Southall was rubbish because he never turned out for Slavia Prague.
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Who’s the GOAT?
- Thread starter Deco
- Start date
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Jim Hopper
Player Valuation: £40m
Ronaldo in my life time.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
Your pick says more about what you value than anything else.
Pele had incredible longevity and style. Maradona did it in an era when defenders could get away with murder, but the resulting injuries and cocaine cut his career short. Messi has been absolutely dominant on the best team of the era, but his performances for Argentina were very up and down. Cristiano Ronaldo has won a lot of things and scored a lot of goals, but doesn't do all the stuff the other contenders do.
There's a lot of other players that can be discussed. Two that I don't think have been mentioned are Beckenbauer and Yashin, who revolutionized entire positions. Then there's Cruyff, who like Pele was at the forefront of revolutionizing the entire game.
The more I think about it, the more I lean Maradona for the uphill sled and the individual dominance in an era where the deck was stacked against him. The existence of so many great attacking players in Messi and Ronaldo's era argues against them if you want to make a stats-based case.
Pele's certainly a worthy choice, but you could argue that his domestic accomplishments are not that significant and that he was blessed with a wealth of surrounding talent in the international game. If character is taken into account, Maradona's defects on that score push Pele over the top without a doubt.
Pele had incredible longevity and style. Maradona did it in an era when defenders could get away with murder, but the resulting injuries and cocaine cut his career short. Messi has been absolutely dominant on the best team of the era, but his performances for Argentina were very up and down. Cristiano Ronaldo has won a lot of things and scored a lot of goals, but doesn't do all the stuff the other contenders do.
There's a lot of other players that can be discussed. Two that I don't think have been mentioned are Beckenbauer and Yashin, who revolutionized entire positions. Then there's Cruyff, who like Pele was at the forefront of revolutionizing the entire game.
The more I think about it, the more I lean Maradona for the uphill sled and the individual dominance in an era where the deck was stacked against him. The existence of so many great attacking players in Messi and Ronaldo's era argues against them if you want to make a stats-based case.
Pele's certainly a worthy choice, but you could argue that his domestic accomplishments are not that significant and that he was blessed with a wealth of surrounding talent in the international game. If character is taken into account, Maradona's defects on that score push Pele over the top without a doubt.
If an Englishman was ever going to be in this discussion, who do you think gets the closest?
Stanley Matthews and Bobby Charlton would likely be the best bets I think
Stanley Matthews and Bobby Charlton would likely be the best bets I think
TheBigIguana
Player Valuation: £100m
Rooney
You cant name players you didnt watch play Mikey.
Rooney is the best English player in our lifetime, IMO, nobody else even comes close.
I mean Shearer was up there, but as you say, neither were GOATs, but you asked who comes close to making this bracket and certainly nobody English in my lifetime has to the likes of Messi, CR7 and Diego.
TheBigIguana
Player Valuation: £100m
Personally I'm not sure how to really rate Matthews because as good as he was the English league wasn't superior to almost all the others then like it is now and his international football exploits weren't exactly anything special. Charlton is probably the one for me then, but I think he was clearly not as good as Eusebio the same way Rooney had Messi and Ronaldo so I find them to be relatively similar. They both had teammates that overshadowed them to an extent as well.
TheBigIguana
Player Valuation: £100m
Give Tom Davies some time though
I mean, there's lots of footage of Charlton out there and he won basically everything as a player
He was great with the ball at his feet, had a cracking shot on him and had the accuracy of a homing missile, especially when he'd do those amazing long cross pitch passes
When it comes to greatest Englishman ever to play the game then Charlton is in the discussion and probably wins because he did it for the 66 World Cup team
Never watched him Mikey.
I have very little interest in football history personally.
What I mean is, I don't really care about history, I know about it, but its meh to me.
Well hunt down some footage of him and you'll see he's in the discussion for GOAT, err, Goat
But Franco Baresi was the GOAT defender.
So it would be a pointless exercise.
Bobby Charlton wasnt even a defender Goat, get a clue please.
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