Well Schuster only actually played two matches, against the Netherlands and against Belgium. He wasn't picked for the opener against Czechoslovakia and then was rested for the third match against Greece because he had picked up a yellow card so was in danger of suspension.
Is that a surprise? We have to remember that this wasn't an era in which a lot of South American football was televised in Europe. Italy still had a ban on foreigners up to 1980 and very few S Americans had really excelled in Spain in recent years. The last time most of a European audience would have seen a lot of S Americans was the 1978 World Cup at which Maradona didn't figure and Zico didn't play well. I'm not saying excluding S Americans was right, but its easy to see the reasons why.
To be fair, the Belgians are maybe a bit undersold for the 1980 year. Ceulemans was almost as good, if not better, than Rummenigge at euro80. In particular the Spain game was of a quality. Listed the assists here: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/all-star-teams-of-1986-world-cup.1979342/page-2#post-26947078 Maybe they would fare a little bit better though if more Northern European publications had been included (incl. Poland, Sweden etc.), compared with predominantly South European (nine for Spain and Italy together, out of 25 in total) and South American ones.
1980 Mundialito. 1979 Youth World Cup maybe? Was televised all over Europe to be fair. 1980 Mundialito was partially shown live in Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy I know, with extended highlights for the remainder. The heavily promoted 1979YWC was shown in extended highlights in the Netherlands (for 'promoted', one can remember that it was part of the platform on which Havelange and co became elected in 1974). Incomplete France Football match ratings for Mundialito here (doesn't include final match): http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...riety-of-sources.2003234/page-7#post-30000793 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwL4ev1QI1K6ZWZ5TUp5dGpMNWM/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, it's not to say that the inclusions are obviously not correct but that Belgians are more likely to spot worthy Belgian-based players I think (and like you say maybe some other Northern Europeans would have done also). For 1981 Lozano (not Belgian national ofc) and others are in the selection of the Belgian voter, but yeah for 1980 Ceulemans and also Van Moer did have better representation in other votes (Ballon d'Or, Onze d'Or).
Well the Mundialito was really held in 1981 (only one match was in 1980). Meanwhile the World Youth Cup was just that, a youth cup. I wouldn't ever select a player for a senior world XI based on a youth tournament unless they were absolutely remarkable and there was a dearth of other candidates. I mean, is it all that strange anyway? This season, and I really don't want to side track this thread, I would say that so far there is one South American who would feature in the team of the season.
It is less than shocking indeed and the reasons are probably no mystery to anybody. It just shows how Euro-centric the award really was despite its "global reach". Had a similar award been organized in the same fashion by a South American organization I seriously doubt there would have been 4 in 25 worldXI teams containing zero Europeans though.. In fact, I think it would have probably been more "global" in this case in the way that (I think) us South Americans have always known/followed European football more than Europe has done that with South America. Just a personal feeling, nothing more.
Well, for example the 1981 Placar all-time greats poll did have three out of seven Argentinean voters that only picked one, two or three European outfield players. One only picked Beckenbauer, with the other 10 South American. One other only picked Beckenbauer and Sandor Kocsic, with the rest South American. Then a third one with Banks in goal (Who was the best ever SA goalkeeper by 1981? Was that already Fillol perhaps?), Beckenbauer, Cesare Maldini as the 'unheralded' marker/stopper (for his famous marking job on Pelé?) and Sandor Kocsic again. Arguably not quite the same but 2/7 comes in this case close to 4/21 (25 voters minus the four South American voters). And of course 1980 was a year without major tournament whereas the all-time poll is understandably affected by the World Cup performances and suchlike.
So, pretty much like I said. In the Placar case, even when the thing is stretched to "all time" and all the biases and nostalgia may kick in, still the Europeans do not get completely overlooked several times like with this voting I was talking about and the South Americans. Now, an all time team "made" by Europeans would always have South American(s). But this was just for one year alone. And four people out of 25 thought no South Americans had any business in their bestXI teams.
I initially thought this was once again a retrospective nonsense award (which every friendly media repeats until it becomes the truth), but it is actually right. A jury with three Uruguayans, as hosts and organizers, indeed elected Toninho Cerezo as winner but when asked the chairman refused to give point totals and the individual choices. Cerezo was indeed very good in the first two games, but really not good in the final match against Uruguay.
That is kinda the point. I can reverse your own logic. Imagine European voters only choosing a South American defender and a goalkeeper in their all-time XI (the 'unwanted' positions); accusations about Eurocentrism would fly over the rooftops. Yet that is what 'they' did here. Also, the choice for Sandor Kocsic by two people, rather than Puskas or whoever, demonstrates quite how much the World Cup plays a part. Take the World Cup or perhaps another major tournament (as the European championships) out as major influence, and it is perhaps not unlikely to see it turning into All-American teams.
Don Balon also included Wimmer as right back in 1981. He was just three-and-a-half years retired. [there was also another Wimmer active in 1981, but that was a goalkeeper and I don't think he selected two goalkeepers TBH]
All I said was that 4 of the teams submitted for the 1980 year included zero South Americans. There were 25 voters, but only 20 of them were Europens, so 1 out of 5 European voters figured no South American was good enough to crack the team of the year... I also said had a similar thing been organized in South America it would obviously name many more South Americans than this one did, but would imo hardly see 1 in 5 or even any team entirely leaving out European footballers. To this you brought up how a year later Placar ran a poll to make an ALL TIME team and still no team entirely lacked Europeans. First, it is not the same thing. Second, it actually happened what I had assumed and nobody entirely "forgot" about Europe. Still unsatisfied, then you added that if we took away the WC and major tournaments it could perhaps happen that.... Whatever mate. I am out of this before you put me through the "diamonds" and "catalan business men" ridiculous ordeal again. Cheers.
If we're busy now: Europe vs South America is a bad frame anyway in my point of view. It is united South America, in these matters, versus divided and fragmented Europe. That is the only proper frame. I leave it at that.
I don't know how long it was around for, but it was a sports newspaper that must have competed at some time with L'equipe and France Football, located in Paris. At that stage when this award was handed out (2 January, 1981) it had already released 145 number of issues.
In 1982 the World Cup heavily weighed in making decisions. Rossi was a safe bet, no matter how well others may have played in that year. This was the year when World Soccer started to have its readers choose their world player of the year. Rossi won in the British publication and also won in Onze, the French magazine, another source which has its readers choose the top 3. He also topped it off with France Football's European Ballon d'Or. Not surprisingly, he finished at the top at Guerin Sportivo as well. 39 managers/journalists/players voted with Rossi obtaining 31 total votes in the best XI. The top 5 most voted in 1982 in Guerin Sportivo: 1.) Rossi 31 points 2.) Scirea 29 points 3.) K.H. Foerster 25 points Falcao 25 points 4.) Conti 23 points Gentile 23 points 5.) Dasaev 21 points The All-Star team or best XI in the world in 1982 was the following: Dasaev; Gentile, Gerets, K.H. Foerster, Scirea; Falcao, Tardelli, Maradona; Conti, Rossi, Rummenigge. Only Maradona, Rummenigge and Gentile remained in the top team from the previous year. This time Zico, winner of the previous year, was omitted with only 10 votes, while Maradona finished with 16 points and Rummenigge with 15. (Note: the article states that Rummenigge received 14 votes but the lists clearly indicate that it was 15. They must have forgotten to count 1 vote.)
The situation with Zico is an intriguing one because he was South America's footballer of the year in multiple sources (El Mundo and Deporte Total) as well as Americas footballer of the year by El Grafico, topping Maradona and Falcao in most of these lists. But according to Guerin Sportivo, not even Raul Tavani, correspondent from 'El Pais' in Uruguay or some Sao Paulo Brazilian newspapers/magazines like Placar included Zico in their all-star team. This view contradicts those that believed that Zico would have won a global Ballon d'Or award in 1982. The reality is that many that voted for him in South America would probably have been swayed by the results of what transpired at the WC and instead may have decided in favor of a world champion in Paolo Rossi had they had to choose between the two. In any event, in this Guerin Sportivo list, Zico falls short and all indications suggest he probably had no real chance this year. Inclusively, Falcao ends up more favorably in the view of many, particularly for Europeans. In 1983 there would be a new way of deciding the winner. To be continued...
I'm not saying he would have won but one thing going for Zico are the amount of official games he played in 1982. He scored 52 goals (8PK) in 59 official games. Including a decent/good World Cup. As comparison, Rossi played 32 games in the 1982 calender year, scoring 18 goals (1PK). Maradona, a forward in this year, scored 13 goals (2PK) in 26 official games in the whole calender year.
How would scoring 10 or 11 goals like at 1997 and 2001 fit in? As the two major outliers ( the next one had 7 ).
Guerin Sportivo's own selection is this time quite far away from the consensus (for 1981 if the name was shortened in the summary to a nickname maybe, they included 10 of the consensus after including for sure all 11 in 1980). They put in Collovati, Junior, Giresse (rather than Italian Tardelli interestingly), Socrates and Littbarski that didn't make the overall combined XI.
Well I wouldn't have put Adailton or Saviola in a world XI for those years. Very good, promising players but youth competitions are very much in the shadows of their senior equivalents in terms of quality.
Maradona shouldn't be ahead of Zico for this year, Zico had a great WC (arguably top ten of all time individual performance) but his team went out to the eventual winners in one of the greatest matches in history. Maradona on the other hand only show sporadic flashes of brilliance, and never reached the form that many were expecting.