LOL You should be a politician,or better yet a lawyer.... Give me 1 second and i will pull out my soccer encyclopedia .... It lists the best 50 footballers of all time till the late 1990s..... PS-This encyclopedia doesnt have any sponsors.......
It's called evidence and fair comparisons. Not just who's first but who's second, third...tenth but more importantly why they got that ranking! It's also called transparency.
Heres transparency ,if that really exists : Its guaranteed to provoke a hot debate .In forming a defenitive list of the 50 greatest footballers of all time,you look for someone elses opinion and your asking for an argument.Who comes 1st Pele or Maradona?Should be the players natural ability override what happened in their personal lives?In the end it must,or Best and Gascoine are just two who would have problems even coming close. Peles genious and global impact on the game secures his position at the top. Deciding the order of the next 49 is where debating starts.The temptation is,after all to include the players youve followed ,loved nd know best.But talent,falir ,skill speak for themselves.Often a players worth can be judged by what his peers have said .Sportsmen rarely use superlatives when describing their opponents.Those who played against Pele were overawed by his effortless skills"After the 5th goal ,I wanted to applaude him ,said Sigge Parling,the Swedish defender who marked him in the 1958 Wc final.An Italian defender who marked Pele in the 1970 WC final,comented "I tough he was made out fo bone and flesh like me"I was wrong. Platini was amongst the best French players of his generation and is easily Frances great. Portugals Eusebio,another great player memorably describes another one of hios peers,Russias goald kepper Lev Yashin.the peerless goal keepr of the century.....Maradona is remebered in the 1896 Wc for dribbling past 6 England players to score a sensational goal.Lineker was one of the best in the 1990 WC.Cruyff made his name in the 1972 European cup fianl as he tore apart Inter Milan defense and scored 2 goals for Ajax. Now here are the 50 greatest footballers the world has ever seen..... Frank im sure you know all of these players....Portugalia ,your too young to know ,but learn.... Not in any Particular order other than the 1st and 2nd 1-PELE 2-MARADONA After that theres 48 players :CRUYFF,BECKENBAUER,PUSKAS,STANLEY MATTHEWS,GEORGE BEST,BOBBY MOORE,DI STEFANO,ZICO,BOBBY CHARLTON,CARLOS ALBERTO PARREIRA,GERD MULLER,JAIRZINHO,YASHIN,PLATINI,TOM FINNEY,GULLIT,UWE SEELER,GORDON BANKS,MARCO VAN BASTEN,ROBETO BAGGIO,EUSEBIO,GARRINCHA,RUMMENIGE,SCHIFFIANO,KEVIN KEEGAN,RIVELINO,TOSTAO,MALDINI,KLINSMAN,JOHN CHARLES,JIMMY GREAVES,RONALDO,DENIS LAW,JOHAN NEESKENS.BARESI,GENTO,MATTHAUS,JUST FONTAINE,SOCRATES,MARIO KEMPESGARY LINEKER,DANIEL PASSARELA,ALLAN SIMONSEN,DEYNA,FLORIENT ALBERT,GIANNI RIVERA,GEORGE WEAH and PAUL GASCOINE....
You know what, Portugalia if you haven't seen any good footage of Eusebio you should. try looking for a documentary tape or something, I have one myself its good got it a long time ago, also Ive seen documentary on Eusebio on RTPi. After watching something like that, where they show highlights and take you through the highs and lows of his career, you wont need stats to know that Eusebio is the best Portuguese player ever. Here is my personal list (It wont be the greatest, since I havent seen all of these players and im a young guy so havent seen so many but this is just my current opinion - though it changes constantly as I find more information on players). 1. Eusebio 2. Luis Figo Now after this it gets tough for me but ill give out my next few great ones Attackers (forwards, strikers, wingers, etc): Jose Aguas 5 Violinos (Sporting 1940's Peyroteo, Travassos, Vasques et Al) Rui Costa Paulo Futre Manuel Fernandes (Sporting 80s??) Simoes Torres Pauleta Artur de Sousa "P|nga" **(Maritmo + FC Porto ~1930s) Fernando Gomes Defensive players (include. center midfilders) Mario Coluna (Benfica 60s) Germano (Benfica 60s) Joao Domingos Pinto (FC Porto 80's 90's) Nuno Morais (Sporting 60s) Hilario (Sporting 60s) Paulo Sousa Humberto Coelho (Benfica 80's) Fernando Couto Goalkeepers (Guarda-Redes') Costa Perreira Vitor Damas Manuel Bento Vitor Baia Carlos Gomes (sp.?? Sporting) Again im not familiar with all the players of course, but this is my list of today. ** lol Bigsoccer blocks out the word P|nga so remember | means i when I wrote his name lol.
The Newspaper "A Bola" a few years ago came out with 2 books on the "Greatest 100 Portuguese Players" if you guys can still find them it list a bio and some great pictures of all the greats...
Is that the one that ends with Couto, Domingos and Joao Pinto? My dad's friend has one of those books.
Portugallia, bud Im a huge fan of Pauleta. I think everyone knows that too. Ive defended him big time on this board, but, not even I would put him anywhere near number 1. I personally hate stats. I know alot of people hear love to show stats to prove points but stats do lie sometimes or at least do not tell the whole story. Now having said that, do I think that he is under appreciated or undervalued by alot of us Portuguese ? Yes I do. He is the only player ( that I know of ) to lead his country in scoring and yet have alot of people call him crap. A team wins and looses together. A scorer scores as a result of the opportunities given to him by his teammates. No chances, no goals. It is easy to say that he did not score in a certain game instead of saying that not enough opportunities were created by the team. That is the nature of that position, I guess. I dont know (and wont try) where to rank Paueta. What I do feel is that he is the best striker that we have had in a long time. Lets hope that he does well for us this WC.
I agree Eurodad, Pauleta may not be ranked as high as number 1 but he's sure as hell not ranked lower than number 10 either. Either way I still want a 20 foot statue of him in the middle of Lisbon.
Well if his performance is like the one in the Euro. He'll get a statue allright, one to hold an egg tossing contest.
Honestly, no matter who we play at the striker position, if we continue to play the single striker style, it makes it vary easy for apposing teams to defend our strikers. One striker up front in between four or five defenders does not make sense to me. No matter who we have up front. When teams come to play us, they know who our leading scorer is. Not rocket science.
So you want Portugal to change like 30 years of history with a single striker? I don't think it will ever change since we always have so many great midfield players and so few good strikers.
Remember the dark 90's when we could only score one goal out 30 shots a game and Joao Pinto was our "striker" LOL Then we would occasionally bring in Domingos and Cadete. God was that horrible, Joao Pinto starting ahead of Domingos for a striker position I know Domingos was not exactly the greatest for the NT but atleast he was a striker.