10 greatest footballers of all time

[Minneapolis Town Tractor]

#1    Maradona     ARG

#2    Yashin          USSR

#3    Pele              BRA

#4    Puskas         HUN

#5    Platini           FRA

#6    Dean            ENG

#7    Di Stefano    ARG

#8    Messi           ARG

#9    Moore          ENG

#10  Cruyff          NED

That was harder that it appeared.    You got names like Eusebio, Greaves, Beckenbauer, George Best etc that didn't make it this time but still a very impressive list.

[sage]

​I'm 26, 27 in December.

​You picked an impressive amount of players from the 60s, 70's, 80's 90's.

[Posh Ram]

​You picked an impressive amount of players from the 60s, 70's, 80's 90's.

​I'm not sure if that's a criticism or a compliment...

The list is greatest of all-time. Whilst it certainly helps your opinion a great deal I'm not convinced you have to have seen a player play at the time to make a judgement on them. You can use highlights, statistics, historical significance, awards. Of course there'll be a bias to players of my generation though, which is probably why Zidane made the list over someone like Pele, George Best or Lev Yashin.

[Posh Ram]

My all-time XI would probably be:

Yashin; Cafu, Baresi, Moore, Maldini; Beckenbauer, Platini, Cruyff; C. Ronaldo, Maradona, Messi.

Bench of Neuer, Roberto Carlos, Matthaus, Zidane, Puskas, Di Stefano, Ronaldo.

[sage]

​I'm not sure if that's a criticism or a compliment...

The list is greatest of all-time. Whilst it certainly helps your opinion a great deal I'm not convinced you have to have seen a player play at the time to make a judgement on them. You can use highlights, statistics, historical significance, awards. Of course there'll be a bias to players of my generation though, which is probably why Zidane made the list over someone like Pele, George Best or Lev Yashin.

​Neither am I.

Is Di Stefano better than Steve Bloomer. Statistically. That Telmo Zarra was quite handy too.

How did the standards of the Brazilian League compare with European leagues in the 50s and 60s?

[Posh Ram]

​Neither am I.

Is Di Stefano better than Steve Bloomer. Statistically. That Telmo Zarra was quite handy too.

How did the standards of the Brazilian League compare with European leagues in the 50s and 60s?

​Statistically, I'd say yes. Their goalscoring records were pretty similar, and Bloomer played at a time when formations were much more attacking. In addition, Di Stefano was much more versatile, described by Pelé as "the most complete player in the history of the game". But Bloomer has a better international resumé and played for worse teams, so of course we can't decide definitely one way or another. As for Zarra, I don't know, my Spanish football knowledge isn't very good, all we can say is that he scored a lot of goals. He's fairly comparable to Bloomer though - both were complete poachers, didn't play for the best teams, and have fantastic scoring records for their country in a limited sample size.

I think they were comparable in that neither pitted the best against the best. It's difficult for me, personally, to rank anyone who played in that era but we can say that Di Stefano and Puskas enjoyed incredible European Cup success, and Puskas was absolutely lethal for his country.

[sage]

​Statistically, I'd say yes. Their goalscoring records were pretty similar, and Bloomer played at a time when formations were much more attacking. In addition, Di Stefano was much more versatile, described by Pelé as "the most complete player in the history of the game". But Bloomer has a better international resumé and played for worse teams, so of course we can't decide definitely one way or another. As for Zarra, I don't know, my Spanish football knowledge isn't very good, all we can say is that he scored a lot of goals. He's fairly comparable to Bloomer though - both were complete poachers, didn't play for the best teams, and have fantastic scoring records for their country in a limited sample size.

I think they were comparable in that neither pitted the best against the best. It's difficult for me, personally, to rank anyone who played in that era but we can say that Di Stefano and Puskas enjoyed incredible European Cup success, and Puskas was absolutely lethal for his country.

​I never saw either of them play, so I'm not fully conversant on their styles.

[Sexydadbod]

My all time team would be:

Dino Zoff

Carlos Alberto Beckenbauer Baresi Maldini

                Makalele

    Matthaus             Zidane

    Messi      Pele     Maradona

That seems to have the most balance.

 

[Posh Ram]

​I never saw either of them play, so I'm not fully conversant on their styles.

We can read about them though.

It's an academic exercise of course. It's very difficult to compare players you've not seen play, and it's also difficult to define "greatness". It's also hard to compare players who play different positions. But we can try, and that's why these lists will look so different. Football is not like other sports where there's one player so dominant their status as TBE is indisputable, unlike cricket, golf or 100m, to name a few. 

[sage]

We can read about them though.

It's an academic exercise of course. It's very difficult to compare players you've not seen play, and it's also difficult to define "greatness". It's also hard to compare players who play different positions. But we can try, and that's why these lists will look so different. Football is not like other sports where there's one player so dominant their status as TBE is indisputable, unlike cricket, golf or 100m, to name a few. 

​It's hard to compare Jesse Owen to Usain Bolt, as tracks, shoes, diet, training has all changed.

Cricket has changed a lot too, batsmen are much more dominant, due to law changes, pitch changes and equipment changes.

[Posh Ram]

​It's hard to compare Jesse Owen to Usain Bolt, as tracks, shoes, diet, training has all changed.

Cricket has changed a lot too, batsmen are much more dominant, due to law changes, pitch changes and equipment changes.

​I suppose, but you can look at how dominant players were over their competition at the time. Owens v Bolt is a tough one though.

Surely the fact that batsmen have scored more as time has progressed, yet Bradman's average is 40 higher than the next best, only further confirms his greatness?

[sage]

​I suppose, but you can look at how dominant players were over their competition at the time. Owens v Bolt is a tough one though.

Surely the fact that batsmen have scored more as time has progressed, yet Bradman's average is 40 higher than the next best, only further confirms his greatness?

​Bradman is a freak. His average is ridiculous.

However Trott has a better average than Gooch, Gower or Boycott. He isn't a patch on them.

[Posh Ram]

​Bradman is a freak. His average is ridiculous.

However Trott has a better average than Gooch, Gower or Boycott. He isn't a patch on them.

Is that a product of the time though? Today a good average is about 45, which is roughly what Trott, Gower, Gooch and Boycott averaged. I genuinely don't know but presumably the average average for good batsmen was lower back in the day of Gower, Gooch and Boycott than it is now?

Statistical analysis is much easier to do in something like cricket, particularly batting. A batsman doesn't rely on his team-mates to score runs and seeing as there are only a few Test-playing nations most of the elite batsmen face the same bowlers as each other, making averages a pretty good way of comparing current batsmen. Then you can work out "average inflation" to compare batsmen from different eras. Finally you can give a small weighting to strike rate if you want to.

Bowling is a little bit harder to compare as humans have to judge what's more important - taking wickets or run suppression? 

Footballers, meanwhile, are very difficult to compare based on statistics, as there are so many different stats to take into account and so many factors that affect how a player plays. A good example would be our own Chris Martin. Before the start of 2013-14 he averaged 0.22 goals/game in the Championship. Since then, he's averaged 0.45 goals/game. I don't think any statistical analysis would predict that.

[Albert]

​Neither am I.

Is Di Stefano better than Steve Bloomer. Statistically. That Telmo Zarra was quite handy too.

How did the standards of the Brazilian League compare with European leagues in the 50s and 60s?

The Brazilian League was arguably one of the strongest at the time, as was much of South America. European dominance of the game is quite a modern phenomena. ​

​Statistically, I'd say yes. Their goalscoring records were pretty similar, and Bloomer played at a time when formations were much more attacking. In addition, Di Stefano was much more versatile, described by Pelé as "the most complete player in the history of the game". But Bloomer has a better international resumé and played for worse teams, so of course we can't decide definitely one way or another. As for Zarra, I don't know, my Spanish football knowledge isn't very good, all we can say is that he scored a lot of goals. He's fairly comparable to Bloomer though - both were complete poachers, didn't play for the best teams, and have fantastic scoring records for their country in a limited sample size.

I think they were comparable in that neither pitted the best against the best. It's difficult for me, personally, to rank anyone who played in that era but we can say that Di Stefano and Puskas enjoyed incredible European Cup success, and Puskas was absolutely lethal for his country.

​Well, Puskas had a good strike rate for one of his countries...

In any case, after considering what Bris said before, I actually agree with him that Xavi is the kind of the player who will likely go down on such lists, and certainly the only reason that he's not talked about as much at the moment is that the role he plays, whilst absolutely vital to his teams, is a bit more thankless. He certainly is a legend of the role though. As such, a side like:

GK: Yashin

DR: Carlos Alberto 

DL: Maldini

DC: Moore

DC: Beckenbauer

MC: Matthäus

MC: Xavi

MC: Cruyff

LW: C. Ronaldo

CF: Pelé

RW: Messi

[sage]

My best team that played in my life time

                                                           Scheimcal

                                Sage                     Moore             Maldini

                                                          Beckenbauer

                                     Cruyff                                          Zidane

                                                           Maradona

                              Messi                                                     Ronaldo

                                                               Pele