Pre-War Personalities and Their Best Players

in order to have a more reliable way in rating pre-war players rather than using rankings or wikipedia pages that were made decades after their retirement, let's see the opinion of those who have witnessed them live

 

Bok de Korver, 1943 (Dutch full-back)

-- best players you have seen?

Nils Middelboe
Vivian Woodward
Jose Leandro Andrade
Silvio Piola

Best Team : Austrian Wunderteam

 

81 years-old Jules Rimet, 1954 :

Three Best Players He Has Seen :

Matthias Sindelar
Stanley Matthews
Jose Leandro Andrade

 

Jeff Mermans, 1949 :

Three Greatest in Last 15 Years :
Stanley Matthews
Matthias Sindelar
Faas Wilkes

 

Matthias Sindelar (date unknown) :

"I have never seen a better footballer player on the pitch than (Alfred) Schaffer was, But I have never learned nearly as much about the science of the game from anyone as from Kálmán Konrád"

 

Ljubiša Stevanović about the best footballer of all time :

Without a doubt, the Uruguayan (Jose Leandro) Andrade. the true, unrivaled master of this sport. He was a cultivated natural talent in which instinct and consciousness are perfectly united. He played equally with both legs, and with a head in which the real football brain worked incessantly. And those eyes: even if he didn't look, he saw everything! He was really attracted to the ball because in a fraction of a second, he even uttered the opponent's most secret thought. I don't want to exaggerate anything, but I've never seen a football player like him before or after, including Pele, Di Stefano, Puskas and others. I've seen them all, but I'm judging with such certainty because I played against Andrade.

 

Hugo Meisl, 1935 :

"and I expressed my sincere amazement at how the inside left Alex James, The GREATEST footballer of all time......"

 

Gyula Feldmann, 1940 :

"(Hector) Scarone was the best footballer i have ever seen"

 

Nicolas Mouneu, 1939 :

"Arsenio Erico, perhaps the most extraordinary player we have ever seen"

 

https://sport.aktualne.cz/fotbal/fo...d-umrti-k/r~5153e0f8031911eba7deac1f6b220ee8/

Santiago Bernabeu :

"After Pele and Di Stefano, Karel Pesek(Kada) was the greatest footballer I have ever seen"

 

The Names Heard Long Ago: How the Golden Age of Hungarian (Jonathan Wilson)
Bela Guttmann, 1925 :

"Orth, Kalman Konrad, and Buchan above others"

 

Prof. Willy Schmieger, 1923 :

"Charlie Buchan, the ideal footballer"

 

https://www.spartaforever.cz/ukaz_clanek.php?clanek=489

"The famous Italian goalkeeper of Juventus Valinasso said that Braine is the best player he has ever seen in his life. After the final, both the journalists and the English referee Fogg (No English team has such a centre-forward as Braine, it is impossible to play football better than him) were not sparing."

 

1377669150756253699 is not a valid tweet id

Laszlo Kubala :

- The best?

"When they ask me that question I always answer the same. I don't want to take away merits from Di Stéfano, Pelé, Cruyff or Maradona. They have been monsters and deserve to be among the greatest, but for me, perhaps because I have seen him more closely, the best footballer has been Josef Bican. He's still alive. He is ninety years old and has been the best Austrian player in history, although he also played later with the Czech national team"

 

Osvaldo Garcia, 1948 :

“Was (Antonio) Sastre superior to (Jose Manuel) Moreno and (Giuseppe) Meazza? Yes. Sastre was considered the greatest Argentine attacker of all time. So much so that he was nicknamed “El Maestro.”

 

https://futbolfierrosytango.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/el-cuila-sastre-fue-mejor-que-maradona-y-pele/

Ernesto Duchini, 2005 :

For his part, the Argentine journalist Natalio Gorin (now deceased), who honored me with his friendship, decided to interview Ernesto Duchini when he began to collect testimonies for his book “Fútbol, Memorias de Medio Siglo”, which would be published in 2005. , already converted into a nonagenarian icon but in full lucidity and accredited for having witnessed and at the same time the protagonist of a fantastic history: that of Argentine soccer throughout the Twentieth century, begun in 1931 with the beginning of professionalism, on whose initial date he played defending the Chacarita Juniors jacket. Gorin unleashed the question: "Do you dare to name the three best players he saw in his life?" And Duchini did not hesitate for a second to give his answer:

1) Antonio Sastre 2) José Manuel Moreno 3) Diego Maradona.

And Don Ernesto explained, with his indestructible wisdom: «Why Sastre? Because he was a phenomenon wherever he played on the pitch: defense, midfield, forward. But not as a feature or something special. No. He was the first versatile player that Argentine soccer had, an advance who performed in almost all positions! »

 

Nota a Fioravanti... Olvidé el año, lo tendría que haber anotado pero supongo 1971/72
"El mejor jugador que vi fue el incomparable Arsenio Erico" pic.twitter.com/K7Dpjtwvai

— Guido (@JulioArguelles_) March 28, 2023

Note to Fioravanti, 1971/72

"The best player I saw was the incomparable Arsenio Erico"

 

A fines de los 60, para El Grafico, Alejandro Scopelli elige a los 15 MEJORES jugadores que vio.
El Chueco García
Nolo Ferreira
Moreno
Di Stéfano
Scarone🇺🇾
Erico🇵🇾
Pelé🇧🇷
Sindelar🇦🇹
Puskas🇭🇺
Sarosi🇭🇺
Kubala🇭🇺
Meazza🇮🇹
Law🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Eusebio🇵🇹
Matthews🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 pic.twitter.com/dRlHKhytWb

— Guido (@JulioArguelles_) March 4, 2023

Alejandro Scopelli, 15 Best Players He Has Seen :

Enrique Garcia
Manuel Ferreira
Jose Manuel Moreno
Alfredo Di Stefano
Hector Scarone
Arsenio Erico
Pele
Matthias Sindelar
Ferenc Puskas
Gyorgy Sarosi
Laszlo Kubala
Giuseppe Meazza
Denis Law
Eusebio
Stanley Matthews

 

https://gameofgoals.it/2021/07/29/hector-scarone-il-migliore-di-tutti-senza-la-televisione.html

"Of all the opponents I've met in 20 years of football, the only one who didn't let me sleep the night before matches was Héctor Scarone"

Luisito Monti

 

I can only notice that Scopelli has Puskas, Matthews, Di Stefano as his big 3. Interesting statement from someone who also played with Moreno for years