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

I think there are two objective criteria that can evaluate a player. They could serve for all sports and for a comparison between different disciplines.

1. Longevity (how many years was at the top)
2. Peak (how many records you broke)

Other criteria such as class and global influence are more subjective. For example, Pelé and Messi spent +-15 years at the top. Bolt almost that, 3 Olympics (12 years). Then you have the peak that Phelps won more than twenty medals in Beijing 2008, Nadia Comanecci first 10 in Montreal 1976 or the World Cup from maradona in 1986. This way you group different athletes in the same category. Without necessarily putting in order

The rest is very subjective.

 

The only thing Pele had over Messi is the “young prodigy” factor. And that’s somewhat luck related because Messi had fitness problems early on, particularly in the lead up to the 2006 World Cup, and also just being less physically developed prior to full adulthood.
Aside from that Messi won more, scored more, had higher performances on the big stage, particularly 2011 champions league > Pele libertadores and 2022 World Cup > Pele 1970 WC. Realistically Messi 2014 WC golden ball is more impressive than 62 Brazil winning WC without Pele, that’s more equivalent to Barcelona 2006 winning the champions league without Messi. On the statpadder front we know they’re both up there, but Messi has him beat on that too.
So basically if Messi had matured earlier and been fully fit in 2006 it might be a complete sweep for Messi but as things are he has the better career overall anyway.

 

Mt. Rushmore of sports: image in NY Post from yesterday

 

How can you say Messi 2011 ucl> Pele 62 & 63 when he wasn't even the best performer in the finals? Even 1970 Pele> 2022 Messi World Cup. Mbappe was much more impressive than him.

 

I think Pele's second half vs Uruguay is better than the whole of Messi's 2022.

 

Copa Libertadores 62 - Pele didn’t score in 2 semis, didn’t score in 2 finals, only scored in play-Off game

Copa Libertadores 63 - Pele scored 1of 5 Santos golas in finals

In both editions he played just 4 games each. Santos started 63 edition since semis

and football isn’t only about finals, previous rounds are equally important

Pele was absolutely amazing player, but he wasn’t everytime as clutch as You want him to be

WC semis 1958 - he scored when Brazil leading 2-1, 3-1, 4-1 against almost 10 men France „without” Jonquet

WC final 58 - scored when Brazil leading 2-1 and 4-2
WC 1970 - one KO goal

Intercontinrntal Cup 1963 - he played in 1 of 3 final games against Milan. Santos lost with him and won 2 games without him

he was maybe the Best player ever under 25 years old ( 1965 ) but after that he never was the same again Messi since 2012 is another story

I don’t care who is better between Pele and Messi . To be honest I don’t belive in single GOAT. Pele was the best in his time , Messi is the best in his time

 

The performance matter the most and Pele destroyed Botafogo, Penarol, Boca, three of the 10 best teams in the world at his peak years.

 

Messi in his prime years. 0 WC KO goals...
Lost 4 international finals
0 great World Cup performances
Struggled against tougher teams
0 great performances vs top tier national teams
Not the best player in tournaments he participated in with Argentina etc

 

as well as Messi destroyed top 10 teams in the world many times

 

Messi did 10 successful dribbles in the biggest club game in football, a goal from out the box and created 4 chances directly.
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/5...-League-2010-2011-Barcelona-Manchester-United

 

Here is a very good article of the NZZ (a rare excellent newspaper)

"Eddy Merckx was not a domineering, ruthless ['without scruples'] tyrant like Lance Armstrong – nor was he a 'cannibal'

The Belgian is one of the greatest athletes of the past century. As a professional cyclist, he was feared, admired, but hardly beloved - except in his home country. He celebrated his last [major] victory in Zurich. Eddy Merckx is now 75 years old."
https://www.nzz.ch/sport/eddy-merck...d-auch-kein-kannibale-ld.1561421?reduced=true

Lance Armstrong at the peak of his fame was a lot more famous. Beyond the sport, sort of.

Indeed, the authorities (UCI, the TdF) knew they needed him to sell their sport. Where the market is. And the Americans [media] knew they needed that story. This is extremely well-documented and proven.

Previously I had something like 'don't care much, everyone in the top 10 was drugged' - but later I understood all the blackmailing, violence, intimidation, the special privileges, forcing others to take dangerous stuff, destroying the careers of others. So he has dropped out of my personal estimation, entirely.

 

Recently Messi won the L' equipe champions des champions for the second time, a unique feat for a footballer. He is the only footballer to have won this award in a non World Cup year (2011). Despite being biased towards tennis and athletics, I consider this award to be one of the most serious among those involving various sports.

https://www.google.com.br/amp/s/ind...-athlete-of-the-year-by-lequipe-8366804/lite/

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champion_des_champions_de_L'Équipe

Would it be fair to say that Pelé would have won it 58 and 70?

 

Salvador Sanchez


Sanchez was the WBC and The Ring featherweight champion from 1980 to 1982. Many of his contemporaries as well as boxing writers believe that had it not been for his premature death, Sánchez could have gone on to become the greatest featherweight boxer of all time

at the time of his death he had a professional record of

46 fights
44 wins
32 KOs
1 draw
1 loss(a split decision defeat)

https://www.ringtv.com/642804-died-on-this-day-salvador-sanchez/

Maybe one of the greatest athletes of all time and he was known in his time as "The lung"
He was a marathon runner and had stamina levels like you could never even believe

 

For Phelps I think two important qualifying remarks can be made:

- About half of his gold medals (10 gold) came in relay events. That's 'easy' harvesting when you're part of the USA. You just have to swim one heat and you can pick up the gold. There is no requirement to swim all the heats. That's simply sport politics and broadcasting politics.

- The medals (not just gold) didn't come in the strongest, deepest and most competitive events. The closest is the 200m freestyle gold in 2008, and the bronze 200m freestyle of 2004, but the field of 2008 was probably nowhere near as strong as 2004, where at least one 'legend' would miss out for a medal (the Youtube title doesn't mention Hackett).

It's a bit like Messi deciding to play futsal or under-23 football rather than the strongest events. That is what Phelps generally did, with only two (individual) exceptions. Some would say swimming a 'medley' is the hardest; might be, but it is certainly not the most competitive or with the strongest talent pool.

-----------------------------

As for Laureus Awards that Phelps never received (often 'competing' with Usain Bolt)... it's clearly crap for me but has of course the same reinforcing tendencies as you see in football. It's an 'award' basically paid by the Germans, and a bit of Swiss, and co-run by the Brits (there it is again: anglogerman alliance !!!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laureus_World_Sports_Award_for_Sportsman_of_the_Year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laureus_World_Sports_Award_for_Sportswoman_of_the_Year

Just look at the long distance runners, for example ('we' can also take other sports or subsections of athletics):

Among men: Mo Farah (the drugs fraud?) has been nominated four times. That is more often than Kipchoge, four times as many nominations as Bekele. In an individual sport where it is basically about time, longevity and medals, that is just dubious. Basically all experts would agree Kipchoge and Bekele are up there, if not better. Many elite Kenyans and Ethiopians have never been nominated while Farah has been four times.

Among women: Paula Radcliffe nominated three times. That is again nominated more often than any other and again it is dubious if you add for example Dibaba to the equation. Look at some specialist forums and they'll mention some others. 'Our' Hassan of course has never been nominated, thus far, while Radcliffe herself said in 2021 to the BBC that Hassan is the best ever "comparable to Zatopek among the men".


This just confirms again what I have always been saying about football and the double handicaps in place. The same (reinforcing, self-fulfilling-prophecy) biases, agendas, collusions and tendencies exist in football, but there in football it is not individual - and not so obvious as just measuring time and medals (or the goals).

Something as F1 is like football highly subjective, and what you see there is that Verstappen dominating is seen as a (commercial and broadcasting) problem, so he is deliberately slowed down now (it's often forgotten his team-mate had a good record and final standing before he joined RB...). Hamilton and Mercedes dominance took a longer time before you saw balancing effects, but as Fernando Alonso said, the Anglosaxons run the show... that is not a commercial problem, on the contrary.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/9050...-harder-for-him-because-he-s-not-british.html
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-british-bias-verstappen-bad-guys/6642172/

At the same time, someone as Senna, with 'only' three titles is commonly seen as the best ever so....

 

Another example then: the heptathlon. Also an event where there is a clear measurement (unlike football).

Never nominated by Laureus (or L'Equipe):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafissatou_Thiam

Multiple times nominated by your Laureus, BBC, L'Equipe etcetera - with a clearly inferior palmaras, beaten head-to-head as well in 2016 Olympics:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Ennis-Hill

Exactly like football. With as difference the measurement and standards are naturally more obvious here. For football it is not, and it is not individual. It has a self-fulfilling and perpetuating effect.

Then perpetuated further by the @Dearman people and the like, providing a "second handicap" and second barrier to overcome.

Whatever, that Phelps never received this award cannot be a reason. More 'problematic' is him evading the most competitive and deepest events.

 

Also when you look at the personal best scores there is one clear 'winner' (the world record from the 1988 Olympics still stands!).
https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/combined-events/heptathlon/all/women/senior

One has all those 'international awards', ratings and nominations and the other - with clearly the better CV and personal best - has basically nothing. While this is a sport, same for long distance running, with a clear measurement ("cross the finish line first"). Not like football.

Also the 'Great' British #2 of 2024 is of course nominated for something in the 'international Laureus award', while the Belgian #1 and #3 aren't (link references to all Olympic medalists in history).

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/jude-bellingham-katarina-johnsonthompson-b2503165.html

"The awards are frequently referred to as the sporting equivalent of an "Oscar" for movies."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laureus_World_Sports_Awards#History

Right... Simply the same sort of mechanisms, handicaps, alliances and collusions as in football... Paid by the Germans and the Swiss.

Except there is in case of long distance running or heptathlon a clear indicator for being the best and individual winner. It all has consequences in the real world, just as in football (I am reading now the book 'How to win the Premier League'... very interesting).

If it consistently works like this in "cross the finish line first" sort of sports you can only imagine how this works in football.

 

Cycling another obvious one (besides the aforementioned long distance running and heptathlon), and another "go to finish line first" type of sport. @Buyo

Lance Armstrong (4 times, USA), mister 0.0001% Contador (Spain), Cadel Evans (Australia), Wiggins (UK) and Froome (UK) are on that 'Sports Oscars' nominations list.

But where is for example Pogacar (Slovenia)? Vingegaard (Denmark)? Cancellara (Switzerland)? They are nowhere. Both Pogacar and Vingegaard had clearly (busier, better) seasons and careers better than some of those above, by the year 2023. Is there any serious cycling expert thinking peak form Pogacar doesn't match Evans or Froome their specific years/career?

This are all pretty obvious sports, in the sense of setting the fastest time individually, unlike football (collective, low scoring sport, randomness etc.). There is an obvious measurement for being the best.

But with the same sort of real world consequences as football (special privileges for example; an altered competition schedule for the Bolts and Phelps, and looking the other way when the money of Sky and 'Sir' Brailsford with his airmail packages comes along).

Those so called 'Sport Oscars' shamelesly highlight you when you finish 2nd in the heptathlon - with the Belgians on 1 and 2 not named for anything.

How would Eddy Merckx fare in such 'modern' globalised environment? (imho the best competition/comparison against a footballer). The same fate as Pogacar thus far?

Little surprise, thus, how those lists for 'Great goalkeepers until 1985' are very flawed, with some as the bank account to use for the 'second round'.