This game from Rivera deserves a praise as he was the protagonist of the historical win in Wembley (Italy's first ever)!
this is one of the best playmaking performances i've ever seen from Totti. rated 8.5 by La Stampa (!!!) without scoring goals
I happened to see a video of Thuram against Perugia in the 1996/97 season, a game of absolute dominance and watching the entire match is even more impressive. Gazzetta dello sport gives him a 7.5 in the report card and writes: "The defender's manual offers another lesson." Guerin Sportivo instead gives him a 7, too little in my opinion. Another one from Thuram is against Juventus, 1996/97 season. A real wall. La Gazzetta, which gave him 7.5, wrote: "The usual pillar, practically unbeatable on high balls and difficult to overcome in speed. He also staged a great offensive action which was only foiled by Peruzzi."
False 9 Neymar without Messi vs Real Valladolid 13/14 (H) pic.twitter.com/zCzL7ttS9F— . (@painnshow) December 2, 2024 Cowardice lol looks like a professional against an under-15 team
Stats in the best 5 games available collected by @zizouretro and @OroRogerio on X The term "best" is obviously completely subjective and is based on the rating below Goals 0.55 Assists 0.35 BC Created 0.45 BC Missed -0.35 Touches 0.009 Key Passes 0.07 Shots OnT 0.03 Dribbles *% success*0.05 Duels Won 0.05 Prog Carriers 0.05 Def Actions 0.04 Poss Lost -0.01 The 5 games: Maradona: San Lorenzo 81/Bayern 89/Belgium 86/Ecuador 87/Boca 80 Pelé: TSV Munich 60/Racing 60/Mexico 62/France 63/Bulgaria 66 Puskas: Frankfurt 60/England 53/Juventus 62/Benfica 62/Nice 60 ADS: Frankfurt 60/France 58/Germany 58/Nice 60/Wiener SC 59 Cruyff: Real Madrid 74/Bulgaria 74/Sweden 74/Bayern 73/Indepiedente 72 Garrincha: England 62/Chile 62/Mexico 62/Spain 62/Sweden 58 Eusébio: Feyenoord 63/Hungary 66/Bulgaria 66/Brazil 66/NK 66 Matthews: Bolton 53/Hungary 53/ROTW 53/W Germany 54/Brazil 56 Best: Benfica 68/RM 68/
Stats Per90 in the Best 6 games (available) Stats Per90 in the Best 3 games The order is based on a rating I created where: Acc Pass: 0.1pts Dribbles: 1pt Shot onT: 1pt Key Pass: 1pt Tackle: 1pt Poss Lost: -0.2 pts
I saw now that Eric Batty also picked out the 1958 European Cup Final for a Di Stefano performance: 8-15-1960.pdf
I thought it would be a good call to give some kudos to @CristianoPuskas for recent 'great game' compilation footage uploaded for various players that may be rare or original in terms of Youtube uploading (there are maybe some on the channel that were visible or partially visible before, such as Savicevic vs Sampdoria 1993/94 or Bergkamp vs AC Milan for example which are still nice to have on the channel, but you're getting various less obvious but excellent choices on there I see mate anyway), and additionally to @vyncy while I'm at it (by attaching some match rating summaries for the games, as on DBS Calcio - derived from Gazzetta dello Sport and Guerin Sportivo grades in these examples I think): Francesco Totti vs Fiorentina 1997/98 (match grade on DBS Calcio - 8 - MOTM) Match Formations Roma-Fiorentina 4-1 Serie A 97-98 23' Giornata - YouTube Ruud Gullit vs Roma (away) 1992/93 (match grade on DBS Calcio - 7.5 - MOTM) Match Formations AS Roma 0-1 Milan - Campionato 1992/93 Attaching match summaries for the Savicevic and Bergkamp uploads I mentioned too while I'm at it (judging by Twitter posts I think Bergkamp vs Barcelona 1999/2000 is another one that will appear there, among a lot of others quite soon probably) Match Formations Match Formations On the Youtube channel are excellent performances of players in other games outside of Serie A obviously too, such as these: Roberto Donadoni vs West Germany Euro 88 Pep Guardiola vs Monaco 1993/94 Champions League
A bit off-topic (or maybe let's say "preliminary" to this discussion). That number of dribbles be considered a key aspect to identify great players and great performances, I find it questionable and even a bit funny. I mean, in the good ole days a player that indulged too much in dribbles would be always criticized. Even in my personal case I experienced that, when I was a child and played in the team of the small town I grew up in, the "manager" (let's use this term for the sake of simplicity) would always reprimand the boys that attempted too many dribbles. There is even a precise (derogatory) word to term them in the informal football jargon of Italian language for the players that tend to abuse of dribbling: "veneziano" (literally, veneziano is the inhabitant of Venice; in fact in popular proverbs, venetians are described as stubborn and unwilling to collaborate, pretentiously claiming they can do everything single handedly). More seriously, I think that it often happens that insisted dribbling, even if the rate of success is high, leads players to find themselves in a sterile "cul de sac". As always, it is necessary to watch the real thing to understand whether some particular great dribbler is truly an effective player for his team and not only for his stats.
OPTA is about to completely rub out the legacies of certain players People here crying about fair and unfair need to realise that nobody really knew what a completed dribble was until OPTA told them exactly what It was Completed dribbles was most likely always a vague and subjective concept prior to this When OPTA defined it as dribbling past a player while still retaining possession everybody followed suit and nobody complained It will be interesting to see which player takes the biggest hit Eden Hazards dribbles in WC 18 was apparently more than halved and that was prime Hazard. Mane Garrincha does not survive on this planet without his dribbles OPTA needs to finally get around to calculating his completed dribbles in WC 62 once and for all.
I understand what you mean, and I think it's not really possible to use stats to determine great dribbling (and/or intelligent use of dribbling) even if the success rates can say something (as we've seen OPTA have varied their criteria for a 'dribble' anyway though). On the other hand dribbling, while it can lead to loss of possession, and sometimes loss of opportunity (by not making a pass earlier for example), it can also result in openings, overlaps and suchlike that can lead to goals and chances created, and dribbling to keep possession can also be useful at times. I think the Donadoni dribbling vs West Germany is generally very good and positive for the Italian team in that 1988 Euros game, and he makes some very good passes and crosses during the game too.
Yes, sure. Dribble can be a very valuable game opener when not abused. Indeed in Italy lately we have often heard pundits complaining that for some obscure reason we stopped producing players able to "leapfrog the man", and this is one cause for the decline of our NT. But again, as you stressed yourself, crude numbers are not enough to tell.
@PDG1978 John Barnes vs Newcastle (A) 1987/88 pic.twitter.com/KzkCClTSGm— GDon (@gdonlfc) September 11, 2025
Yeah, that's a good one from a full Sunday afternoon live game, where Match magazine gave him a 9 (remembering that English publications are more generous than Italian ones, and actually they gave Nicol a 10 too): I see he added this one from later in the season, with Barnes playing in a more central role: GDon on X: "John Barnes vs Chelsea (A) 1987/88 Top 3 player in the world [Cut from 60mins] https://t.co/iKTyCp1W1I" / X Match gave him an 8 there, but top-rated Liverpool player: Another one from the first part of the season: (9 from Match) And I can't really leave out this one from later in the season again, vs Forest, after which Tom Finney praised Liverpool's team a lot and Barnes in particular I think (or he praised Barnes in particular in general around that time and/or a bit later): (9 from Match, although Beardsley got 10 and Forest's goalkeeper a 9 while conceding 5!) Maybe I prefer to focus on this game here a little earlier (2-1 to Forest, Crosby, a Forest winger, 'MOTM' that time) https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/p...ivision-ratings.2037606/page-21#post-40632001 (2nd April, towards the bottom end of that post) Although they had an FA Cup semi-final between them in the middle of the league games in the same month too, and Barnes again had a star rating and delivered a key/'clutch' assist: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/p...ivision-ratings.2037606/page-21#post-40632004 (9th of April, close to the top) Strange to think he didn't star in the Euros in the summer after that season maybe (maybe he was a bit tired by then, maybe he got less of the ball and Intl football is/was a bit different, although he had his moments in an England shirt like in the Maracana or with the 1986 World Cup assist vs Argentina).
@carlito86 and anyone else: a reminder/update on enlarging those Match magazine pages - right click and go via 'More Tools' to select 'Magnify Image'.
I think this display by Steve McManaman fits the thread well too, in a big game in terms of domestic competition at least also: DBS Calcio's source (The Independent and/or Daily Express it seems) gave him an 8 for it among eight games with that grade overall for him in 95/96 PL, though with six of his performances given a 9 too. I think, to be fair, if Florian Wirth ends up having been a better Liverpool player than McManaman was (in a similar role it seems in effect, albeit in a different system), then he'll have played very well indeed for them over the next seasons.
I checked, and neither I nor anyone else had posted this one from that same season, by Georgi Kinkladze (DBS Calcio's source gives him a 9 for it, among a few others with some 8s too, but his overall average for the season being a bit below McManaman's - I remember Liverpool were interested to buy him after 1995/96 though so it'd have been interesting to see how they'd have been fitted together in a Liverpool line-up in theory at that time): I'd assume Kinkladze's performance above, and could guess maybe the McManaman one vs Man Utd too (for what it's worth the GameofGoals rater did give him MOTM - they have started a Liverpool vs Man Utd series on there as well as a Barcelona vs Real Madrid one, I can say for anyone who didn't realise that yet) would be among the ones in the SR column here (Star Rating - top pick for his team in any particular game I think basically) from Match Magazine too - I show Happie's post also just to indicate it seems like Match might have under-calculated slightly Klnkladze's 1995/96 league games average because adding a small number of cup games in wouldn't elevate it very much...but anyway it'd still be below McManaman's league game average with Match too surely) 20211018_200604-jpg.204888 (933×1920) 20211018_200553-jpg.204886 (933×1920) https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/premier-league-first-division-ratings.2037606/page-6#post-40013231 https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/p...ivision-ratings.2037606/page-46#post-42756242 Miscellaneous Player Rankings (DBS Calcio 1995/96 Premier League ratings) dbscalcio.it/match_details.php?player_id=26516&season_year=1995%2F96 (McManaman's game by game) dbscalcio.it/match_details.php?player_id=29719&season_year=1995%2F96 (Kinkladze's game by game)