In order: Zidane, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Maldini, Henry.
Watching Zidane play was like watching a ballet.
(I don't watch ballet, but that sounds nice.)
__________________ Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
I'd say with a lot of confidence that apart from maybe Makelele, Romario and Kaka, none of those are equals to my five. Fabregas, Messi and Van Persie haven't been around long enough to be considered great. Although I have absolutely no doubt that Fabregas will (along with C. Ron) be shoe ins in the near future. Overmars and Viera are close but no cigar. Juninho, Drogba, Toure, Adriano (have you seen him play recently??) are just plain not good enough. Ballack is obviously worshipped in Germany for a reason, but personally I wouldn't place him in a top 5. A top 15, maybe.
I was going to say Ortega, but he was just such a jerk of a player. Faded away, too.
Also, Roberto Baggio? Cafu? Costacurta? And even though his time in England pretty much tarnished his reputation, Veron. He was always mentioned amongst the world's best before Man United, and it's not as if he let that kill him off; he's playing very well again now, back in the Argentina squad etc.
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Last edited by Deathblow on Mar 28th, 2008 at 08:01 PM
Davids at his peak was incredible, he was the heart of that Juventus side even when Zidane was there. Fabregas may mature into a superior player in time. But not he isn't yet. Zola was arguably as good as Bergkamp. Just ask Diego Maradona, aka the guy Zola used to beat in free kick contests on the Napoli training ground. I know you won't have this, you being the lovably unflappable scamp that you are, but you are biased as an Arsenal fan. You are. No other way you could justify claiming Van Persie (who I'm a huge fan of nevertheless) is one of the greatest players of the last decade and a half. He's only been in Arsenal's first team for a few seasons, much of that he's spent out injured, and at the beginning of which he wasn't even all that. You're basing a few of your choices on raw potential.
You know what is actually nonsense though? Robben, Toure and Adriano being better than Figo.
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Last edited by Deathblow on Mar 28th, 2008 at 10:31 PM
Then remove Van Persie, big deal, it's one player. Bergkamp is undoubtedly eligible, even if you remove Arsenal from history. He did things with Inter and Holland that are amazing.
Fabregas is definitely eligible, but if it makes you that agitated, take every Arsenal player out. There, now there's no more alleged bias, right? Messi is better now than Davids has ever been, ask Maradona that. So what if Zola beat him in free kicks? Juninho would beat them both, and he isn't eligible to you. Messi isn't just "potential", he has proven himself many times over.
I don't think they are necessarily better than Figo in his prime, but Nedved, Davids, Savicevic? Yes.
Are you talking about Lyon's Juninho?? Wow, he's definitely not, IMO.
Well this is where we start getting caught up in positional effectiveness, see. You can't compare Messi to Davids. That's like comparing Roy Keane to Van Basten. Davids, as a box to box midfielder, was the best of this generation. Messi, as a winger or supporting striker, I wouldn't call him the best. It takes years of consistency, in my opinion, to be considered the best of a generation. I'm not debating his talent, Messi just simply hasn't been around long enough. Maybe Nedved and Savicevic (although the latter is horrifically underrated anyway) didn't have the raw ability of Messi, but they were amazing players across lengthy careers that would have seen many promising youngsters spring up and then die off.
You obviously just don't rate Zola, and that's pretty amazing to me. Of course Maradona would say Messi's better than anyone, his ego would be shattered if the ''new Maradona'' wasn't the world's greatest. But Zola was just a foreign clubmate, who used to match and surpass him on the training ground. Surely that's enough raw talent (and ''proof'' in the form of the years of service and multiple trophies he delivered to a pretty average Chelsea side) to be eligible. He was fantastic. As an individual he accomplished as much for Chelsea as Bergkamp did for Arsenal. I'd say Bergkamp just shades it as the better player, but its far from a comfortable victory, and to say Bergkamp deserves an instant place in a top five and not Zola is unfair.
And I wasn't talking about Bergkamp. I meant Toure, Van Persie and Fabregas. I don't think anyone but an Arsenal fan would name any of those three, that's all.
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Last edited by Deathblow on Mar 29th, 2008 at 12:00 AM
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