The January "World Soccer," has all of their 2003 awards. As people know by now, Nedved was their pick for player of the year. What I found interesting was their list going back to 1982, with the percentage of voted. Only Platini was able to win a majority of voters-and you can't really argue about how great 1984 was for him. Van Basten next comes closest with 43% Nedved took 35.9%, with Van Nistelrooy next at 9.5%, which is a pretty good consensus over the last few seasons. But the early-mid 90's period-no player really stood out. Any different opinions?
I got to give it to Baggio. Its hard cause I'm an anti-Juventus man but on a personal level Baggio is an inspiration to me. The following year he lead Italy to the finals in the World Cup; seeing him in his prime made those few soccer seasons absolutley amazing.
It's amazing that Maradona got only 36% (specially since Owens got 31% & Rivaldo 42%) Maradona almost single handlely won WC86 and gave Napoli its 1st "scudetto", the 1st one for a team from Southern Italy. Besides, they also won "Italy Cup" without losing one game. What else did they want him to do?
The percentages shouldn't be taken as a direct indicator of the calibre of a player's season. Often the relative quality of other players, as well as trends among journalists, can distribute the vote larger or smaller year to year, when the level of player really hasn't necessarily improved.
World Soccer is a British magazine so I would think the fact that Lineker was top scorer at the WC might have gained him a fair number of votes, while the Hand of God may have biased alot of people against Maradona.