Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: Colin C No.3 on December 17, 2022, 11:45:41 pm
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I’ve been fortunate enough, mostly through TV & that medium to have witnessed in my lifetime thus far, some performances, games, moments of breathtaking ‘displays’ that have left me in awe from the age of 11 in 1966 through to today.
I couldn’t begin to list them all, needless to say they stretch from George Best (one live game seen in the 60’s against Nottingham Forest v Man Utd & one game in the early 70’s at Wembley England v N. Ireland) through to watching Pele & the all conquering Brazilian team of the 1970 World Cup on TV.
There will be many who will say you ‘cannot judge players from different era’s & come up a reasonable answer to the op’, I understand & respect that.
However. Rack your brains & be it a keeper, defender, midfielder or striker put your case forward.
I give you Lionel Messi.
He came to Barcelona aged 14. He stuck at it in a foreign continent let alone country with only his father as family support once his mother & siblings had returned to Argentina.
He has played with & against some of the greatest players of the ‘modern era’.
He is a player who appears to ‘see the whole of the pitch in 3D’ at any given moment.
He scores & creates goals.
He is, in my opinion, a 5’4” giant.
The best footballer I have ever laid eyes on.
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On Tv - Lionel Messi
Live -Robert Lewandowski
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TV - Messi
LIVE - Pirlo
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Prime Ronaldinho is the best
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TV - Maradona
Live - Copps
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Messi both live and TV.
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
Totally agree, the number of leg breaking tackles he managed to ride was something to behold.
Best was the best.
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I’ve only ever seen snippets of George Best, but I totally agree, I was judging it on viewing a full match
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Best had everything Messi has and more, for instance he could head a ball more convincingly and tackle hard himself.
Its all subjective Puskas, DiStafano, great players in great teams, Cruyff the one I would go for in probably with along with the Tottenham side the two best teams along with Ajax, because they were innovative, did new things, had great players through out the team and Tottenham in Cliff Jones a player who could play alongside any great, Ajax with Neeskins and many more great players, Germany with Muller and Overmars a machine.
Of them all I have seen the Dutch would be the most suited to play in the different eras, the Hungarians in 1954 the team the furthest in front of all the rest at the time, but never won the world cup. Germany the teams to win world cups with not that good a sides but organisation, Brasil and France the two most helped along by questionable officialdom.
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Agree with Puskas and Distefano..showing my age. They were class.
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Slightly off topic but… Alan Warboys tells a story about George Best when AW was at Fulham with Best and Bobby Moore.
He expected to see the occasional mercurial things from Best but thought there might a bit of baggage that came with it. By all accounts he ended up being massively impressed by Best’s work ethic in training and on the pitch. After a morning of training when players would shower, eat and go home Best, apparently, would go back out on the training field and practice alone hitting free kicks around barriers, trying to land balls onto the crossbars and generally practice all his dead ball skills.
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https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1492546-lionel-messi-and-hgh-the-truth-about-the-best-footballer-in-the-world
"cheats do prosper"
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https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1492546-lionel-messi-and-hgh-the-truth-about-the-best-footballer-in-the-world
"cheats do prosper"
Where does it say that in the article?
What it does say is this:
Messi is listed at 5'7" by FCB, which is exactly average for an Argentinian male. At the time Messi was diagnosed, he was only 4'2"! Messi is now normal and average in the physical sense, but certainly not normal when it comes to talent!
Second, Messi did not use HGH as a performance enhancer. Messi was using a prescribed treatment, monitored by physicians, in order to overcome a medical condition. The result is that he's a normal human being today, fourteen years after the treatments were made possible.
For a 'normal person' such as Armstrong - using HGH gave him an advantage over other competitors who weren't doing that.
For someone with a medical condition - such as Messi - HGH allowed him to compete at an equal level with people who had a natural advantage over him.
Very, very disingenous there CLH.
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Tv maradonna/messi
Live gazza
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After George Best. Rodney Marsh. Highly underrated in my opinion And for pure occasional genius Frank Worthington
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After George Best. Rodney Marsh. Highly underrated in my opinion And for pure occasional genius Frank Worthington
When I was 18 I played against Frank Worthington.
He was an absolute genius on the pitch.
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George Best and Stan Bowles, think how good they would have been if they hadn’t been so pissed when they played
COYR
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Whilst Best was the best I saw live, I'm going off piste on this one, Bobby Moore if ever a player made things look so simple his timing his positional sense his all round ability as a top class defender.
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Cristiano Ronaldo. Shame he's tarnished his legacy by acting like such a bellend the last few months.
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“If it hadn’t been for the war I could’ve been another Tommy Lawton.”
“Who’s Tommy Lawton?”
“Only the greatest centre forward ever to draw breath”.
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
The 1960s defenders wouldn't have got within 10 yards of Messi. Seriously.
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It’s impossible to compare the two eras really.
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
The 1960s defenders wouldn't have got within 10 yards of Messi. Seriously.
It’s impossible to compare the two eras really.
I agree with BST that in absolute terms, the players now are so far advanced given the pace the game is played at and the superb conditioning of the players. But it’s also impossible to compare as Pele, Maradona etc didn’t have the same access to nutritionists, fitness coaches, sports scientists etc. Think you’ve just got to look at how they performed in their respective eras and leave it at that.
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In my opinion if you are talking about the full package , great player and human being then Pele stands alone .
Three world cup winners medals , the first as a 17 year old , one club man at his beloved Santos other than at the very end of his career when he had a spell at New York Cosmos .
Fantastic ambassador for the game .
A true sportsman in every sense of the word .
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
The 1960s defenders wouldn't have got within 10 yards of Messi. Seriously.
It’s impossible to compare the two eras really.
I agree with BST that in absolute terms, the players now are so far advanced given the pace the game is played at and the superb conditioning of the players. But it’s also impossible to compare as Pele, Maradona etc didn’t have the same access to nutritionists, fitness coaches, sports scientists etc. Think you’ve just got to look at how they performed in their respective eras and leave it at that.
I think you can do both.
The best absolute players of all time are playing today. The game is unrecognisable from what it was like just 10-15 years ago. We should embrace that and accept how much absolutely better Messi and Mbappe are than even Maradona and Pele.
But yes, it's also fair to compare players against the standards of their day. In which case, for me it is impossible to separate Pele, Maradona and Messi.
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Didi, said that if he new how Pele was going to turn out he would never have passed to him Tyke.
Garincha was probably more important to Brazil the world cups in Sweden than Pele and he didn't play when they won in Chile being injured.
Like Messi he could do no wrong with the media, unlike Best, Cruyff for me was the complete footballer, and Holland the most gifted all round side of them all, and at club level at the same time when there were class teams in a number of countries including Celtic and Leeds and the Yugoslavian and Italian sides and Eastern European club sides really national sides, and Ajax overcame the lot for three years and moving on to Spain he did it with Barcelona and established a legacy as a manager the way to play.
That Dutch side would easily compete today given the same conditions.
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Original Ronaldo on TV, gazza live.
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I read something years ago that most Brazilians from years ago rated Garrincha more than Pele.
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Didi, said that if he new how Pele was going to turn out he would never have passed to him Tyke.
Garincha was probably more important to Brazil the world cups in Sweden than Pele and he didn't play when they won in Chile being injured.
Like Messi he could do no wrong with the media, unlike Best, Cruyff for me was the complete footballer, and Holland the most gifted all round side of them all, and at club level at the same time when there were class teams in a number of countries including Celtic and Leeds and the Yugoslavian and Italian sides and Eastern European club sides really national sides, and Ajax overcame the lot for three years and moving on to Spain he did it with Barcelona and established a legacy as a manager the way to play.
That Dutch side would easily compete today given the same conditions.
I loved the Dutch side of the 70s, but if you teleported that side, with those standards, into the 2020s, they would not compete at L2 level.
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Stats and influence would be Pelé - always the best, great global figure and footballer on the biggest stage. He’s the reason everyone loved Brazil, mercurial, magical and smiling, whilst having the shit kicked out of him. Btw, can’t stand Brazil these days, prima donnas
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
The 1960s defenders wouldn't have got within 10 yards of Messi. Seriously.
On modern pitches correct but on the mudheaps of the 60's?
Sorry BST but Messi would be over the barriers with some of those defenders.
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Jimmy Greaves
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
The 1960s defenders wouldn't have got within 10 yards of Messi. Seriously.
On modern pitches correct but on the mudheaps of the 60's?
Sorry BST but Messi would be over the barriers with some of those defenders.
Most matches weren't on mudheaps 25 years ago. But the players then were typically running 8km per game. Now pretty much every player on the pitch does 11km+ in 90 minutes.
The physical demands on players today are extraordinary. There's been an absolute revolution on that score in the past couple of decades.
Plus, the players' physical strength is of a different order of magnitude to what it used to be. Kevin Keegan said that the first time Bill Shankley saw him getting stripped for training, hesaid he had a physique like a middleweight boxer. That was unusual 50 years ago and Keegan was a physical phenomenon. Now every player in National League North is ripped like that.
I'd guarantee you, if Norman Hunter went into a full blooded challenge with Mbappe, there'd be only one winner. A d it would t be Bite Yer Legs. The players from the 60s would bounce off today's top players.
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Messi. A man, a moment a ‘mountain climbed’ for him today.
Never was such a more deserving recipient of such a trophy & personal accolade as player of this tournament.
Lionel, thank you for being born in my era.
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George Best TV and live, not even a contest. Messi wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the 60s and 70s. Bestie was hard as nails as well as a genius with the ball.
The 1960s defenders wouldn't have got within 10 yards of Messi. Seriously.
On modern pitches correct but on the mudheaps of the 60's?
Sorry BST but Messi would be over the barriers with some of those defenders.
Most matches weren't on mudheaps 25 years ago. But the players then were typically running 8km per game. Now pretty much every player on the pitch does 11km+ in 90 minutes.
The physical demands on players today are extraordinary. There's been an absolute revolution on that score in the past couple of decades.
Plus, the players' physical strength is of a different order of magnitude to what it used to be. Kevin Keegan said that the first time Bill Shankley saw him getting stripped for training, hesaid he had a physique like a middleweight boxer. That was unusual 50 years ago and Keegan was a physical phenomenon. Now every player in National League North is ripped like that.
I'd guarantee you, if Norman Hunter went into a full blooded challenge with Mbappe, there'd be only one winner. A d it would t be Bite Yer Legs. The players from the 60s would bounce off today's top players.
Something wrong with your sums there Billy, we were talking about 60's. Being chopped down from behind or off the ball stops anybody and every team had at least one "hard man", and running through treacle pitches back then would make it impossible for players to run the distances of modern times
Messi may be the best player of his generation but you cannot say GOAT and that applies to all the other greats of their own be that Puskas Pele Maradonna Cryuff Copps, era
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No denying Messi is a great player, but I don't think he has ever covered 11 km in a game I have watched him in to prove it.
He does what every great player does, finds space where others can't, reads the game while it is in progress, even if that means standing still in the right spot in the area, and gets into the area between the sticks.
The art of winning games of football has not changed at all, you need to get men into the area between the sticks and the ball into that area, and to defend the goal you need defenders in the box between the ball and the goal, everything else complicates it.
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Raven.
My point was that when the detailed analysis of players came in, about 25 years ago, most pitches were not mudbaths. But players were typically running only 60% as far as they do today.
Realistically, that's your very best case scenario for the fitness of 1960s players. In reality, they weren't even close to that level. Look at the physiques and refuelling habits of players from the 60s.
If you still don't believe me, I've got a slam dunk.
Watch the first couple of minutes of this, then get back to me.
https://youtu.be/dpMvd_z69-4
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But Billy the statement was of the mudbath pitches of the 60's why do you keep talking about 25 years ago? No mention of players being able to stop the talented ones dead in their tracks. As Charlie Williams said he wasn't a great player but he could stop them that were. My whole point really is that there cannot be a GOAT. Fitness has improved yes, diet has improved yes, the drinking culture has gone (with the odd exception) but you simply cannot compare the greats from the 50s 60s 79s 80s 90s with each other never mind the current crop. I'm guessing you.might be just a few years younger than me and we have witnessed players during those years doing incredible things on a football field but it is impossible to say any are the GOAT. From another angle would Messi due to his size even had a look in back in the day?
My other point is that people always talk about the attacking players as being the GOAT what about the great keepers, the great defenders the great midfielders, never a mention it's always the attacking/striking players.
I'm afraid no one can convimce me that any one player be it Messi or Pele is the GOAT, the greatest of their era but never of all time
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RR, spot on.
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RR.
Have you had a look at that 1962 WC final video?
Can you begin to imagine what Messi would have done if he'd been dropped into that game?
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On TV, Messi, hands down.
Live, probably Modric.
On the mudbath pitch point. There's a famous game where the OG Ronaldo played away at Spartak Moscow. Early spring in Moscow after days of heavy snow. Conditions as bad as any pitch you've ever seen, covered in mud and ice. And he makes it look easy. The only time Spartak players can stop him is to double up and foul him, and even then a lot of the time that doesn't work. By the end of the match he's bullying the defenders, finishing with 2 goals in a 2-1 Inter win. His second goal is class as well, no one gets near him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1NuAEb848&ab_channel=ronaldogodmagic
And this was 25 years ago - standards have moved on immeasurably even since then. But even then, when they were trying to clog a famously injury-prone player on a frozen mudbath pitch, his quality shone through. Put today's players there who are fitter, faster, stronger, more resilient and technically better and they'd dominate even more imo.
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Yes I did but wasn't 62 in Chile nice dry hard pitch not quite a mud bath. Reminded me of Spain playing keep ball. Yes a modern Messi or Cryff or Best or Maradonna would have caused chaos......... if they were allowed to the stoppers were around then.
Different times a different game, todays game is fashioned to allow players like Messi to shine
Have you seen the clip of all the modern players doing the Cryuff turn , the nutmegs the dribble and shot, flicking the ball over a players head etc all the tricks and the comparison with Pele who did the same pieces of skill years ago do it's not just a new skill
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Ravenl
My point is that, on a dry, decent pitch in 1962, the play is almost at walking pace. The players had nothing remotely close to the physical attributes that are standard these days.
And if you think it was like Spanish keep ball, I suggest you go back and watch it again.
The ball is given away by misdirected, unpressurised 10 yards passes 4 times in the first 30 seconds. You wouldn't see that happen at National League level these days. Spain wouldn't make that many unforced errors at that place in an entire tournament.
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Best player seen live: Davor Suker.
Best on TV: Maradona.
(Both judged by the standards of their day).
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For me Maradona
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Seeing as how most of the Czeck side were in the army and played so called amateur for Dukla Prague they were not bad.
The test of the different generations is the inovation they brought to the game, even the England side were dubbed the wingless wonders.
Most great sides introduced something different into the game, that has been improved on by and adopted by successive generations.
The Hungarians the withdrawn centre forward, followed by the Brazilian 442, the Dutch Total Football, Beckenbauer attacking from the central defence, the Italians suffocating defence and then the Spanish ticky tacky all requiring forward thinking and players who could adapt to the system.
The Argentinians and French are bigger better fed and in some cases faster individually all great players in both sides, but they have hardly been innovative, in fact both sides are hell bent on stopping play in midfield with the tactical foul rather than being expressive, and cynical in their approach to the game finding a way to win pushing the rules to the extreme, I would have liked to have seen the reaction if the keeper had been sent off for ungentlemanly behaviour and reduced to ten men and no keeper among them, now that would have been fun.
Did they introduce anything new, no, after the thrills of the actual timing of the goals and the players involved has died in time will it be remembered as a great football game of quality, or for poorish finishing, defending and petulance? probably the latter three things.
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Billy as I say different times different game and different opinions
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Just came across this on twitter
James Milner on making a hard tackle on Lionel Messi in the Champions League:
"He's incredible, for me the best ever. If you give players like that their own way and too much respect, they're going to run the game. Sometimes you have to let them know you're there
Milner: "You need to knock them out of their stride but he didn't like it, he was giving me a bit in Spanish, calling me a donkey! He was saying it was 'just because I megged you!'"
Milner: "But to be honest, he can say what he wants can't he! It turned out nicely in the end though with what happened in the second leg!"
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Dennis Bergkamp for both for me
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Best live: Schweinsteiger
Best on TV: Messi
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Personally for me the player I enjoyed watching the most was Thierry Henry. Stylish and elegant player could win a game on his own. A pleasure to watch.
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I disagree the only difference between players now & 50 years ago is fitness & if the Dutch squad of ‘74 played now they’d win the World Cup - the reason they didn’t beat West Germany in the final was that winning wasn’t good enough for the Dutch they went out to humiliate the Germans in their own country and it backfired the dominance they had didn’t result in goals whereas the Germans were clinical in finishing especially with Gherd Muller.
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Personally for me the player I enjoyed watching the most was Thierry Henry. Stylish and elegant player could win a game on his own. A pleasure to watch.
This clip is amazing. 93rd minute and not even blowing!
https://twitter.com/afcstuff/status/1603782941825441793?s=46&t=rlR_235njkF6im8e9m-_pQ
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I was lucky enough to spend 7 years in Germany ( courtesy of the RAF ) in the 70's and 80's , outstanding players
like Beckenbauer ,Mueller , Overath , Netzer, Vogts , Rummenigge but my favourite would be an Hungarian who
played inside forward for Hertha Berlin and that's Zoltan Varga . He defected from the 1968 Mexico Olympics having
played for Ferencvaros ( ? ) bizarrely ending up at Aberdeen !
Best ever ...Pele
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Branton, plus they liked to party and the Germans fed them women and booze on nights out before the game.
Probably arrogance because they knew and were the best team ever, at both club and international to be honest, with the best player in the world at the time, and a number of others like Neeskins the best in their positions close behind him.
The world will never see a team like that put together again unless billions are spent on players from all over the world.
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Football nowadays is certainly faster and more tactical, but are the world class players nowadays as skilful? Do they have as much flair as they used to?
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You want skillfull, I give you Ronaldinho
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Dennis Bergkamp for both for me
He was some player.
Best player live was Jimmy Johnstone at Elland Rd. Leeds v Celtic European Cup Semi Final 1st leg. 1970
Eddie Gray close 2nd. When he was on it he was brilliant.
Best on TV probably Maradona. Wait a minute George Best. Oh crikey that’s a tough one.
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I disagree the only difference between players now & 50 years ago is fitness & if the Dutch squad of ‘74 played now they’d win the World Cup - the reason they didn’t beat West Germany in the final was that winning wasn’t good enough for the Dutch they went out to humiliate the Germans in their own country and it backfired the dominance they had didn’t result in goals whereas the Germans were clinical in finishing especially with Gherd Muller.
It absolutely NOT only about increased fitness these days.
1) The game is so much faster now. That doesn't only require enhanced physical fitness. It also requires enhance mental speed and brain-body communication speed. In simple terms, Pele and Cruyff (and even Maradona and Zidane) had more time to assess situations, make decisions and enact them than players do today.
We're talking about fractions of a second but it makes an enormous difference.
If Pele played today, he MIGHT have been able to react a fraction quicker than he even had to in 1958. But it's impossible to know that, because he played in an era where he had the luxury of more time to deploy his skills.
2) As time passes, the repertoire of skills that players have developed.
Cruyff's turn was astonishing in 1972. Now schoolkids do it regularly.
Pele's juggle, turn and shot was from another planet in 1958. McIndoe scored a better goal than that in 2003 - quicker and with more pressure from the defenders.
George Beat's diagonal cross field run and shot against Sheff Utd was breathtaking in 1971. A plodder like Carlton Palmer scored an equivalent goal in 1993.
Pele trying (and failing) to score from the halfway line in 1970 was audacity beyond belief. David Beckham did score when he tried it 26 years later.
Players build on the skills that have gone before them. Cruyff's turn wouldn't raise eyebrows today. He MIGHT be able to master the full repertoire that players have today, and he MIGHT be able to display those in the much faster, more compressed game today. But we'll never know.
NB. On the subject of new skills, I saw several strikers do something I've never seen before in this WC. As the keeper came out to close down the angles, the striker deliberately hit a low bouncing ball on the volley, into the turf. The idea was to give it enough elevation as it bounced to clear the diving keeper, but then for the spin to bring it down and save it clearing the bar. I thought it was a mis-hit, first time I saw it happen but after seeing 2-3 similar ones I'm sure it's a new technique being perfected. Quite an astonishing skill at pace.
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My favourite players are Zidane and Baresi. Both unrivalled talents as far as I am concerned. I can not think of a player other than Maradona who had the same first touch and overall game of Zidane. As for Baresi in my eyes he's the best defender of my lifetime. His positional sense and ability made him virtually a one man wall. Football is about a lot more than scoring goals although that is important to. Best seen live- Robben.
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Original Ronaldo on TV, gazza live.
https://youtu.be/9TC8l1kAGKQ
Didn't have the longevity but was untouchable that season