I am surprised nobody has mentioned Lionel Messi. He won everything, 8 Balon D'or's, 4 Champions League's, One world cup etc etc etc. I seen him live twice. Once in the Champions League against Bayer Leverkusen. He scored 5 goals that night. A record of goals in one CL match that still stands. In a la Liga game, I seen him score 4 times. Great player. Was a joy to watch with Xavi and Iniesta.
Why is that? Is it his nationality perhaps? He was certainly my favourite and I was delighted to see him winning the world cup to cap off a fine career.
I was trying to highlight the difference between favourite and best. Messi might be seen as the best (although Maradona was better in my view as he carried teams at club and national level, played against much better defenders and didn’t have teams of great players built around him to help him succeed) but his bland personality makes him unlikely to be a favourite in the way that Stan or many others mentioned on this thread are - night out with Frank Worthington or Lionel Messi?
Maybe we should change the thread name to "Player with the best personality" if we are talking about who would be best to have a night out with. Messi wasn't addicted to cocaine and didn't hang around with the mafia and hookers. Having said that, I agree Maradona was a great player. Remember Maradona played against similar defenders to Messi when he played in Spain for 2 or 3 years and when they both played International and Champions League games. Maradona won one Ballon D'or and xero Champions league's. Frank Worthington won f. all and isn't fit to lace Messi's boots, thats the truth in terms of natural talent and things won.
Got out of bed the wrong side? In the opening post I said that favourite doesn’t necessarily mean best. Maradona is the best player I’ve seen but he’s not my favourite. No need to insist everyone agrees. If you can’t tell the difference not much I can do about it.
I am full of the joys this morning. Nice sunny day, just back from voting for our new head of state, my favourite football team doing well, it's all good. Sorry that my choice as MY favourite, doesn;t meet your approval.
Quite often favourites are the 'maverick' type players that have fantastic skill but not necessarily the application to satisfy the manager. There's a large number who may have a handful or even no international caps but have a status and affection many international regulars could only dream of. When you look at the skills of Stan Bowles and the number of caps he won it is the perfect example...
