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.

Legends of the Past

I was talking to one of my good friends, Machel Turner today about "O Fenômeno" Ronaldo Luis Nazário de Lima and the conversation shifted to how to compare footballing legends. The discussion started with my assertion that Ronaldo is the best striker of all time. Machel's valid argument was that Thierry Henry in his prime could rival the great man, but we eventually settled on Ronaldo as the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time). The crux of the winning thesis was that although both men were phenomenal finishers, Ronaldo's superior dribbling ability and absolute devastating finishing within the box made him a better all around forward. One needs only to watch videos of Ronaldo from the PSV, Barcelona and Inter Milan years to see this made plain.

Moving on from this topic, we began to talk about how Ronaldo, Henry and the legends from our day stack up against the legends of the past such as Marco Van Basten, Pelé, Maradona, Cruyff and the like. The list stretched on to luminaries like Ferenc Puskás and Alfredo Di Stefano. The main question was this: How do they all compare?

To use basketball as a reference, such giants of the game as Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, etc. were considered the G.O.A.T. in their day until a certain man named Michael Jordan came along and snatched the title. However, we are approaching a generation of teenagers and young adults that will never have seen Michael Jordan play a game. In lieu of that fact, will they respect his achievements? The same goes for Marco Van Basten, Maradona, Pelé, etc. For the simple fact that we didn't grow up watching these players, our generation (and by our, I mean my generation of 20-somethings) will find it difficult to truly appreciate their accomplishments. Because of that, will the next generation recognize our current legends (Ronaldo, Zidane, Henry, etc.) for their true brilliance?

I'm going to throw it up for Machel to continue so we can debate the issue further. Hopefully we'll see a good debate over the next few days.