It was June 2012 according to the ever reliable wikipedia, so obviously Europe was looking towards Poland and Ukraine.
The difference is that Maradona won WC 86 almost single handed, and Pele starred in WC58, WC66 and WC70. In other words they produced the goods at THE HIGHEST LEVEL and WHEN IT MATTERED.
Despite being heavy favourites, a star studded Chelsea team managed a whopping great shot against Basel tonight, one solitary shot, and it was off target as well. And I thought we'd been bad recently
Argentina did have some decent players at that World Cup. Valdano scored a few and the likes of Passarella, Luis Brown, Burruchaga and Batista were decent players. Everyone knows Maradonna scored the two to defeat England but he must have scored 5 or less in the tournament as Lineker had 6 to win the Golden Boot Maradonna is also attributed to Napoli winning Serie A - again he is attributed to have done this single handedly.
But the highest level then wouldn't be as good as an average PL game now in my opinion. You can see from watching the old footage that they just weren't very good in those days and everything just seems really laboured like a load of kids playing on a full size pitch when they clearly aren't ready for it. The idea of an organised defence didn't exist back then. I know people have sentimental attachments to players from their era and whatever - I'll probably be the same with the likes of Ashbee in 30 years' time - and I accept there were some things a lot better about the game back then but I really don't think players from the 70s and previously were anywhere near as good as the players of today.
Decent larkers as you say but no better than Shilts, Lineker, Bryan Robson etc Agree about Napoli.......like the Pied Pier
Totally disagree. Innate skill, positional sense, balance, vision etc are not easily coached if at all. Players of the past had arguably better skills because they were obsessed with kicking a ball day and night, and had no distractions. But they poorer diets and less coaching. Messi and Ronaldo may be the best at the moment but ,like Allam at City, judge them when they've hung up their boots .......
Of the players in the current generation both Messi and Ronaldo are the stars. Messi with his 90 odd goals in a season slightly edges Ronaldo but it's a gut reaction as his team are better overall than Real Madrid I know little about Pele other than those repeated goals which generally show his misses (from half way line / vs Banks) rather than his goals and what I've read about him. Maradonna is certainly from my era. Add in Zidane who I thought was a maestro. Other contenders would be Best (before my time), Beckenbauer (before my time) Puskas (before my time) and then more modern day players like Van Basten, Gullit, Baresi, Mattheus and Dalglish - the latter two may be stretching it a little Best player of all time - for me - probably Maradonna. But I think next years World Cup might be decisive in the decision changing - if Messi inspires the Argies to win it then he ticks that last box
Again, sorry to bring it up, but I mention this in the article. "Maradona almost single handedly won the 1986 World Cup with a team deemed as nothing special, a feat he repeated for a S.S.C Napoli side punching way above their weight in winning multiple Serie A titles, a Copa America and the UEFA Cup. Would Messi have achieved this at Napoli now for instance or any other second rate side? It is pointless debating that as we have no way in knowing. It is the definition of conjecture."
Yes because they have had better training (primed athletes devoting their entire life to this cause), fitness, doctors, support team, advanced training techniques, better boot tech, fitness, footballs, smooth pitches, diet etc.
[video=youtube;_7rqn9VF-Y8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7rqn9VF-Y8[/video] Here's a compilation. For me his greatest goal is the No. 2 not that one in WC 86. People forget that he did the same to Belgium in the WCSF 86 as he did to us. Goals where he starts off with half the opposition team trying to hack him down. These are crucial world cup knockout games....not friendlies or easy wins. Context counts for a lot.
I addressed this in my blog, see below. "Maradona almost single handedly won the 1986 World Cup with a team deemed as nothing special, a feat he repeated for a S.S.C Napoli side punching way above their weight in winning multiple Serie A titles, a Copa America and the UEFA Cup. Would Messi have achieved this at Napoli now for instance or any other second rate side? It is pointless debating that as we have no way in knowing. It is the definition of conjecture."
There were some decent midfielders at the 86 World Cup Platini, Scifo, Zico, Socrates, Tigana, Molby, Laudrup, Matthaus, Carlos Manuel and Robson Scotlands team was probably their best ever bar a GK with the likes of Gough, Strachan, Aitken, McStay, Nicol, Sharp and Nicholas
