johan Cruyff vs Sweden - World Cup 1974 Group Stage Maradona vs Juventus in Serie A 1985-86 (Home) (With some clear and extensive slalom dribbles, and fluent runs past a few players) I'm sure there will be dribble scenes that we don't know about by Puskas though, and he does seem to have liked to carry the ball a bit more in relatively younger times at least (and see goals like vs Italy in 1953 for some skill play that can count as an OPTA dribble directly before he scores for example) Re: Di Stefano there are reports calling him a juggler for example early in RM career, and he is meant to have been renowned as a carrier/runner with the ball as a young player, although @Letmepost I don't think anyone really suggested that as a River Plate player at least (maybe not ever - I'd lean to think it is unlikely) he was like a Cruyff on the ball in terms of dribbling or solo-creation while also being more involved, better off the ball etc. He was more an outright striker in his River time I think, like we discussed before.
I really do not buy the usage of ratios for tangentially related metrics, to conjure a hopefully high OPTA dribble statistic, nor do I think the ancient nature of Alfredo Di Stefano's era somehow explains away everything about what seems to be rather tame praise for Alfredo Di Stefano's on-the-ball destructiveness, compared to even older players from his own nation. The moment he is put on a pedestal alongside the likes of Diego Maradona as a on-the-ball wrecking ball, and then add his overall completeness on top of it, we would get a ridiculous figure that does not explain away his River Plate legacy. Which is why I mentioned it. This is the quote that triggered my responses. For the topic of dribbling specifically, I really do not know what to make of what YouTube recommendations is showing me, and what Trachta10 says about a prime Alfredo Di Stefano having dribble numbers like a younger Diego Maradona, simply because they both had low dribble counts as older players. I didn't even know who this player was, and he is older than Alfredo Di Stefano. So we cannot use the excuse of having the lack of access to footage to the hundreds of games he played (to fully grasp his nature and not have a warped perspective), or the general backwards nature of his era compared to today. He doesn't even seem to be that explosive in nature. Try watching Di Stefano do his akward as hell step-overs, and watch this, and still tell me that we are overlooking a 1950s version of Diego Maradona, mistaken for an off-the-ball genius due to the poor footage representation caused by the backward nature of the times. Rinaldo Fioramonte Martino, Mamucho [Goles y jugadas] At the specific task of take-ons, not progressive carries with the ball in open spaces with pace and power, I think there might be a bunch of black-and-white era specialists who might be above Alfredo Di Stefano at that particular artform. I just mentioned Raymond Kopa because I noticed his fluidity in motion out of more easy to spot names for that particular era. I personally do not think the list ends there and then.
It’s possible, but I’m going to mention the reasons why I think those numbers are indeed dribbles and probably use the same criteria that El Gráfico uses with Maradona (maybe close criteria, in any case, defining a dribble is something very ambiguous) There is a column that says "meters carried with the ball", and it also includes the number of times the player made a run with the ball. That would be closer to what you refer to as "movements in possession with the ball", then there is another column that says "Cselezés", which specifically translates as dribble, they are clearly using a very loose criterion, but more or less they are referring to what we know as a "dribble". The other point is that in the El Gráfico reports they use the same categories: without the ball, (walking, jogging, and running), meters with the ball, short passes, long passes, shots, heading, tackles. In other words, it’s as if we were looking at a standard of common statistics that used to be used before. And in El Gráfico they specifically use the term "gambeta" and "evades the opponent" so I think we are talking about the same thing, but obviously the numbers are large, Maradona averages 20.75 and Puskás average 22.50. So, even if it’s not an "Opta dribble" like we’re used to, it has to be something along those lines. Another point, and I think these are more precise data, is the high number of passes, and his number of long passes is very high. That also gives us the idea of a player who was far from the goal, thinking of a player who carried the ball and dribbled makes more sense. Then we have to consider the following, if we only had data for Pelé and Maradona in their post-30s, we would also see that they averaged 2–3 dribbles, which is equivalent to the data we have for Puskás at Real Madrid, where in fact he has an average age of 35 in those records. So you can notice that players from earlier eras had a fairly abrupt drop in their number of dribbles as they got older. We know that Pelé averaged 6–7 dribbles when he was young and then dropped to 2–3 in his 30s, and that kind of sharp decline isn’t as noticeable in modern players because they have much better physical preparation. In other words, our perception is very distorted because we’re only looking at a very small sample, and on top of that from when they were already old, in an era when age had a greater impact.
This is the data of the user Ghimarstats on X: Puskás and Di Stéfano are almost 35 years old on average and record 2.26 and 3.1 dribbles per game. They literally dribble about the same as Pelé and Maradona did at those ages. Di Stéfano data from other source @Letmepost 1958: 14 dribbles pg, 26.5 poss lost pg (32 years old) 1960-1963: 1.6 dribbles pg, 9.2 poss lost pg, (34 to 37 years old) If we had more games of a young Di Stéfano, his average would be enormous.
I agree that it is reasonable to assume that ADS and Puskas were much better dribblers early in their careers, but I dont think it follows that they must have been dribbling much more quantitatively in that period. I dont think that all players follow the same or similar career path, meaning that it is not clear just because Pele, Maradona or Cruyff had a certain pattern across their career, that ADS and Puskas had a similar one. Another concern I have is that number of dribbles for players might drastically vary from generation to generation, or from league to league in the same generation. So like 5 dribbles per game in 50s in Spain is not the same as 5 dribbles per game in 80s in Italy and so on. I am pretty sure that is the case. Just think of how you cant directly compare goals per game from different leagues and eras. I think for aspects of game such is dribbling, this becomes even more pronounced. What I am trying to say is that even if the estimation of 5-ish dribbles per game was accurate for Puskas, I dont think that is particularly insightful data in final analysis that should be a reason to form a strong opinion on these players. I do agree that, when it comes to the older players, we are kind of limited and should seriously reference testimony and commentary of that time. If they had exceptional abilities and work rate in dribbling department at that time, there must be some clues in form of testimony somewhere. It wouldnt go unnoticed.
Why would similar endpoints of various players assume they had similar peaks? If two random players are retired at the age of 35, and around the same low level, are you going to assume that they both must have had same level aged 25? Can I do the same level of extrapolation using tangentially related metrics, and the assumption that youthful versions always have double or triple their dribble counts of their older versions, and apply that logic to David Ginola? https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/miscellaneous-premier-league-stats.2079200/ According to newspaper reports of differently defined dribbles: 1) David Ginola had 406 dribbles in 1999/2000 season of EPL. David Ginola turned 33 in 2000. 2) Thierry Henry had 367 dribbles in 2002/2003 season of EPL. Thierry Henry is quoted as having 3.69 dribbles per 90 minutes by Statsbomb for immediate following season, and had 3 dribbles per 90 during Euro 2004. So if we extrapolate the ratio (406 to 367) and assume Statsbomb is a closer estimation to his OPTA take-on values over a season long timeframe, we end up getting a figure that is over 4 dribbles per game (around 4.08). Now let us factor in the age factor, and assume David Ginola was dribbling maybe only 1.5 times as much during his 20s, instead of the massive hypothetical inflation you did for the optimistic dribble counts of an imaginary younger Alfredo Di Stefano to raise his figure to around 5 a game to match peak Diego Maradona. On WhoScored, Lionel Messi's best domestic season in terms of dribbles per game, is 5.6 per game during the 2010/2011 season. Let us remember this particular number, and realize what hopeful extrapolation can end up doing. David Ginola with an artificially boosted 150% inflation would have 6.12 dribbles per game. An artificial boost of 200% would end up with 8.16 dribbles per game. You said Alfredo Di Stefano has an average of 2 dribbles or so for footage available, and speculated he matches the averages of a peak Diego Maradona which might be around 5 dribbles or so per game. That is an artificial boost of 250%. Doing the same for David Ginola would end up with 10.21 dribbles per game. If one friendly game versus France is enough to persuade you, so be it, but I personally would not use weird ratios and hopeful extrapolation to put Alfredo Di Stefano on a pedestal alongside the likes of peak Diego Maradona or Johan Cruyff as pure take-on artists. For one thing, directional switching is far from his forte, from the footage available.
The reason I believe Di Stéfano and Puskás dribbled much more when they were younger is because I have statistical evidence for it, I’m not just speculating out of nowhere. If I didn’t have those 1955 data for Puskás, for example, I would never think something like that. I’m basically drawing conclusions based on the limited evidence I have, and I’m relating it to how we know players like Pelé and Maradona experienced very sharp drops in their averages. Have you seen these numbers? Di Stéfano has one match with 12 dribbles and another with 16 at age 32. Since we know Di Stéfano was a player who often played far from goal and constantly made progressive runs, we can speculate that he probably dribbled a lot, I mean, there’s a reason he’s known as ‘The Blond Arrow.’ We know it was a constant in his style of play. What is true, though (from the little I’ve seen), is that they weren’t players with as much fine or aesthetic technique as you can see in Maradona or Messi, but maybe that wasn’t as necessary for that era, that is to say, it was a different kind of football, the pitches were worse, the players were slower, and there was much more space. In this sense, when it comes to Di Stéfano, I would say I’m quite sure he dribbled a lot, even if it wasn’t as aesthetic, that’s true. It’s harder to know in Puskás’s case, but those 1955 data are there and I interpreted them as best I could. And let’s not forget something either, Puskás was a left-footed player who was 1.72 m tall, he had the typical low center of gravity build that great dribblers like Messi have, but at the same time, he was a player who tended to gain weight, so his period of peak physical condition probably didn’t last very long.
Of course, I do agree that they don’t seem to be players with as much fine or aesthetic technical ability, or however you’d put it. In that sense, they’re clearly not at the level of Maradona or Messi. But maybe back then it wasn’t necessary to have that much technique to dribble. It was a different kind of football, there was more space, all the players were slower, and teams attacked more. In that sense, Di Stéfano could generate 15 successful dribbles in a match without really being as good a dribbler as Messi, for example.
About Di Stéfano, from the Colombian press when he played for Millonarios Di Stéfano, while brightening the stadium’s grass, brings excitement to the stands whenever he breaks through with his swift runs, overcoming the resistance of the opposing defense. The spectator, partisan or not, wins when the athletic silhouette of the fast “pilot” slips between defenders to finish the move with a shot into the corner “where the goalkeeper isn’t.” Gifted with exceptional muscular elasticity and remarkable vision, he handles the ball with the same mastery with which he dodges the blows meant to stop his advance toward goal. Impossible to mark closely, those who tried to “stick to him” ended up exhausted, opening the wide gaps through which the goals arrived. And what goals. Almost all of them works of art worthy of framing; in this championship he scored some — like the first two in Santa Marta — that will not easily be forgotten by those fortunate enough to see them. The “blond arrow” never, in any match, disappointed his public, which is the entire Colombian fan base. Playing gallantly yet always giving his all, his titles as the best Argentine centre-forward have been more than confirmed in Colombia. In this championship, in which Millonarios reached peaks of technical perfection and played matches that seemed more like chess than football, the blond pilot was a complete lesson in grace in play, cunning in dribbling, speed in movement, and vision of the goal. The axis of an extraordinary forward trio that any Buenos Aires club would have wanted, Alfredo Di Stéfano can never be forgotten wherever he has been seen. Among us, who welcomed him as a legitimate and dazzling star of the American football firmament, he reached the highest level of performance. His status as the championship’s top scorer — in a tournament featuring forwards of such extraordinary caliber as those listed among the scorers — is, more than proof of efficiency and skill, the crown of a campaign in which he did more than enough to be first.
You have assumed a sustained period of 5 OPTA-standard dribbles per game, for both players, with tangentially related metrics, or a select couple of games where a lot of dribbles were completed despite an advanced age, as your primary source of evidence. The reason I take issue with this is: 1) It is difficult as it is, to infer things off actual real data en masse. Trying to build up an image of older players with limited footage, off hypothetical numbers, is not only confusing, but it can also be potentially misleading. The y-axis for this graph is the distance per carry, which means if I ranked players purely by their distance travelled with the ball, that Lionel Messi would not top the list, despite being an elite take-on artist for this season. In fact 90% of the ball-carry distance metrics I've seen had centre-backs like John Stones tower over more potent dribblers in forward positions. If I used tangential metrics such as progressive carries, or distance carried with the ball, to argue the point that a ton of random defenders dribbled as much as prime Lionel Messi, would you agree with me? I have no trouble acknowledging the fact that Alfredo Di Stefano could be a potent ball carrier. I started to dispute the claims that he could have tremendous volume of OPTA dribble statistics of a sustained nature, like prime Diego Maradona could. There are a ton of terrific ball carriers who cannot beat their marker at the rate of Lionel Messi. These are not the same metrics. 2) The fact that Alfredo Di Stefano performed over 10 dribbles in select games, as a man over the age of 30, is indeed impressive. However, it is not indicative of his ability to have take-on statistics that approach or surpass prime Diego Maradona. Since Sofascore tracked UEFA Champions League data, there has not been a single player over the age of 30 or above, who matched Javier Zanetti in terms of dribbles completed in a single match. If I used this match to force a point that Javier Zanetti would have dribbled more than Lionel Messi as a younger man, since Lionel Messi never had a stand-out dribble game with this particular tally, as a player aged 30 or above, in the UEFA Champions League, would you agree, or just laugh in my face? 3) The pitches were terrible for the likes of even older players. The fact that I cannot post more examples, is not due to the lack of potential candidates, but my lack of knowledge. If you do the search for any positive comments about the dribbling capacity of older players in your native language, can you try doing the same for the likes of Moreno or Padernera? And many others? Are you sure Alfredo Di Stefano is the number one for the specific metric of take-ons? Search long and hard enough, there will be positive comments about any superlative player of Alfredo Di Stefano's standard.
Yeah, I understand your general premise and doubts about that. I was just making sure you remembered that Di Stefano was seemingly not seen as a completed work in progress while still a River player, so there would be facets to his game (especially I'd think in cleverness, strategy, poise with the ball, technique) that improved later on (and then some Argentinians like Scopelli who knew his later version well enough could place him above Moreno potentially, while still rating Moreno very highly). Yeah, Martino's close skills seem very good (perhaps he's among the ones considered more technical than ADS in Argentina): without trying to dig them all up IIRC his name featured in some of the older polls about best players in Argentinian history, and IIRC he may have been placed in an XI at a certain point in time for a 'current' selection while Moreno and Pedernera weren't (albeit after their true peak I think anyway). He also got points in that vote about foreign players in Serie A history that I'd linked to from 1983 (provided by @Kroos46 on the Schiaffino thread and triggered by Trappatoni having said Platini was at that point in line with "the best version of Schiaffino") - Boniperti having placed him high up, predominantly for his role for Juventus in their 1949/50 team I suppose (remembering though that in that poll Boniperti did clarify he was aware he'd mostly voted for his ex-team mates generally).
You could be right, though I guess my guess was that it could be 'runs/movements' with the ball (regardless of numbers of players passed - feasibly zero too), with the total distance covered during those moments shown alongside the number. I suppose I couldn't rule out that it was indeed something more like wider 'take-ons' though, and both Hidegkuti and Puskas clearly liked to use little skills and ball manipulations to move the ball away from an opponent. Maybe my idea was personal to me (and/or the term could be seen differently in different countries) but I remember in my younger years I would think of 'dribbling' more as a continuous act (running/moving with the ball, although I would have distinguished between 'dribbling' in occupied areas, around players, and running with the ball in open space). I wouldn't have thought of every take-on as a separate dribble (like in the OPTA-type stats - remembering that initially they themselves categorised drbbles&runs though back in their formative years), but that one dribble (or dribbling run) could have a few occasions of going around or past opponents with the ball....
But yeah @Trachta10 I see what you mean about the Cselezes column. What is the number in brackets with those numbers - dispossessions attempting a 'dribble'? - that would give Puskas an 85% success for the attempts in the game on the top line for example I suppose, while his runs with the ball would average 9 metres approximately in that game (some, or most, of the Cselezes relating to those runs at least I guess anyway surely). Yeah, anyway, AI says this: "Cselezés" is a Hungarian noun meaning dribbling, feinting, or dodging, primarily used in sports contexts to describe maneuvering around an opponent. Key English translations include dribble (in football or basketball), feint, dodge, or trickery. It refers to the action of deceiving a defender to move past them. Perhaps a traditional Hungarian term that is wide in scope (including moving the ball away from an opponents leg to make space etc, or moving the ball to one side without moving past the defender as such - maybe why a high success rate would be more normal too?), potentially moreso than the Argentinian definition for dribbles, but I see AI gives a similar definition for Gambeta at least (you will be well aware of the use of this word, even if you now use OPTA dribbling stats and are quite young, I suppose Trachta). "Gambeta" refers primarily to a dribble, dodge, or feint in sports (especially football/soccer in Latin America) to evade an opponent. It can also mean a caper, prank, or a cross-step in dance, or a "dodging" action in general, originating from the Italian "gambetto". Key Translations of Gambeta: Soccer/Football: Dribble, feint, dodge, or swerve. General/Action: Caper, prank, or to avoid/dodge. Equitation: Curvet, a prancing maneuver by a horse. Related Terms: Gambetear (Verb): To dribble, to feint, or to zig-zag run to avoid someone. Gambeteador/a: A player known for skilled dribbling.
From what we can see (and it includes some full games and a decent-ish set of highlights from other Intl games of the early 50s at least) I tend to think Puskas had just as much (or more even) subtlety, imagination and trickery in close one on one situations as Messi. But it doesn't seem like he had the same fluidity (at least not extensively for long runs with the ball), deception, speed/acceleration with (or without) the ball or mastery of high speed running with many touches and some direction changing as Messi at his best as a dribbler. I feel like someone like Faas Wilkes, from what is said and some glimpses of what he did from footage too, could potentially (even if comparing eras would be hard) be put in a dribbling conversation with the likes of Messi (with a different dribbling style, and build), but Puskas seems unlikely tbh still to me (for going past multiple players on dribbling runs).
Yes, Martino was voted for by Giampiero Boniperti and Gianni Brera. The former placed him in third place behind Charles and Sivori, while the latter put him fifth behind Schiaffino, Charles, Sivori, and J. Hansen. For Gianni Brera in 1983, the 1949/50 Juventus was the strongest ever seen. In that Juventus team, it seems Martino occupied the midfield line alongside Piccinini. A few days ago, I saw that you mentioned me in another comment, but I didn't have time to reply and now I can't find the message anymore.