The Greatest Soccer Player Ever...

[magneto621]

bump

 

[shatterkneesinc]

Originally Posted by magneto621

bump

lol just in time for champions league

 

[acbboyz84]

Pele is the greatest ever if you're a real soccer dude.

 

[philthyfill]

I'll Pele as well.

 

[norain21]

Considering this is just a bunch of bias answers I may as well add mine.
Pele said it himself... George Best was the greatest. Whether you argue this or not, it's a damn shame he was an alcoholic, no one really knows what hecould have been. That being said dude was ballin and just hilarious at the time.

 

[o fenomeno]

peep the screen name, peep the avy...

 

[nychiphophippo]

99% of dudes here are talkin ab players they've only seen highlights of.

i think it's really difficult to compare Pele's generation to the modern generation. kind of like what wilt chamberlain is to basketball, except peleprobably had better competition than wilt.

i'm reading ab him and he may not have been the g.o.a.t. but he was clearly gifted enough that if say he happened to play in maradona's era...he mayhave been the clear GOAT. and he would have probably been even better if brazil allowed for his transfer to a big european club.

he lead his league in scoring at just 16 years old. scored at hat trick in the WC @ 17 yrs old. when u read something like that, you can't help but thinkthat he would be the clear cut goat if he played in maradona's era.

oh and this is pretty crazy too

In 1967, the two factions involved in the Nigerian Civil War agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire so they could watch Pelé play an exhibition game in Lagos.[22]

edit: and carlos tevez's opinion doesn't matter since his name reeks of Argentinian bias

 

[sirius lee handsome]

Originally Posted by ACBboyz84

Pele is the greatest ever if you're a real soccer dude.

You ain't "a real soccer dude" though

 

[stillmatic]

mamadroga

 

[lootpac]

Originally Posted by Carlos Tevez

Maradona is the greatest soccer player of all time. The way he controlled the game was simply unbelievable. Opposing teams would have 5 or 6 players circling him just to take the ball off of him.

I've seen videos of Pele, and there's no denying he was good, but during his time period, defenders were HORRIBLE. The things he was getting away with stopped happening in the mid-70s. I'm talking about lobbing the ball over defender's heads and then running around them like they were pylons, etc. Also, goalies of that time were horrible as well, it was much easier to score...1 team scoring 5 goals in a game was very common in the 50s and 60s when Pele was beasting.

The fact of the matter is Maradona carried Argentina to the 86 World Cup and he won Serie A with a team no one cared about before he joined them, and no one cared about after he left them...Napoli.

If Maradona wasn't such an ego-maniac cokehead and if he didn't leave the game on such a sour note (dopping at the 94 WC), he'd get much more credit for his accomplishments. I liken his legacy to Dennis Rodman...Rodman obviously isn't one of the greatest of all times in basketball, but just like Maradona, his off-court antics took away from how good he was as a player.

And to the OP, Ronaldo wasn't even the best player of his generation. Zidane was.

End thread.

Anyone saying Ronaldinho

dude has a few real good years and you anointhim, he got fat and lazy.

 

[persiafly]

Consider this:

With Zidane, France won the World Cup in 1998.
With Zidane, France won the Euro Cup in 2000.
With Zidane, France reached the finals of the World Cup in 2006.

Without Zidane, France failed to score a goal in the 2002 World Cup.



With Maradona, Argentina won the 1986 World Cup.

Without Maradona at anything near full strength, Argentina reached the finals of the World Cup in 1990.

On the other hand, Argentina wouldn't have even come close to winning the 86 World Cup without Maradona carrying that team.
But 4 years later, Maradona was certainly not carrying that team, and times was hurting them, and they only lost that Cup because of a shadypenalty call in the final.

 

[berberpride]

^ i have no problem calling Zidane the Goat

 

[snaggykicks]

 

[wttm]

Is this based on just the world cup or their whole career?

Cause like Tevez stated, just look at Napoli.........

 

[tannervon]

MARADONA

 

[liljrdn]

^ Haha Good Old Maradona

 

[wanksta23]

RAMON RAMIREZ, EL TUBO, CHEPO, OSWALDO, EL MATADOR FTW!!!!

and bofo when he was with chivas

 

[sinser13]

El Salvador's finest

 

[platinumfunk]

Originally Posted by Carlos Tevez

Originally Posted by PlatinumFunk

Originally Posted by berberpride

Zidane better than Ronaldo? No.

1. Diego
2.a)Zizou
b) Pele

George Best
Franz Beckenbauer
Johan Cruyff
Michel Platini

are all better then Ronaldo

George Best was not better than Ronaldo... I'm sorry.

Y'all saying Maradona is better than Pele are tripping... That 1958 team was one of the greatest of all time in my opinion.

Zizou isn't necessarily better than Ronaldo... y'all are forgetting the WORLD CUP DOMINANCE of Ronaldo... He would've had 3 (THREE) straight if he wasn't sick in '98 (look up the story)... I might give Zizou the edge because injuries really killed Ronaldo's career, but I don't think it's as clear cut as y'all say it is.

Pele was part of great teams, however, Maradona elevated his teams to greatness (See: Argentina and Napoli). I've watched highlights from the 1958 World Cup, and the game was a joke back then. Pele was a beast running circles around the opposition who looked clueless most of the time. Fast forward to the 1970s and beyond and you couldn't get away with the crap that Pele did during his prime.

Zizou was a more impactful player than Ronaldo. Ronaldo was on the 94 WC squad but he only played in 1 game I think so your "3 straight" argument doesn't hold. Zizou won every single title you can think of. He was the glue that held the French team together. He also won a UCL title, something Ronaldo never did. While it's difficult to compare a pure goalscorer to a play-making midfielder, I think that the game always revolved around Zizou and he was more instrumental in carrying his teams than Ronaldo.


Don't act like Pele didn't carry those teams, he def. did. Pele did this all at SUCH a young age and please let us all remember how manygoals he went on to score. This opposition arguement is a joke, you can't start comparing how different players would do against different people, you justcan't. I mean, you can't do what we're doing right here (comparing players across eras), but that's not the point

. Also, how can you even BEGIN to celebrate a character like Maradona, isscoring goals with your hand whats good now?

Ronaldo scored 6 goals in his first club appearance... who does that? And we're talking Brasileirão here, a league which at that time still held somerespect.

Garrincha should also be mentioned, without him Botafogo was NOTHING.

 

[willo23]

 

[nikestreetdotcom]

Negative.

Maradona.




Alex

 

[jaijai84]

Diego Maradona was a greatest of all time...

 

[c flyness]

In my humble opinion I can't just put down one name because for me there's a lot great soccer players who made history in soccer/futbol!
Pelé
Diego Maradona
Franz Beckenbauer
Carlos Valderrama
Luis Hernandez 
Cuauhtémoc Blanco 
Marcelo Salas
Iván Zamorano
Juan Sebastián Verón
Gabriel Batistuta
Álvaro Recoba
Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima 
Roberto Carlos
Paulo Wanchope
Carlos Pavón
Zinedine Zidane
Brian McBride
Eddie Pope
Cobi Jones
José Luis Chilavert
Thierry Henry
Nicolas Anelka
Edgar Davids
Dennis Bergkamp
Marc Overmars
Davor Sukerman 
Nwankwo Kanu
David Beckham
Michael Owen
Ryan Giggs
Mustapha Hadji
Henrik Larsson
Didier Drogba
Cristiano Ronaldo
Karim Benzema
Javier Hernández etc.

Anelka was a beast!

 

[dland24]

^How can you possibly make a list of 36 of the greatest soccer players in history, and you fail to have Messi in your list?

I admittedly don't watch as much soccer as most people in this thread, and can honestly tell you that a huge portion of people on that list I have never heard of.  But there are not THIRTY SIX players in soccer history that are better than Messi.  Period.  No debate. 

 

[danger style]

Yikes at that grave dig. For no reason too, dude just randomly wanted to list some soccer players