Definately King Kenny is in that bracket.
As regards ZZ great player, not in the best ever conversation though. Neither is Ronaldinho because he was great for too little time.
3 Likes
I agree with that.
On Ronaldinho, if there was a category for entertainer, he would shine. For a spell there, maybe 3 years or so, he played with such joy. The skill, tricks, flicks, no look passes - it was breathtaking.
For those of us who played at a half decent amateur level, it is a joy to watch someone do stuff that you couldn’t even imagine getting near to, even in your own self assessed (and generous) recollection of your athletic peak years ago.
3 Likes
Too true, I put someone on their backside with a little feint and delay of the shot. Puts me in the best ever conversation. Is it sad I replay the moment in my head from time to time? Hehehe.
2 Likes
Gerrard is the most rounded player I’ve ever seen. Maybe not the best at any one individual thing, but great at everything. Most rounded doesn’t equal best, by the way, although I think he’s easily up there with the Zidane’s of the world.
4 Likes
Agreed. He would have been at least a 7/10 in any outfield position on the pitch. Cannot think of anybody else who even comes close.
4 Likes
For all the hype that followed his transfers he didn’t really move the needle at the clubs he went to and ended his career with way fewer medals than you would have imagined. His 10 years at Juve and Real earned him just 3 league titles (2 in Italy and 1 in Spain) and 1 CL. Yet Juve were the reigning CL winners when he joined them and Real had won 2 CLs in the previous 4 years and were reigning league champs. You then look at what happened after he left - Juve won 3 in a row after effectively replacing him with Nedved (albeit 1 taken from them) and Real winning 2 in a row.
If you’re nitpicking you can argue that both sides were less successful in the period he played for them than in the years immediately before or after. There is obviously a ton of factors beyond the talent of one player that would dictate that, but it reinforces the impressions I always had watching him that for as wonderful a combination he was of technique, grace, and strength, he didnt influence games at the highest level as completely and often as the likes of Messi or Ronaldo did.
1 Like
Zidane was a rich man’s Pogba.
Modric and Iniesta >>>
ducks and hides
While we are chewing people out for being style over substance… Pirlo was shite.
2 Likes
Maybe we should have a poll for the most overrated footballer? 
1 Like
Just a thought, but not seen Messi do anything on a pitch that George Best couldn’t do…
Loved the 70’s 1st divison. Every side had at least 1 player worth watching.
Rodney Marsh, Frank Worthington etc.
Steven Gerrard was a fantastic player imo. Underated criminally by many LFC fans who try to appear too wise, ah but he’s not tactically aware blah blah, a bit like art critics who look at a piece of modern art and try and convince you it’s more than just a black square.
Paolo Maldini
1 Like
Nedved was better. Not technically as good, but as a team mate he did more to help his side win games. Him being suspended for the CL final against Milan was a travesty.
1 Like
Hard to argue for Nedved against Modric and Iniesta imo, especially comparing careers?
Score loads of goals, win lots of games, win lots of trophies.
“Wasted potential” as a category produces some massively overrated players too. Best, Gazza and the like are nowhere near as good as Messi.
2 Likes
Not that it will likely be any more popular of an opinion, but I was saying better than Zidane.
When discussing players, I think the context of the era is also important. When I think about Maradona, and how overwhelmed I was when watching him play, is that Maradona almost singlehandedly managed to pulverize the era of catenaccio. The football world at the time was consisting of the Andeas Brehmes, Claudio Gentiles, Baresis, Scireas, Cabrinis. In other words: killers who were specialized at breaking down any offensive move, and if necessary, the offensive player too. The seventies and eighties were the golden age of big and intimidating defenders. Most scores were nil-nils and one-nils. It was boring as fuck to be honest.
Maradona came on that stage like a UFO. His dribbling skills made absolute fools out of these guys, and generally exploded all tactics relying on tough man marking. In my book, he’s one of the main explications why someone like Sacchi reinvented football during the late eighties and nineties, and for zonal marking being implemented to counter this kind of individual skills.
It’s also no haphazard that Maradona was the target of the probably meanest agression on a football pitch ever, by Goikoetxea.
He was so good that he only could be stopped with this kind of attacks. This one ‘succeeded’, but he was subject to this kind of tackles from behind every week.
But that incident made also the football authorities reflect about protecting football players in a more efficient manner. And so, football changed its face after he hanged up his boots, and that’s why he deserves to be mentioned as maybe the greatest of all.
Messi’s skills were protected by the refs throughout his career, and that’s in big part thanks to Maradona and another true genius, Van Basten, who had to take an early retreat after being similarly destroyed during his short career.
So, my vote would go towards Maradona rather than Messi, because the former’s genius helped to revolutionize football as a whole. With Messi, I’d rather say that his genius was allowed to express itself thanks to that revolution.
5 Likes
Best could have been ‘better’ than Messi but drank his talent away. Retired at 28.
Players better than they should have been? Kevin Keegan. Squeezed every ounce out of himself to be a great footballer. The opposite of Best.
Hmm loved watching ZZ for his grace and elegance but seen lots of players do what he could.