Legends of the Past III

As my esteemed colleague rightly put it, it's incredibly difficult to rate players in football simply because of the widespread base of reference. Whereas basketball has the NBA, we have the whole world from which to judge talent. While for the most part, the best players tend to be massed in the biggest European leagues (Spain, Italy, England, etc.), there are phenomenal talents spread throughout the world. In addition, we have the issue of not having seen the talent of the past due to technological deficiencies and the fact that our generation was not alive to see said talent.

Given that fact, what do we use to rank talent? In my opinion, for the most part we cannot truly rank modern legends against past legends because of the simply fact that the game has changed so much over the years. Watching a game from the 1980s compared to today's game is such a different experience that it would appear to be two different sports. The game of the past was played at an almost leisurely pace, without excessive physical exertion and with more emphasis on technical ability. Today's game is dominated by fine-tuned athletes whose initial mindset is to run at full pace for 90 minutes without care for finesse and beauty.

That being said, I believe there are indeed timeless legends that would seem to be able to burrow through the sands of time with ease. Such players as Marco Van Basten, Pelé, Diego Maradona and Johann Cruyff would all seem to have some sort of place in the modern game. By the same token, Zinedine Zidane, Eric Cantona, Juan Román Riquelme and the like seem taken straight out of a 1965 Real Madrid squad. But how would the majority of the future and past stars stack up if transplanted to a different period? How would Ronaldo Luís Nazario de Lima do faced with the brutal tackles and indifferent refereeing of the 70s? How would Alfredo Di Stefano do when faced with the searing pace and technical ability of a centre back like Carles Puyol in his prime?

I leave that to my friend Machel Turner as he continues our scholarly debate.