Interesting stuff regardless. The next season Rijkaard won the Guerin d'Oro ('suddenly' overtaking Baresi in the aggregated ranking) in the unbeaten season and it will be interesting to see that developing too. https://football-ratings.blogspot.com/search?q=serie+a+1991 https://football-ratings.blogspot.com/2013/02/today-21-years-ago-top-rated-players.html
Yeah, it’s good stuff. Krokko may update some of his information regarding Gazzetta and their ratings. Probably more information is missing from those Gazzetta seasons but it’s understandable that he went with the top choices.
What does it say at the end of 1987-88? Might well be they made a typo in 1989, or omitted the defenders. The grades for Mancini and Gullit are the same as in the Krokko link.
Some players must be missing, like the (6,64) of Maradona in 1987-88. There probably is more cases like that but it may be few.
Having looked at the highlights, the 7.5 certainly looks suspicious. If the idea is: without Baresi they might have lost more heavily (what's Milan's record without Baresi? goals for and against, wins and losses), I can see, but it was far from flawless, losing 1-0 down, and walking off the field as the captain should count against this high grade. He's the best defender of his era but this just isn't right. There isn't a compilation for him on YouTube but Abedi Pele, Gullit and Rijkaard's performances are. Having scanned through it, the 7 for Abedi looks about right, maybe it even deserves more. (very nice piece of trickery at 1:05)
There seems to be an inclination of favorable reviews of the Italian tabloids for Franco Baresi and he’s ultimately viewed overall as the top AC Milan player of his era. There is a consistent trend of him being classified for years now in the top ranked positions in libero. Speaking of defenders, we’ve seen that Paolo Maldini really started to receive favorable reviews starting from 1990-91 season.
Yeah the public polls and vote among coaches/captains don't show Baresi so high in most of them but that's natural for defensive players. PDG commented too Matthaus receives better grades than his reputation (where the public and coaches placed him), and then when he finally was 'world player of the year' his grades start to show a downward trend. Noticed too how Maldini was rated underwhelming until the 1991 year, despite him already doing fine before that I'd say. He had been 'all star' material in two tournaments until then. Thanks anyway and I log off for today
It’s an alarming grade of a 3 for Ruud Gullit after he cynically applauded the referee and was sent off. I’m not sure if I ever saw a grade like that for a major star player published by the top 4 major sources. Corriere dello Sport is from Rome.
After the 19th round, Maradona had equaled a record of scoring in 6 consecutive league matches that hadn’t been done since 1975-76 by Graziani.
Corriere dello Sport (February 1988) On a side note, previously I had mentioned how Gianluca Vialli was very hyped up prior to Euro 1988 and the newspaper has made a comparison with a former Italian legend, Riva. In the other note, the top two goalkeepers in the world, Zenga and Dasaev, were also compared.
Corriere dello Sport During 1987-88 Napoli had formed a feared frontline, the strongest in the league, and one that was being considered on its way to legendary for its famous “MaGiCa”, in reference to the trio of Maradona-Giordano-Careca. In the late 1940s the Italian league boasted of a legendary trio known as “GreNoLi”, in reference to Green-Nordahl-Liedholm. By 1988 both were being compared. For Nordahl himself, Maradona was as great as Green-Liedholm put together, ending the debate. But for Liedholm, football was harder in his days, the pitches impossible, and his trio probably the strongest to ever play on Italian fields. This is his ideal Italian team and overall team of all-time including foreigners:
Which just shows how biased those papers are. He applauds the referee in the 9th minute (without saying anything) and gets send off. Baresi walks off the field as captain and gets a 7.5. Not to mention Gullit his suspicion about referees under the influence of Moggi was later proven right.
Those are Liedholm's teams you mean mate? I remember you'd shown his idea of his best XI from his time as player, and best XI from his time as manager, or something like that (maybe from 1987). Some interesting things here would be he selects Swift for overall team (are you sure Italians aren't excluded from that one btw?), but not Meazza in the Italian one (thinking about when they both played) or Piola who he'd named previously in some selection I vaguely recall too, and the selection of Annovazzi! Is it made clear which Mazzola he picked sorry?
Liedholm in 1984: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/ol...-esp-1950s-1970s.2038892/page-9#post-37984848
Thanks, yes that is probably what I was thinking of re: Piola, and there it is Sandro Mazzola he chose (I'll see what Vegan answers about Sandro/Valentino for the Italian selection of 1988 although maybe you even spotted that one yourself if it's visible somewhere). I'll find the other post Vegan made that I referred to about Liedholm's selections, and quote that here in a minute!
There is a lot of overlap with what we are talking about on the All-Time XI thread, all of a sudden, re: Liedholm's teams! Discussion about #4 (or #6), #8 and #10 for example, and the placing of a Cruyff (can apply to Di Stefano too maybe) as nominally a number 9 centre-forward (with likely a much more involved role envisaged)! Interestingly the paper shows his teams in 1988 in basically a 4-2-3-1 with sweeper, but it's not 100% clear if he drew the formations or they made their own I think, and he seems to pick the number 4 or 6 more as the holding player and number 8 more as the attacking playmaker indeed. Annovazzi fits that too it seems; he was Liedholm's team-mate at AC Milan, so not an older Italian legend that had impressed him, or a Juventus player (like Parola, selected in his 'team from his playing days' worldwide selection of 1987 but not his all-time Italy in 1988): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Annovazzi Maybe there aren't too many contradictions or changes of mind, but potentially Riva getting in ahead of Piola in the striker position seems one given him putting Piola top of his list of Italian players overall previously.
He did change preference from Didi to Schiaffino seemingly, unless somehow he saw Didi as better fitting with Finney and Schiaffino better with Loustau (considered ineligible for his 'playing days' selection I guess, otherwise there was a change from Finney to him too) in such a team and selected on that basis (which is doubtful probably I think). Re: what we were saying about Cruyff on the other thread also, it does seem Liedholm might not have considered players for roles they didn't mainly/typically play (so didn't shoe-horn him in at left wing indeed in his all-time 1988 one, or in the central midfield #8 role for example). We can't be sure he's just not preferring others to him or Maradona for example though I suppose, and might have been prepared to do that kind of thing.