The Greatest SOCCER PLAYERS Poll

[jhar26]

Vote and discuss... ;D And we have some clips from some of these players in the Sports sub-board, so check them out.

Gaston

[jhar26]

100% of the vote so far for Maradona! Impressive!... ;D

Gaston

[egoodstein]

I don't know soccer very well, but for the hell of it I'll vote for Pele ;D. He was fun to watch-- also to the extent that soccer has a profile in the USA Pele was certainly responsible to begin with. So I think he was a great ambassador for the sport. Miradona is a great player from what I've seen. I also was impressed by Cruyff-- and George Best when he was 'on' was really amazing, but he kinda wasted his talent & life sadly. The others I don't know well enough to comment on really. Ed

[jhar26]

egoodstein said:

I don't know soccer very well, but for the hell of it I'll vote for Pele ;D. He was fun to watch-- also to the extent that soccer has a profile in the USA Pele was certainly responsible to begin with. So I think he was a great ambassador for the sport. Maradona is a great player from what I've seen. I also was impressed by Cruyff-- and George Best when he was 'on' was really amazing, but he kinda wasted his talent & life sadly. The others I don't know well enough to comment on really. Ed

Pelé and Maradona are equals really. There's always much debate about who of them was THE greatest. Personality wise they are total opposites. Pelé was a nice guy (at least his image was) and an ideal role model. Maradona was a cocaine addict with a rebellious image. If anything, Pelé's cv is the most impressive of the two.

I nevertheless voted for Maradona because Pelé didn't play outside of his native Brasilian competition until he was past his prime, and even then "only" in the US, which is a minor competition compared to the European ones (especially Italy, Spain and England). His three world titles with Brasil sound impressive (and of course THEY ARE impressive), but Brasil had such a strong team, full of stars, that they probably would have won even without Pelé's genius.

Maradona on the other hand pushed Argentina towards a world title and a world cup final practically on his own. They would have been nowhere without him. And he played for the relatively minor team of Napels and made them the champs of the top-heavy Italian competition two years in a row and led them towards a European cup win. When he left it wasn't long before Napels was playing in Italy's second division.

Both were Gods though, the Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali of soccer as it were.

Gaston

[boots]

Do you really expect to get a sensible answer from the ultra padded American Football watchers here? Some fool has even nominated "the hand of God" as the best ..... well maybe whilst on cocaine he was, but I doubt it. Clearly Pele was THE GREATEST.

[jhar26]

boots said:

Do you really expect to get a sensible answer from the ultra padded American Football watchers here? Some fool has even nominated "the hand of God" as the best ..... well maybe whilst on cocaine he was, but I doubt it. Clearly Pele was THE GREATEST.

Still frustrated that good old Diego single handedly removed England from the world cup, Terry? ;D

Gaston

[babyblue]

I do not know much about soccer, as I never was sports minded. However, Pele stands out to me above the rest.

Marty

[erik]

I too voted for Pele, because after he turned Brazil upside down with it, I do think he helped to start getting soccer off the ground in America.

I think in general we imperialist American yahoos are jaded by all the sports we have that are high scoring (basketball; football), or that have a certain amount of speed (baseball, hockey), that soccer has never really caught on...yet, anyway.

However, we do have Major League Soccer in this land, and in some cities you'd never expect: Houston; Salt Lake City; Denver, etc.