Pele was by no means a nice player. He was a hard, elbowing, head-butting, diving, referee-harrassing bastard.
Oh how soon they forget.
Best player of all time EVER?
- Thread starter kained&able
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Pele was by no means a nice player. He was a hard, elbowing, head-butting, diving, referee-harrassing bastard.
Oh how soon they forget.
I'd have thought you'd love him:
"Garrincha was also known as Mané (short for Manuel) by his friends, a name which in Brazil also means "fool" or "half wit". It was possibly used in that sense at some point – or even as a double entendre due to Garrincha's child-like personality. The combined "Mané Garrincha" is common among fans in Brazil. Due to his immense popularity in Brazil, he was also called Alegria do Povo (Joy of the People) and Anjo de Pernas Tortas (Angel with Bent Legs).
FIFA considers him the best Brazilian player ever after Pelé; many eminent football historians in Brazil have also referred to him being at least the equal of Pelé. He is also widely regarded as the best dribbler in football history....
He had several birth defects: his spine was deformed, his right leg bent inwards and his left leg six centimeters shorter and curved outwards, none of which impeded his ability to play football at the top level. His nickname is thought to be a direct reference to his physical handicap, as the word garrincha is also commonly used in Brazil to describe a person with a handicap...
Garrincha scored one of his most famous goals vs Fiorentina in Italy when he beat 4 defenders and the goalkeeper, but when faced with an open goal rather than score he waited for another defender to get back and dribbled past him before scoring. Despite his stunning performance his coaches were upset at what they considered an irresponsible move and this likely led to Garrincha not being picked for Brazil's first two matches of the 1958 tournament....
Garrincha never bothered about the 'details' of the game. As his team-mates were celebrating the World Cup win, he was initially bemused, having been under the impression that the competition was more league-like and that Brazil would play all the other teams twice.....
Garrincha put on weight after the World Cup, partly because of his drinking, so he was dropped from the national team for a friendly match in Rio against England on 13 May 1959. Later that month, he went on tour with Botafogo in Sweden and got a local girl pregnant. When he returned to Brazil, he drove home to Pau Grande and ran over his father, Amaro. He drove off without stopping, with an angry mob chasing him, and when they caught up with him they found him "drunk, almost catatonic, and with no grasp of what he had done." In August, his wife, Nair, gave birth to their fifth child, and his mistress Iraci announced her first pregnancy....
During the quarter final, a stray dog ran on to the pitch and evaded all of the players' efforts to catch it until England striker Jimmy Greaves got down on all fours to beckon the animal. Though successful in catching the dog, it managed to urinate all over Greaves' England shirt. Greaves claimed that Garrincha thought the incident was so amusing that he took the dog home as a pet.....
He drank heavily throughout his adult life, and was involved in several serious road accidents, notably a crash into a lorry in April 1969 which killed his mother-in-law. He was married twice, first to Nair Marques in 1952 (they separated in 1965), a factory worker from Pau Grande with whom he had eight daughters, and second to Elza Soares, a samba singer whom he married in an unofficial ceremony in March 1966; as Soares had also married before, the Brazilian press were sour on the marriage. The couple separated in 1977, when Soares left him after he struck her during an argument. Garrincha had other significant affairs, including one with showgirl Angelita Martinez, and he is known to have fathered at least 14 children...
He is one of a few players to have scored direct from a corner, a feat he managed to do 3 times in his career...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrincha
based on books it has to be roy of the rovers, he singlehandedly won back to back titles for melchester for about 30 years
Well it is hard to compare players from different eras, true. And to be honest, on the YouTube clips the defenders Garrincha is humiliating don't look a patch on today's lot. But you've still gotta love him eh?
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
damn beat me to it!
it's a hell of a story for sure
quite a sad end tho, he ended up penniless cos of his drink problem even tho everyone in brazil loved him and gave him endless chances
it's a hell of a story for sure
quite a sad end tho, he ended up penniless cos of his drink problem even tho everyone in brazil loved him and gave him endless chances
Aye. Of course these days he'd have sold his story to the Sun, holed up in the Priory for a couple of months, and married Kylie Minogue.
hehe
he probably wouldn't make it in the modern game. it's all too professional for mental people like him now
i reckon a lot of these players wouldn't be so good now, when you look at pele's goals they are still good but he has so much time on the ball...
Actually I think Pele would still be great today. He was big and strong and dirty, he'd have had to train harder, but he'd still bulldoze through defences. But I can't see wayward geniuses like Best or Garrincha (or chain-smokers like Cruyff) surviving today. And you certainly wouldn't find modern players with this attitude (no apologies for quoting it again):
"Garrincha never bothered about the 'details' of the game. As his team-mates were celebrating the World Cup win, he was initially bemused, having been under the impression that the competition was more league-like and that Brazil would play all the other teams twice....."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrincha
kained&able
Here for the football.
flash in the pans!
Best was the best player in the world for a couple of year, no doubt. But bes ever. nah.
Cantona doesn't even come into it for me, the like of bergkamp, zola and dicanio are his level rather then the zidanes, peles and maradonas of the world.
dave
BlueSquareThing
With chips
I was about to add Yashin as my choice
Keepers never get picked out. Defenders rarely.
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
Big? He was 5 foot 8 max, no?
I remember Wegner pointed out when they bought Arshevin that many great players like Pele and Maradona were midgets.
el-ahrairah
forward communism, forward gerbils!
I've never seen any footage of garrincha, will have to look that up and see if his rep is deserved. What I've read about him is fascinating.
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
I think Eusebio deserves a mention too, he had the hardest shot I've ever seen.
internetstalker
Get naked!
pele
1087 goals in 1120 games
amazing
1087 goals in 1120 games
amazing
I thought he was 5.10. But anyway, he was big as in beefy and strong.
But Garrincha failed to notice that he had won the World Cup. That's what I call true greatness.
The Octagon
Stop...Hammertime
kabbes
First intersubjective, then internalised
I'm one of those people who also feels that I can only really compare players that I actually saw play on a regular basis. That probably means mid-80s onwards, although it is tainted by the childlike worship that you can only really have for a player when you are 10 years old.
By those standards, I have to say that Maradona was the best.
Of those that I saw live (and it really does give you a different perspective on a player, because you get to see what they do off the ball too -- for example, I always maintain that Iain Dowie looked a much better player live than on TV), I have to say that Zola was the best. But I haven't seen any from the shortlist live, so there you go.
The most natural wizard of the ball I ever saw, though, was Le Tissier. He could do things that I wouldn't have thought possible.
By those standards, I have to say that Maradona was the best.
Of those that I saw live (and it really does give you a different perspective on a player, because you get to see what they do off the ball too -- for example, I always maintain that Iain Dowie looked a much better player live than on TV), I have to say that Zola was the best. But I haven't seen any from the shortlist live, so there you go.
The most natural wizard of the ball I ever saw, though, was Le Tissier. He could do things that I wouldn't have thought possible.
christonabike
Elm Park Bencher
John Charles
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
deleted
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
Zidane in his prime was in that category too. As Alan Hansen once said, he had skills that made you gasp.
Here's a video of him, for those who haven't seen him at work;
http://www.oleole.com/videos/footballbabes/youtubezinedinezidanegreatestskills/mvama.asp
Do me a favour!
Zoff
Haan Staam Rykjard Maldini
Gerrard Gullit Cruyff Zidane
Maradona Van Basten
Sub Platini
Other than Thuram, Toure and Baresi, I'll have to take your word for it on those. Glad to see respect being given to Thuram, one of the few players who can honestly claim to have been truly world-class in two positions (RB and CB). Desailly (CB and CM) is the only other who springs immediately to mind from my time in football, but I'll wait to be corrected.
Azertyioup
Wind it up
Maradonna, he was on drugs half the time too. 
