Pires and Overmars might make the list of best-ever from, say, the past decade. That's not unreasonable. But Viera? His strength is not in the attack.
Greatest ever soccer player: #10 Pele. The #10 position is no longer a forward, but an attacking midfielder!
You're right ... Viera is a very good defensive midfielder with decent offensive skills. Those players are hard to find. Lampard and Deco are other good examples. There are so many better attacking midfielders in the past decade than Pires and Overmars. Rivaldo, Baggio, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Nevdev, etc ...
including Robert Pires as an option in the poll would belittle the majesty of the players currently given as options. Robert Pires is a great player, but i'd say he's just somewhere in the top 5 in the current Premiership among attacking midfield players. he is very good, but nowhere near the quality of the legnds whose names are in the poll in its current state. HOLLA
Where did I say that Platini was close to Maradona in terms of ability or that Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Zidane aren't rated as one of the greats. You're the one who is accusing me of being a moron and you're the one who is trying to be an expert. Look at yourself first, then say something to me. When the poll results are assessed, there are lots of people who are voting for recent players and their knowledge of players like Zico and Cryuff is limited or non-existant. They think guys like Zidane are the greatest but he really is the only great player that they have seen. Seriously, for someone to say that there are people who are underrating Zidane, that truely is moronic. Jun Jun? Hello? Climax, I seriously question the merit of your response, accusing me like that. Don't you know about these people who think Ronaldo this, Zidane that and they don't know anything about Maradona and other greats? Not only that, these degenerates' knowledge of football would only be of five years worth. I voted for Platini because I knew that Maradona will get lots of votes, a killing actually and that Di Stefano and Zidane would get a fair bit as well, so I voted for a player who would be considered a personal favourite although that it's not part of the criteria and one who wouldn't get many votes, to make things a bit different. And for your last quote, there are people doing it vice versa.
In fairness though Cafu is a worthy winner. I myself voted for Djalma Santos but at times I feel wonder if his position as the candidate the furthest ahead of all rivals is truly merited. Of his 2 World Cup glories, he was as much a part of the 1958 victory as Cafu was in 1994, both only played in the final (Cafu admittedly as a sub). Cafu has 2 World Cups, 2 Copa Americas, 2 Copa Libertadores, 2 Intercontinental Cups (won against Cruyff's dream team, and the great Milan). He is the only man to have ever played in 3 world cup finals, has been an unqualified success in both S America and Europe, has 133 caps and is still one of the best players in his position in the world. I know that distance lends glamour, but there can be few complaints if Cafu ends up as the winner.
Cafu stands out because now (and in general through the history of the game) right back has probably been the weakest position on the pitch in terms of true stars. Don't get me wrong, Cafu is a great player (I would probably have him top 5) and it would not be a total disaster if he won a poll like this - my reasoning behind my previous comment was more for the size of the lead he has (42% of the vote) which is certainly not justified over the likes of Djalma Santos and Vogts.
exactly, no reason to say some people should not think him the best, but his overwhelming lead suggests that it was not even close when in fact, there may have been others on his level or close to him - the flaw in the poll is that the majority of responses will come from those who've never seen the greats play.
Maybe still active players should be excluded from the poll as they are unfairly advantaged. Bit similar to radio stations asking their listeners what the greatest songs of all-time are, usually a recent hit takes the no. 1 position spoiling it all.
That would not properly control for bias in the results as it would put excessive arbitrary weights in favor of players not actively playing anymore. Something like this may be done (not given too much thought on this though): Each voter should stratify the contenders into footage seen (enough to form an unbiased assessment) and footage not seen. Then they would vote for the player they think is the best from the list of players they have actually seen footage of. Now weights for each contender can be calculated based on votes received/footage seen and results interpreted in whatever way the conductor of the poll decides.