The place of the best soccer players in the history of sport

This thread might be good to get some ideas from:
Pele vs. Michael Jordan | BigSoccer Forum

 

This page seems to give an educated run-down of top Ice Hockey players I noticed too (just one perspective though obviously)
Ranking the Top 10 NHL Hockey Players of All Time | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors | Bleacher Report

 

Wilt and Pelé are the greatest

 

Sugar Ray Robinson had more professional wins(179) then Mohammed Ali,Mike Tyson and Floyd mayweather had combined professional fights in their careers(169)

Pound for pound he is completely out of reach for anyone in his sport
He is likely the best fighter who ever lived
https://www.boxingdaily.com/boxing-legends/sugar-ray-robinson/


For some perspective
Floyd mayweathers career record is 51fights/51 wins/27 knockouts

in his peak sugar Ray went 126 fights with 1 loss and 84 knockouts

He would murder any fighter in his division today
Only few guys would stand a remote chance at going the distance(probably roberto Duran and the definitely the late Marvin hagler)

 

Annual tennis rankings appear to begin around 1912. List below includes only undisputed number one men's players at the end of the calendar year. Where there is doubt between two or more players they are excluded. Most years as undisputed number one:

7 - Djokovic
6 - Tilden, Gonzales, Sampras
5 - Laver, Federer
4 - Budge, Riggs, Kramer, Nadal
3 - Cochet, Rosewall, Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl

Half these men are American.

Up until the 1960s Bill Tilden was probably most widely considered the best ever, followed by Budge. Subsequently Laver, Borg and Sampras all had their advocates, before the twenty-first century debate centred around Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.

 

@elegos7 is an expert on tennis history. It would be worth asking his opinion.

 

This is a complex area. Concentrating purely on running, there are sprinters (100m, 200m, 400m), middle-distance runners (800m, 1500m, 3000m) and long-distance runners (5000m, 10000m, Marathon, and formerly Cross-country which was up to 12000m).

The Olympic Games has been held every four years since 1896 except during wartime and a pandemic. So counting individual Olympic gold medals seems a reasonably fair way of judging athletes over time. Leaders in individual running events (excluding hurdles) as follows:

Sprinters

6 - Bolt
4 - Lewis

Middle-Distance

3 - Snell

Long-Distance

5 - Nurmi (plus 1 middle-distance Gold)
4 - Kolehmainen, Zatopek, Viren, Farah

Three of the five Long-Distance runners were Finnish.

In 1983 the World Athletic Championships were established. The initial plan was for them to take place every four years, but from the 1990s they occurred every two years, allowing more opportunities for medals. Combining individual gold medals won in running events at these championships with those at the Olympics, the leaders since 1983 are:

Sprinters

13 - Bolt
9 - Michael Johnson
7 - Lewis

Middle-Distance

6 - El Guerrouj
4 - Kiprop, Morceli, Rudisha

Long-Distance

10 - Farah
8 - Bekele
6 - Gebrselassie

The Finns and Zatopek of course were running long before there were any World Championships, as was Snell.

An even more recent elite competition is the World Marathon Majors, dating from 2006. Runners complete a series of Marathon races, collecting points that are totted up at the end of the season to decide the champion. In the 13 seasons so far, Eliud Kipchoge has been champion four times, twice more than anyone else.

It is worth noting that, in addition to his sprinting, Carl Lewis was an elite long-jumper who collected four gold medals in this discipline at the Olympics and two more at the World Championships.

 

The most popular sport in England during the second half of the nineteenth century was cricket. Football overtook during the early years of the twentieth, but the two games were not really in competition. Seasons were clearly defined with no football during the summer.

A hundred years ago English newspapers were not particularly interested in comparing individual footballers. The team was more important. It was different with cricket. Comparisons between cricketers past and present had long been popular, spiced by the statistical nature of the game.

The International Cricket Council compiles statistical ratings of individual players, which it updates after every match. In Test cricket, the longest and longest-established form of the game, the retrospective ratings begin in 1882. That was five years after the first Test match, when data is deemed sufficient to produce a proper rating. Viewing the highest ranked Test batsman and bowler on 31 December of each year when at least one match was completed, the following batsmen feature most often:

Batsmen

12 - Sobers
11 - Hobbs
10 - Bradman
7 - Clem Hill
6 - Viv Richards
5 - Hutton

Hill's reputation does not quite match those of the others. He was top for seven years out of eight between 1902 and 1909.

Before Test matches began in 1877 high-class cricket was confined to England. When taking into account pre-international first-class cricket, as well as the five years before the ICC rankings start, another name joins the batting list above.

A glance at the seasons' averages confirms that WG Grace was the leading batsman, usually by some distance, for ten consecutive seasons between 1868 and 1877, then again in 1879 and 1880. At the time the ICC rankings start he is 34 years old, but still manages to head the list on four occasions. His last year on top is 1897 at the age of 49. That would give Grace 16 years as top-ranked batsman.

Around the middle of the twentieth century, the consensus among cricket historians was that Grace, Hobbs and Bradman were the greatest batsmen to have played the game. There was no agreement on the order. Bradman retired in 1949 when his reputation was not quite as high as it would later become. There were still mutterings, even in his native Australia, about weaknesses against fast bowling and on rain-affected pitches. Too many of his runs, some argued, came in favourable conditions. This ignored the fact that nobody else scored nearly as many.

During the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, a broadening of talent across the Commonwealth brought other names into the discussion: Sobers, Viv Richards and Lara from West Indies; Barry Richards from South Africa; and Sachin Tendulkar the idol of India. Such was the competition that Lara and Tendulkar only headed the ICC year-end Test rankings on three occasions apiece.

The bowlers leading the rankings most often since 1882 are shown below:

Bowlers

6 - Briggs, Grimmett
5 - Trumble, Tate, Gibbs, Underwood, McGrath, Steyn

As with the batsmen, competition has sharpened over time. But this list is not as accurate a reflection of perceived all-time standing. Only the two most recent of these bowlers, McGrath and Steyn, are universally considered great bowlers rather than good ones.

Others who have featured in discussions about the all-time best, (with number of year-ends at the top of the ICC Test rankings in brackets), include Spofforth (3 probably increasing to 5 when adding pre-1882), Barnes (4), O'Reilly (3), Lindwall (3), Lillee (3), Hadlee (4), Marshall (3), Ambrose (2), Wasim Akram (0), Warne (3) and Muralitharan (4). Several of these later bowlers were contemporaries competing with each other.

The discussion could be taken further but this is probably not the place for it.

 

MJ's case as the basketball GOAT. Strictly performance and impact, and nothing to do with achievements and off-court stuff:

 

The thread that PDG linked includes some interesting discussion on this.

One possibility would be to try and identify just one player from each sport, then place the sports in some kind of order of importance in terms of history, global reach, number of participants/followers etc. Perspective varies enormously depending on where in the world you live.

Even then there will be contradictions. Football may be the world's most popular game, but a great footballer in a moderate team will not win much and his precise impact as an individual is not easy to measure.

 

The Ring magazine is among the most respected authorities on boxing history. To mark its hundredth anniversary earlier this year, it published its hundred greatest boxers, all weight divisions combined. Link to Top 10 below. There is a lot of statistical analysis.

Robinson is number one, Joe Louis second and Ali third. On a previous occasion the magazine claimed that Louis and Ali were easily the greatest heavyweights, with little to separate them. This is supported by the length of time they were lineal champions (having beaten the previous champion). Louis was at the top for 11 years and 8 months, and Ali, combining three reigns, for 10 years. Next is Jack Dempsey with 7 years and 2 months.

As far as recent fighters are concerned, The Ring places Mayweather sixth and lists Pacquiao in ninth place.

https://www.ringtv.com/634945-to-be...ers-in-the-history-of-the-ring-rankings-10-1/

 

I need to look at it properly but i think Jonah lomu was one of the youngest ever winners of the BBC World Sport Star of the Year award
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Sports_Personality_World_Sport_Star_of_the_Year

He won it at the age of 20 years old in 1995 for almost singlehandedly propelling new Zealand to the final of the 1995 world cup losing to winners South Africa


1:07
Goosebumps





Even younger then boxing ATG Mike Tyson who won it at 21-22 years old in 1989



Some winners of this prestigious award from the world of football include Eusebio(1966),Pele(1970),Ronaldo nazario(2002) and Cristiano Ronaldo(2014)

EDIT
It seems Boris becker(tennis)was younger then Lomu winning the award at 17 years old for his triumph at Wimbledon but it also seems this award ( historically at least) has shown a blatant bias towards tennis players(Wimbledon winners specifically)

I dont understand the English obsession with Wimbledon but that is a different discussion altogether

 

I assume it's because it's the Grand Slam hosted in England?

 

The close ties between Wimbledon and the BBC go back a long way. Link below.

For a long time, the only access to tennis for a large proportion of the British population was BBC coverage of Wimbledon for a couple of weeks in the summer. Suddenly public tennis courts all over the country would be full, only to empty again soon afterwards.

Wimbledon's "unique" qualities were emphasised on radio and television: oldest Grand Slam tournament; only one on grass, etc. The shortage of British winners did little to dampen enthusiasm.

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/wimbledon-and-the-bbc/

 

The three most prestigious individual Golf tournaments are the Masters, British Open and US Open.

Most wins combining all three:

13 - Nicklaus
11 - Woods
8 - Watson
7 - Hogan, Jones, Palmer, Player, Vardon

Adding the slightly less prestigious fourth Major, the PGA Championship, the wins appear as follows:

18 - Nicklaus
15 - Woods
11 - Hagen
9 - Hogan, Player
8 - Watson
7 - Jones, Palmer, Sarazen, Snead, Vardon

 

I think tiger had the steepest decline of any world wide superstar at his peak

Between 1997 and 2008 he averaged 1 major per year

Between 2009 and 2022 he has literally won one major championship
Even if you take into consideration time spent on the operating table and recovery it is still a shocking statistic

Before the cheating scandal that rocked his career you would've bet your house and life savings on tiger overtaking Nicklaus

Some would say this was the beginning of the end of the all conquering tiger woods
https://people.com/celebrity/tiger-woods-grieves-over-dads-death/

 

Would you rate Nicklaus above Woods?

 

Anyone at the top of such a list ought to have participated in a major global activity. There are not many such activities.

Sports largely confined to, or dominated by, North America are not global. Nor are those led by a few countries of the British Commonwealth.

Among major sports, that leaves football, athletics (running) and arguably tennis. The nature of football as a team game makes it difficult to assess any one individual's contribution.

So perhaps we should be looking at runners. Many would say that Usain Bolt has established himself as the top sprinter. But in some respects the achievements over time of the longer distance runners appear more impressive. There is a comprehensive website on distance runners, with plenty of statistical evidence, linked below.

The author lists a top ten with Ethiopians Bekele and Gebrselassie considered a long way ahead of the rest of the field. Are they our greatest ever sportsmen?

http://www.thegreatdistancerunners.de/

 

Maybe the counter arguments (for football and some other sports) could be skillset, and possibly popularity of the sport (and proportion of young people taking part in it, albeit most children do do some running in some form at some stage of course, unlike for example motor racing).

The difficulty with tennis is the changing equipment I suppose, if trying to compare players between eras, although if longevity is considered a prime factor that might take out someone like Borg anyway (regardless of whether he'd be better than Djokovic if they both used wooden rackets).