First of all, Italian football being boring is based on taste, most people are so hell bent and stuck on getting enjoyment out of goals and tricks purely, that they are just not able to appreciate or respect the art of defensive football. It is just as important as attacking, each requires different things naturally, you can't fault or critique based on your preference. It is very silly.
Gregoriak, I do not consider Muller to be grossly deficient in technique. While he is not a technical monster, he is definitely well above average. I have witnessed Muller’s 1-2s with Beckenbauer that you mentioned and enjoyed them fairly. However, we are not comparing Muller to any ordinary player here; we are comparing him with pre-injury Ronaldo. Muller, like most footballers (attackers) from past and present, has nothing over pre-injury Ronaldo. If I was comparing post-injury Ronaldo with the pre-injury version, I would probably say the same things about him as I said about Muller: limited, confined etc. These terms are all used relatively. Sure Ronaldo can still dribble past 3-4 players and score, sure he can run from midfield with great pace, sure his 1-2s with Rivaldo and Zidane have helped break down the strongest of defenses just like his 1-2s with Romario before, sure he can maintain a great scoring average every year, sure he can score braces and hat-tricks and win cups and leagues for his teams. But he is much more ‘limited’ compared to what he was before. He cannot bulldoze opponents every time he receives the ball, he is not absolutely uncontrollable, he is a lot more dependent on his teammates than before, he would much rather lay the ball off to a teammate when confronted by two or three defenders, whereas, in the past he would not care how many defenders were on him. He would take them all on at the same time. One needs to only look at his videos to appreciate this. The pre-injury Ronaldo was special. Contrary to what Spartak suggested, I feel that any rational coach would take pre-injury Ronaldo ahead of Muller and most other players in history (look at all the advantages of having him in the team and not just goals…for e.g., the creativity side and most of the offensive aspect could be handled by Ronaldo alone…management could, therefore, focus on concentrating their limited resources on strengthening the other aspects of the team). As far as I am concerned, only Pele, Maradona at his best and pre-injury Ronaldo would make it to every conceivable (male) football team on earth.
I never knew Italian NT were regarded as evil. I just think that they are boring because they just sit back and defend but do not create anything. They often try to eke out matches 1-0 (as you said, stereotypical). They did have their share of brutal defenders who have caused bodily harm to creative players, but Italians are not nearly as 'evil' as some of the teams I know.
That is your fundamental problem. You cannot cherry pick what Ronaldo you want to look at to suit your point. He's had serious injuries and that has limited what he can do. You cannot conveniently forget about that fact when making comparisons and engaging in this discussion. We are discussing the greatest ever striker and that involves their entire career, not just a few selected highlights.
there is a good reason to mention müllers second goal from time to time....there are still posters in forums where believe the questionable penalty for germany was one of the reason germany won the final against netherland..what is complete nonsens... a other point is that not many players get a chance to play a worldcup final and score multible goals...müllers second goal was not affected of anything questionable ..he was 2 meters onside, period.......scoring 2 goals in a worldcup final against one of the strongest worldcup teams teams ever means more than scoring 1 goal..and the whole action,nice pass and scoring a goal with a volley was good football too....
The reason choosing the ‘peak’ of a successful player that lasted at least two years (so that the player got to participate in at least one important international competition) to measure greatness seems more valid to me than basing opinion on the entire career: If you are looking at the whole career you are essentially judging based on stats (ratios) and achievements only. There is no way to control for the bias in favor of players with shorter careers. Players who curtail their careers because of injury would be exempt of difficulties players like Ronaldo had to champion in order to climb to the summit again. It is safe to state that the stats and performances of these players would have deteriorated during the years spent struggling to get back from injury. Moreover, players that prolong their careers beyond their best years are also at a disadvantage compared to those who choose to end on a high. It is not possible to meaningfully compare career-wise players having 10-year careers with those having 20-year careers. It is also not possible to arbitrarily assign a fixed number of years from a career for comparison, such as 20-29 yrs in everybody’s career. This is because some players might have reached their peak later (e.g., Milla, Ailton) while others earlier (Pele, Ronaldo). If one is comparing the entire career, how can one justify choosing Maradona over Zidane. Zidane has had a far more successful career than Maradona. Maradona was a useless fagot in the 1990s and yet, continued playing that way for 5-6 years. He was in an absolute mess with poor performances on the field, drug addiction off it, having been banned from football three times. He also had three poor World Cups (by his standards) compared to one magical one. People never judge Maradona based on his entire career but only his peak. It absolutely makes sense to me. The fat, dopey Maradona was far worse than the current ‘old’ Zidane and if I judged based on entire career, I would easily choose Zidane ahead of Maradona. But I know, at their respective peaks, Maradona would utterly trounce Zidane. So if all the others are judged based on peak, why would Ronaldo be an exception? When Ronaldo is retired, people will remember him for his peak, just the way Maradona is remembered as the magician from 1986 and not the fat, useless joke of a player from the 1990s. PS: I am referring to successful players only and therefore, stats, achievements etc. are considered in selecting 'successful' players.
Gentile was the most brutal of all Italian defenders. Italy do create play at times but only in little sequences and the matches do get tedious to watch so the good bits are easily forgotten. In between Mexico 70 and West Germany 74, it was believed that catenaccio was going to destroy the world game until the Dutch came with Total Football but in a way, this is a bit of an English perspective. Kaushik, who do you consider to be more evil?
I voted for Eusebio. Here's his stats courtesy of Gregoriak: EUSEBIO Born: 25 January 1942 in Lourenco Marques/Mozambique. Nickname: Pantera Negra Position: Centre forward. Caps: Portugal 64 (1961-1973) / 41 goals League Games: Portugal 313 (1960-1975 & 1976-77) / 319 goals USA 25 (1975-1977) / 4 goals Canada 25 (1976) / 18 goals Mexico 10 (1975-76) / 1 goal European Cup Games: 76 (1961-1975) / 57 goals European Footballer of the Year: 1962 (2nd), 1963 (5th), 1964 (4th), 1965 (winner), 1966 (2nd), 1967 (5th), 1968 (8th), 1973 (7th) Trophies & Tournaments: World Cup: 1966 (3rd) European Champions Cup: 1962 (winner), 1963 (2nd), 1965 (2nd), 1968 (2nd) Portuguese Champion: 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 Portuguese runner-up: 1966, 1970, 1974 Portuguese Cup winner: 1962, 1964, 1969, 1970*, 1972 Portuguese Cup finalist: 1965, 1971, 1974, 1975 Mexican Champion: 1976 US Champion (NASL): 1976 Top League Goal Scorer: 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1973 * did not participate in final Season - Club - Games – Goals – [Caps / Goals] 1960/61 Benfica Lisboa.............01 / 00 1961/62 Benfica Lisboa.............17 / 12 [ 5 / 2 ] 1962/63 Benfica Lisboa.............24 / 23 [ 3 / 1 ] 1963/64 Benfica Lisboa.............19 / 28 [ 5 / 2 ] 1964/65 Benfica Lisboa.............20 / 28 [ 6 / 9 ] 1965/66 Benfica Lisboa.............23 / 25 [13 /12] 1966/67 Benfica Lisboa.............26 / 31 [ 4 / 3 ] 1967/68 Benfica Lisboa.............24 / 42 [ 3 / 0 ] 1968/69 Benfica Lisboa.............21 / 10 [ 4 / 2 ] 1969/70 Benfica Lisboa.............22 / 20 [ 2 / 1 ] 1970/71 Benfica Lisboa............ 22 / 19 [ 4 / 2 ] 1971/72 Benfica Lisboa............ 24 / 19 [11/ 4 ] 1972/73 Benfica Lisboa............ 28 / 40 [ 1 / 0 ] 1973/74 Benfica Lisboa............ 21 / 16 1974/75 Benfica Lisboa.............09 / 02 1975.... Rhode Island Oceaners..Regional 1975.... Boston Minutemen........08 / 02 1975/76 CF Monterrey..............10 / 01 1976.... Toronto Metros Croatia.25 / 18 1976/77 SC Beira Mar Aveira......12 / 03 1977.... Las Vegas Quicksilver....17 / 02 1977.... Uniao de Tomar............Second League 1977/78 New Jersey Americans...Regional https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=141775&highlight=eusebio
Looking at the entire career of a player does not mean we ignore the performances made at their peak. The point being that unless you look at and compare everything, then any decision you make will not be based on all of the available data and will therefore be inaccurate.