Maybe English people don't appreciate the impact Gazza's performance had on the international scale. I'm not English and the only England player I remembered to be wow'ed by was Gazza in 1990. I just asked my dad, who has been a huge football fan since the 60's and has never lived in England and has never been a fan of English football, if he remembered Gazza. His reaction was: "Of course. He was the best English player ever."
Maybe English people don't appreciate the impact Gazza's performance had on the international scale. I'm not English and the only England player I remembered to be wow'ed by was Gazza in 1990. I just asked my dad, who has been a huge football fan since the 60's and has never lived in England and has never been a fan of English football, if he remembered Gazza. His reaction was: "Of course. He was the best English player ever."
Did they really?
Then how come less than a decade when numerous national football magazines did their best players of the century list:
Guerin' Sportivo (Italy) Top 50: English players:
21.Bobby Charlton
31.Stanley Matthews
France Football's Football Player of the Century Top 50:
16. Bobby CHARLTON
31. Gordon BANKS
37. Bobby MOORE
Voetbal International (Netherlands) Top 100 (no rankings):
Gordon Banks
Bobby Charlton
Duncan Edwards
Stanley Matthews
Bobby Moore
Also World Soccer magazine asked their readers to come up with their own Top 100 in 1999:
12 Bobby Charlton
14 Bobby Moore
17 Stanley Matthews
32 Gordon Banks
36 Gary Lineker
44 Michael Owen
46 Duncan Edwards
49 David Beckham
50 Tom Finney
56 Kevin Keegan
57 Paul Gascoigne
61 Glenn Hoddle
64 Alan Shearer
67 Dixie Dean
91 Bryan Robson
So Gazza did not leave much of an international impact.
Whilst he never made the European Player of The Year Top 3 (1956- Present) unlike our English players:
Stanley Matthews
Billy Wright
Duncan Edwards
Johnny Haynes
Jimmy Greaves
Bobby Charlton (*3)
Bobby Moore
Kevin Keegan (*3)
Gary Lineker
Alan Shearer
David Beckham
Michael Owen
Frank Lampard
Steven Gerrard
Hmmm... He didn't make those lists just because his career was so short-lived and his time at Lazio was so terrible. Generally, Gazza had little impact in club football, but in an England shirt no one wowed crowds as he did in 1990. It's difficult to compare footballers who played pre-1970 and say they were the best ever because football was very different back then. On the other hand, if Gazza in his 1990 form played for England in this World Cup, you'd have a real chance of getting somewhere.
There are always romantic myths associated with people who died young. Just like some people believe that James Dean was the best actor of his generation, people start believing in the "what if's" in relation to Duncan Edwards. In reality no one knows how his career would have panned out and how he would have played at any World or Euro Cup.
Whereas Paul Gascoigne actually delivered and played incredibly in both 1990 and 1996 so much so that the international public noticed him and thought he was one of the 2-3 best players in the world at a time when the world was full of football superstars. The game was also completely different in Duncan Edwards' time and cannot be compared to the modern football of the 1990's.
Hence anyone who follows football yet claims Duncan Edwards is not worthy of the place in the Top 100 English players of all time, is really embarrassing themselves.
Im not embarrassing myself in the slightest.
The guy died at TWENTY ONE YEARS OF AGE. Think about that for a second. TWENTY ONE. The entire rest of his career and the aura built up around him is based purely on fantasy and sentences that start with "If he hadn't died…….". Thats all very well but he did die, and tragic as that may be it also means he achieved absolutely nothing from 21 onwards so therefore i can't include him in any meaningful way in a list of the greatest of all time.
Kill off any modern player you want at 21 and the surmise as to how their career would pan out and all you can do is assume they continued to develop at the same rate that they were going when they died. Michael Owen at 21 was looking like an absolute world beater, you could argue it didn't turn out that way for him when faced with the reality of actually having to play on but had he died you could easily say "Ah Michael Owen would easily have been Englands all time scorer, he was well on the way, he's an all time great for sure" safe in the knowledge that you can never be proved wrong.
Duncan Edwards was by all accounts a fantastic player who would indeed have gone on to great things however I would suggest anyone who is seriously putting forward a man who stopped playing at 21 and only played 18 times for his country as "The Greatest" is doing so out of sentiment and speculation rather than anything else.
Hmmm... He didn't make those lists just because his career was so short-lived and his time at Lazio was so terrible. Generally, Gazza had little impact in club football, but in an England shirt no one wowed crowds as he did in 1990. It's difficult to compare footballers who played pre-1970 and say they were the best ever because football was very different back then. On the other hand, if Gazza in his 1990 form played for England in this World Cup, you'd have a real chance of getting somewhere.
And yet Duncan Edwards did make most of those lists.
Perhaps as he proved over his short career, what a consistently great player he was in being the star player in Manchester United's two League titles; and their lengthy runs in the European Cup; oh and in his England career he was frequently outstanding such as when they played the World Champions West Germany in front of 90,000 inside the Berliner Olympiastadion on 26 May 1956 where he put in a Man Of The Match performance scoring one of his trademark "thunder bombs" from well outside the box; and putting a lovely ball through to Johnny Haynes to score in a 1-3 away victory.
One thing is certain, his professionalism and cool temperament that impressed all his contemporaries and peers ensured he would not have wasted his career via alcoholism, bingeing on fast foods; or beating up his wife like Gazza did!
Duncan Edwards isnt in the top 100. Dying doesnt make you a genius. I would argue that players who played in the 50s and prior may have been awesome at the time and may have been brilliant in whatever era they played in but the fact is the game prior to the 60s is getting pretty far removed from the modern game and comparisons become completely impossible, hence why i wont make reference to these guys. There is little footage and i wasnt there so how can i put forward a case? I cant.
Comparisons between eras are difficult but not impossible. It's mainly tactics and fitness levels that have changed. Basic skills and abilities are the same. Skilful players like Finney, Law, Greaves and Charlton would fit right in with modern teams. A player who was outstanding in the fifties would be outstanding now. Great players adapt. To say that no player from before the mid sixties is good enough to consider is ludicrous.
Duncan Edwards isn't revered because he died young. He was very highly regarded as a player at the time. By all accounts he was outstanding. Tom Finney was one of the all time greats. You can't rule him out because of when he played.
The guy died at TWENTY ONE YEARS OF AGE. Think about that for a second. TWENTY ONE. The entire rest of his career and the aura built up around him is based purely on fantasy and sentences that start with "If he hadn't died…….". Thats all very well but he did die, and tragic as that may be it also means he achieved absolutely nothing from 21 onwards so therefore i can't include him in any meaningful way in a list of the greatest of all time.
Kill off any modern player you want at 21 and the surmise as to how their career would pan out and all you can do is assume they continued to develop at the same rate that they were going when they died. Michael Owen at 21 was looking like an absolute world beater, you could argue it didn't turn out that way for him when faced with the reality of actually having to play on but had he died you could easily say "Ah Michael Owen would easily have been Englands all time scorer, he was well on the way, he's an all time great for sure" safe in the knowledge that you can never be proved wrong.
Duncan Edwards was by all accounts a fantastic player who would indeed have gone on to great things however I would suggest anyone who is seriously putting forward a man who stopped playing at 21 and only played 18 times for his country as "The Greatest" is doing so out of sentiment and speculation rather than anything else.
I guess then according to you if you had to compile a list of great musicians of all time then the likes of Buddy Holly; Jimi Hendrix; Kurt Cobain (Nirvana); etc should be disregarded.
Also using your same "logic"; Manchester United would have suffered the same dramatic slump from being twice consecutive League Champions; and twice reaching the Semi Finals of the European Cup to league also-rans had the Munich Air Disaster not occurred; likewise England would have done equally as badly in the 1958 & 1962 World Cups as they did to only reaching the Quarter Finals.
I'm sorry, but I prefer the opinions of legendary players; and contemporary sports writers to your viewpoint.
I guess had Pele died in 1961; George Best died in the spring of 1968; Diego Maradona had died in the summer after the World Cup of 1982; you be dismissing their undoubted talent and ability too.
But perhaps you've got a major downer about Duncan Edwards because of who his footballing lookalike is, and who he plays for. When even I as a Liverpool supporter will happily admit in terms of natural footballing talent he is and never will be as good as Edwards was; despite becoming Liverpool's second best ever player. IMO. ;-)
Duncan Edwards isnt in the top 100. Dying doesnt make you a genius. I would argue that players who played in the 50s and prior may have been awesome at the time and may have been brilliant in whatever era they played in but the fact is the game prior to the 60s is getting pretty far removed from the modern game and comparisons become completely impossible, hence why i wont make reference to these guys. There is little footage and i wasnt there so how can i put forward a case? I cant.
So using your arguments with other sports:
F1: The likes of Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Alonso, Mansell, Piquet, Hamilton, Vettel ...... are better than Fangio, Nuvolari, Ascari, Moss, Farina, Brabham, Hawthorn ...
Track & Field Athletics: The likes of Carl Lewis; Ed Moses; Jackie Joyner-Kersee; Daley Thompson; Michael Johnson; Usain Bolt; Haile Gebrselassie; Sebastian Coe; Cathy Freeman ....... are better than Jesse Owens; Jim Thorpe; Fanny Blankers-Koen; Ray Ewry; Paavo Nurmi; Bob Mathias; Wilma Rudolph
Cricket: The likes of Sachin Tendulkar; Shane Warne; Brian Lara; Viv Richards; Malcolm Marshall; Jack Kallis; Glenn McGrath ...... are better than the likes of Don Bradman; Garfield Sobers; GA Headley; Wally Hammond; Jack Hobbs; Fred Trueman; Jim Laker ...
But getting back to Football; this issue was resolved once and for all when Arsenal 1933 took on Liverpool 1991 (playing a half each with their contemporary rules).
F1: The likes of Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Alonso, Mansell, Piquet, Hamilton, Vettel ...... are better than Fangio, Nuvolari, Ascari, Moss, Farina, Brabham, Hawthorn ...
Track & Field Athletics: The likes of Carl Lewis; Ed Moses; Jackie Joyner-Kersee; Daley Thompson; Michael Johnson; Usain Bolt; Haile Gebrselassie; Sebastian Coe; Cathy Freeman ....... are better than Jesse Owens; Jim Thorpe; Fanny Blankers-Koen; Ray Ewry; Paavo Nurmi; Bob Mathias; Wilma Rudolph
Cricket: The likes of Sachin Tendulkar; Shane Warne; Brian Lara; Viv Richards; Malcolm Marshall; Jack Kallis; Glenn McGrath ...... are better than the likes of Don Bradman; Garfield Sobers; GA Headley; Wally Hammond; Jack Hobbs; Fred Trueman; Jim Laker ...
But getting back to Football; this issue was resolved once and for all when Arsenal 1933 took on Liverpool 1991 (playing a half each with their contemporary rules).
As Rafa Benitez might say ... Charles Charlie Charles = better than Lionel Messi; Cristiano Ronaldo; Andrés Iniesta ... FACT!
Ive answered this already but i'll do it again.
F1 - totally incomparable. Surely that isnt up for debate? The cars couldnt be more far removed from each other across the eras. Could a modern driver drive a 50s car? Could a 50s driver drive a modern car? Who knows, it would be total speculation.
Athletics - Far far easier to compare on the basis that it tends to be human vs human without huge amount of technology and success is measured in terms of speend and distance.
And so it goes on etc etc.
For me looking at a game of football is the 50s is hugely removed from watching a game today. Look at the body on Cristiano Ronaldo and compare it to a player in the 50s, look at the pitches, the ball, the tactics, the diet, the fitness etc etc. I just dont think you can compare the two games because they are so far removed from each other. I would probably believe that players who had natural ability would adapt to any era but its certainly not a given.
I dont think its that outrageous a statement really.
I guess then according to you if you had to compile a list of great musicians of all time then the likes of Buddy Holly; Jimi Hendrix; Kurt Cobain (Nirvana); etc should be disregarded.
Also using your same "logic"; Manchester United would have suffered the same dramatic slump from being twice consecutive League Champions; and twice reaching the Semi Finals of the European Cup to league also-rans had the Munich Air Disaster not occurred; likewise England would have done equally as badly in the 1958 & 1962 World Cups as they did to only reaching the Quarter Finals.
I'm sorry, but I prefer the opinions of legendary players; and contemporary sports writers to your viewpoint.
I guess had Pele died in 1961; George Best died in the spring of 1968; Diego Maradona had died in the summer after the World Cup of 1982; you be dismissing their undoubted talent and ability too.
But perhaps you've got a major downer about Duncan Edwards because of who his footballing lookalike is, and who he plays for. When even I as a Liverpool supporter will happily admit in terms of natural footballing talent he is and never will be as good as Edwards was; despite becoming Liverpool's second best ever player. IMO. ;-)
Why does music have to be brought into it? Ok if you want to i will discuss it. If there is a significant body of work left by the departed artist then of course you can place them at the top of your list, if they had one album before dying then its really really difficult to do anything but appreciate that album, you certainly cant say they were the greatest because we just dont know. Its easy to appreciate the dead artist if they havent had the opportunity to produce the bad albums as well as the good. How much cooler is Lennon seen than McCartney and how much is due to Lennon dying in 1980 while McCartney got old and less and less relevant.
Ive never dismissed anyones talent as you seem to suggest, im just putting it in some perspective. If all the players you list had died after a couple of years of their careers starting then no, i wouldnt be able to class them at the top because they simply wouldnt have achieved enough. Thats just common sense. I would acknowledge the talent but it would be classed as "unfulfilled potential" rather than "the greatest of all time". I also dont really understand why you would base your opinion on the opinion of someone else. You wouldnt do that with anyone else would you? "Why do you rate Edwards so highly?" "Because Bobby Charlton really liked him". That just doesnt make much sense to me, surely you base you opinion on what you see with your own eyes, which in the case of Edwards is "not a lot" for the vast majority of people.
I have no idea what your last paragraph is all about. Sorry if im being a bit dense.
I think all you can say about Duncan Edwards is that he was was the greatest young player England has produced in living memory. He had more potential than any other player we've seen at such a young age. But sadly, that will forever remain unfullfilled potential.
I'm with Cantona on that, I don't see how you can include him among the all-time greats based on a career that was tragically cut so short. He deserves his status as a legend, even in the short time he was with us he earned that. But taking a cold, detached appraisal of his contribution to the game, many others achieved a lot more.
I absolutely agree that football in the 50's was a different sport and I would go as far as saying that only in 1970 football started to resemble modern football and of course The Netherlands' total football in 1974 is basically played today. Prior to that it was a different sport and the Duncan Edwards story became this romantic myth, but no one knows how his career would have turned out. However, if people follow the logic that England was weak internationally at the time because Duncan died, surely the same logic should apply to Gazza and his injury. The only two international tournaments England did well at since 1966 were tournaments in which Gazza played a leading role. Without Gazza (in form) England couldn't even qualify for the World Cup in 1994.
I absolutely agree that football in the 50's was a different sport and I would go as far as saying that only in 1970 football started to resemble modern football and of course The Netherlands' total football in 1974 is basically played today. Prior to that it was a different sport and the Duncan Edwards story became this romantic myth, but no one knows how his career would have turned out. However, if people follow the logic that England was weak internationally at the time because Duncan died, surely the same logic should apply to Gazza and his injury. The only two international tournaments England did well at since 1966 were tournaments in which Gazza played a leading role. Without Gazza (in form) England couldn't even qualify for the World Cup in 1994.
Its hard to say that. Holland of 1974 were sublime, but even with a goal start inside 2 minutes couldnt beat germany.
4 years before that, we had the peerless 1970 brazil side.
And 16 years before that, although its hard to judge them at this distance, we had the amazing Magyars who also contrived to losa a lead to the germans.
I think great players would be great players in any era.
Zatopek would have been a great runner.
Joe Louis would have been a great boxer.
Don Bradman had a career average far above any other player before or since.
Whilst Gazza was undoubtedly gifted as well as being "daft as a brush" to me he does not come close to the Garrincha; Best; or Maradona levels of football genius achievement compared to self destructive madness.
He may have made the FIFA World Cup Team of the 1990 Tournament, but he would not find a place in my all time England First XI. Not least for his reaction in getting that second yellow card, meaning he'd miss the final. He was due to take a penalty in the shootout, but as his head was gone, he was replaced by Chris Waddle, and we all remember what happened next.
Compare that to what Roy Keane achieved in identical circumstances in a ECL Semi Final. In 1999, Roy Keane got a yellow card against Juve, but heroically led United back from 0-2 down to the Champs League final. And the rest was history.
Personally, I'd say the best English player ever was Bobby Charlton, for his longevity, and for what he achieved in the highest level of the game.
However, Bobby Charlton reckons the best English player ever was Duncan Edwards.
“He was the only player who made me feel inferior,” he said.
“Duncan was without doubt the best player to ever come out of this place, and there’s been some competition down the years. He was colossal and I wouldn’t use that word to describe anyone else. He had such presence, he dominated every game all over the pitch. Had he lived, he would have been the best player in the world. He was sensational, and it is difficult to convey that. It is sad there isn’t enough film to show today’s youngsters just how good he was.”
"Yes, I know the great players – Pele, Maradona, Best, Law, Greaves and my great favourite Alfredo di Stefano – but my point was that he was better in every phase of the game. If you asked such players as Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney about Duncan their answers were always the same: they had seen nothing like him."
Tom Finney said of him: "Duncan could do anything. If the goalkeeper kicked the ball downfield, he would be heading it, if there was a corner kick he would be knocking the ball in, and if someone was running through he would be the one to dispossess him. So many times he made the rest of us feel like pygmies."
According to Sir Matt Busby’s he was his greatest discovery. “We used to look at players in training to see if we might have to get them to concentrate more on something,” Busby has recalled, as quoted in The Lost Babes by Jeff Connor. “We looked at Duncan, and gave up trying to spot flaws in his game."
As Sir Matt said in a Grandstand interview in 1988 "If I had a pound for every time I get asked the question who was our club's greatest player, with that person assuming I'm going to say either Bobby (Charlton), or George (Best); and the surprise, and occasional blank stares when I answer Duncan Edwards, I'd be a very rich man. It is so sad he seems to have been forgotten, because he had everything as a player a manager could dream of ..."
The former England captain Jimmy Armfield said “With Edwards, [Roger] Byrne and [Tommy] Taylor we would have won the World Cup in 1958 and then four years later. England could have had a hat-trick of World Cup wins."
Top Football writer Brian Glanville: "He captained England schoolboys, England Under-23s, and had he lived would surely have succeeded Billy Wright as captain of the senior side. It is difficult to play the "What if?" game, but it has often been argued Edwards would have captained England during the 1960s, severely hampering the career of a certain Bobby Moore."
Sir Stanley Matthews: "You only have to see what Franz Beckenbauer achieved in his career for West Germany to get an idea of what Duncan Edwards could have been had he lived. When he first came into the England squad I was struck by how good, and especially how composed and mature he was.... and with the greatest respect to Mr Beckenbauer he was a more gifted footballer."
Sir Bobby Robson "Had he lived, and assuming he avoided a subsequent career harming injury, I have little doubt he would have gone on to be the greatest England player who ever played the game."
By the time he died at 21, Edwards had already played for Manchester United 177 times, winning two league championships, three FA Youth Cups, an FA Cup runners-up medal and 18 England caps, scoring 5 goals. He had become both the youngest player to appear in the first division at just 16 years and 184 days and the youngest England international of the 20th century, aged 18 years and 183 days, a record which stood for nearly 43 years before Michael Owen claimed it. In 1957, at the age of 20 he finished 3rd in the Ballon d'Or (European Player of The Year) behind the winner Alfredo di Stefano.
In February 1958 United qualified for the semifinals of the European Cup for a second consecutive season with a 3-3 draw against Red Star Belgrade. Duncan Edwards won Man Of The Match .... and we all know what happened next.
Hence anyone who follows football yet claims Duncan Edwards is not worthy of the place in the Top 100 English players of all time, is really embarrassing themselves.
Not least as when in 1999 World Soccer magazine asked a list of nearly 2000 former writers, and international managers and players to vote for their Top 10 players of all time (with the rule they could not vote for any player of their own nationality, and a maximum of three from any nation); just 6 English players made the list:
Gordon BANKS
Bobby CHARLTON
Duncan EDWARDS
Tom FINNEY
Stanley MATTHEWS
Bobby MOORE
So no English players from the last three decades of the 20th century.
Great post but I disagree with the BIB. Edwards was a totally different player to Moore. Edwards was basically a defensive midfield player who had the ability to go forward whenever he felt like it. There would have been room for Moore and Edwards.
There are always romantic myths associated with people who died young. Just like some people believe that James Dean was the best actor of his generation, people start believing in the "what if's" in relation to Duncan Edwards. In reality no one knows how his career would have panned out and how he would have played at any World or Euro Cup.
Whereas Paul Gascoigne actually delivered and played incredibly in both 1990 and 1996 so much so that the international public noticed him and thought he was one of the 2-3 best players in the world at a time when the world was full of football superstars. The game was also completely different in Duncan Edwards' time and cannot be compared to the modern football of the 1990's.
You can only be the best of your era and certain players would have been great in any era.
But perhaps you've got a major downer about Duncan Edwards because of who his footballing lookalike is, and who he plays for. When even I as a Liverpool supporter will happily admit in terms of natural footballing talent he is and never will be as good as Edwards was; despite becoming Liverpool's second best ever player. IMO. ;-)
Having suffered through the horror that was England v (10-man) Honduras I now retract my statement that Paul Gascoigne in his 1990 form would have ensured England get somewhere this WC. I'm afraid even Pele at his best couldn't help England at this stage.
Let's hope Roy Hodgson doesn't have such reactions and makes judgements based on a friendly just before a major tournament where the players would have wanted to avoid injury.
The team will be putting more of an effort in against Italy.
I dread to think what sort of views would be going round if we did as Italy did and drew with Luxembourg!
Pre tournament friendlies mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, they are just a way to gain match fitness, and to mould the group together.
Indeed. If England go on to lose every group game then you can look back on the warm-ups and ask what went wrong, but one decent result when it matters and these games mean absolutely nothing.
when they perform poorly in qualifiers, the excuse is that the result - and with it, qualification - is all that matters. when they perform poorly in friendlies during the season, the performances are excused because the games are meaningless, players aren't motivated etc. when they perform poorly in pre-tournament friendlies, the excuse is that they are experimental lineups, players are trying to avoid injury, only the tournament itself matters, oh and look....[insert big team here] got a poor result too, so what's the problem. then when they perform poorly in the tournaments themselves, cue the hand-wringing about how technically inferior the team are to the better teams, and about how they struggle to string even 5 decent passes together etc.....yet no-one seems able to make the connection good performances in qualifiers, friendlies etc being the norm, and better performances in tournaments. there are no guarantees, of course, but it surely stands to reason that playing well regularly would increase the chances of playing well when it matters. but instead, people prefer to turn a blind eye to the glaring negatives, and just hope everything will be alright on the night when the World Cup or Euros comes around.
when they perform poorly in qualifiers, the excuse is that the result - and with it, qualification - is all that matters. when they perform poorly in friendlies during the season, the performances are excused because the games are meaningless, players aren't motivated etc. when they perform poorly in pre-tournament friendlies, the excuse is that they are experimental lineups, players are trying to avoid injury, only the tournament itself matters, oh and look....[insert big team here] got a poor result too, so what's the problem. then when they perform poorly in the tournaments themselves, cue the hand-wringing about how technically inferior the team are to the better teams, and about how they struggle to string even 5 decent passes together etc.....yet no-one seems able to make the connection good performances in qualifiers, friendlies etc being the norm, and better performances in tournaments. there are no guarantees, of course, but it surely stands to reason that playing well regularly would increase the chances of playing well when it matters. but instead, people prefer to turn a blind eye to the glaring negatives, and just hope everything will be alright on the night when the World Cup or Euros comes around.
People turn a blind eye? Feel free to point them out because it seems anywhere you go nowadays people are no different to you and completely sh*t on England.
What any of this has to do with Gascoigne, fu*k knows.
Comments
Did they really?
Then how come less than a decade when numerous national football magazines did their best players of the century list:
Guerin' Sportivo (Italy) Top 50: English players:
21.Bobby Charlton
31.Stanley Matthews
France Football's Football Player of the Century Top 50:
16. Bobby CHARLTON
31. Gordon BANKS
37. Bobby MOORE
Placar (Brazil) Top 100:
18.Bobby CHARLTON
21.Gordon BANKS
37.Bobby MOORE
49.Stanley MATTHEWS
68.Duncan EDWARDS
89.Paul GASCOIGNE
Voetbal International (Netherlands) Top 100 (no rankings):
Gordon Banks
Bobby Charlton
Duncan Edwards
Stanley Matthews
Bobby Moore
Also World Soccer magazine asked their readers to come up with their own Top 100 in 1999:
12 Bobby Charlton
14 Bobby Moore
17 Stanley Matthews
32 Gordon Banks
36 Gary Lineker
44 Michael Owen
46 Duncan Edwards
49 David Beckham
50 Tom Finney
56 Kevin Keegan
57 Paul Gascoigne
61 Glenn Hoddle
64 Alan Shearer
67 Dixie Dean
91 Bryan Robson
So Gazza did not leave much of an international impact.
Whilst he never made the European Player of The Year Top 3 (1956- Present) unlike our English players:
Stanley Matthews
Billy Wright
Duncan Edwards
Johnny Haynes
Jimmy Greaves
Bobby Charlton (*3)
Bobby Moore
Kevin Keegan (*3)
Gary Lineker
Alan Shearer
David Beckham
Michael Owen
Frank Lampard
Steven Gerrard
Whereas Paul Gascoigne actually delivered and played incredibly in both 1990 and 1996 so much so that the international public noticed him and thought he was one of the 2-3 best players in the world at a time when the world was full of football superstars. The game was also completely different in Duncan Edwards' time and cannot be compared to the modern football of the 1990's.
Im not embarrassing myself in the slightest.
The guy died at TWENTY ONE YEARS OF AGE. Think about that for a second. TWENTY ONE. The entire rest of his career and the aura built up around him is based purely on fantasy and sentences that start with "If he hadn't died…….". Thats all very well but he did die, and tragic as that may be it also means he achieved absolutely nothing from 21 onwards so therefore i can't include him in any meaningful way in a list of the greatest of all time.
Kill off any modern player you want at 21 and the surmise as to how their career would pan out and all you can do is assume they continued to develop at the same rate that they were going when they died. Michael Owen at 21 was looking like an absolute world beater, you could argue it didn't turn out that way for him when faced with the reality of actually having to play on but had he died you could easily say "Ah Michael Owen would easily have been Englands all time scorer, he was well on the way, he's an all time great for sure" safe in the knowledge that you can never be proved wrong.
Duncan Edwards was by all accounts a fantastic player who would indeed have gone on to great things however I would suggest anyone who is seriously putting forward a man who stopped playing at 21 and only played 18 times for his country as "The Greatest" is doing so out of sentiment and speculation rather than anything else.
And yet Duncan Edwards did make most of those lists.
Perhaps as he proved over his short career, what a consistently great player he was in being the star player in Manchester United's two League titles; and their lengthy runs in the European Cup; oh and in his England career he was frequently outstanding such as when they played the World Champions West Germany in front of 90,000 inside the Berliner Olympiastadion on 26 May 1956 where he put in a Man Of The Match performance scoring one of his trademark "thunder bombs" from well outside the box; and putting a lovely ball through to Johnny Haynes to score in a 1-3 away victory.
One thing is certain, his professionalism and cool temperament that impressed all his contemporaries and peers ensured he would not have wasted his career via alcoholism, bingeing on fast foods; or beating up his wife like Gazza did!
Duncan Edwards isn't revered because he died young. He was very highly regarded as a player at the time. By all accounts he was outstanding. Tom Finney was one of the all time greats. You can't rule him out because of when he played.
I guess then according to you if you had to compile a list of great musicians of all time then the likes of Buddy Holly; Jimi Hendrix; Kurt Cobain (Nirvana); etc should be disregarded.
Also using your same "logic"; Manchester United would have suffered the same dramatic slump from being twice consecutive League Champions; and twice reaching the Semi Finals of the European Cup to league also-rans had the Munich Air Disaster not occurred; likewise England would have done equally as badly in the 1958 & 1962 World Cups as they did to only reaching the Quarter Finals.
I'm sorry, but I prefer the opinions of legendary players; and contemporary sports writers to your viewpoint.
I guess had Pele died in 1961; George Best died in the spring of 1968; Diego Maradona had died in the summer after the World Cup of 1982; you be dismissing their undoubted talent and ability too.
But perhaps you've got a major downer about Duncan Edwards because of who his footballing lookalike is, and who he plays for. When even I as a Liverpool supporter will happily admit in terms of natural footballing talent he is and never will be as good as Edwards was; despite becoming Liverpool's second best ever player. IMO. ;-)
So using your arguments with other sports:
F1: The likes of Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Alonso, Mansell, Piquet, Hamilton, Vettel ...... are better than Fangio, Nuvolari, Ascari, Moss, Farina, Brabham, Hawthorn ...
Track & Field Athletics: The likes of Carl Lewis; Ed Moses; Jackie Joyner-Kersee; Daley Thompson; Michael Johnson; Usain Bolt; Haile Gebrselassie; Sebastian Coe; Cathy Freeman ....... are better than Jesse Owens; Jim Thorpe; Fanny Blankers-Koen; Ray Ewry; Paavo Nurmi; Bob Mathias; Wilma Rudolph
Cricket: The likes of Sachin Tendulkar; Shane Warne; Brian Lara; Viv Richards; Malcolm Marshall; Jack Kallis; Glenn McGrath ...... are better than the likes of Don Bradman; Garfield Sobers; GA Headley; Wally Hammond; Jack Hobbs; Fred Trueman; Jim Laker ...
But getting back to Football; this issue was resolved once and for all when Arsenal 1933 took on Liverpool 1991 (playing a half each with their contemporary rules).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2To-pKMSg
As Rafa Benitez might say ... Charles Charlie Charles = better than Lionel Messi; Cristiano Ronaldo; Andrés Iniesta ... FACT!
Ive answered this already but i'll do it again.
F1 - totally incomparable. Surely that isnt up for debate? The cars couldnt be more far removed from each other across the eras. Could a modern driver drive a 50s car? Could a 50s driver drive a modern car? Who knows, it would be total speculation.
Athletics - Far far easier to compare on the basis that it tends to be human vs human without huge amount of technology and success is measured in terms of speend and distance.
And so it goes on etc etc.
For me looking at a game of football is the 50s is hugely removed from watching a game today. Look at the body on Cristiano Ronaldo and compare it to a player in the 50s, look at the pitches, the ball, the tactics, the diet, the fitness etc etc. I just dont think you can compare the two games because they are so far removed from each other. I would probably believe that players who had natural ability would adapt to any era but its certainly not a given.
I dont think its that outrageous a statement really.
Why does music have to be brought into it? Ok if you want to i will discuss it. If there is a significant body of work left by the departed artist then of course you can place them at the top of your list, if they had one album before dying then its really really difficult to do anything but appreciate that album, you certainly cant say they were the greatest because we just dont know. Its easy to appreciate the dead artist if they havent had the opportunity to produce the bad albums as well as the good. How much cooler is Lennon seen than McCartney and how much is due to Lennon dying in 1980 while McCartney got old and less and less relevant.
Ive never dismissed anyones talent as you seem to suggest, im just putting it in some perspective. If all the players you list had died after a couple of years of their careers starting then no, i wouldnt be able to class them at the top because they simply wouldnt have achieved enough. Thats just common sense. I would acknowledge the talent but it would be classed as "unfulfilled potential" rather than "the greatest of all time". I also dont really understand why you would base your opinion on the opinion of someone else. You wouldnt do that with anyone else would you? "Why do you rate Edwards so highly?" "Because Bobby Charlton really liked him". That just doesnt make much sense to me, surely you base you opinion on what you see with your own eyes, which in the case of Edwards is "not a lot" for the vast majority of people.
I have no idea what your last paragraph is all about. Sorry if im being a bit dense.
Is that Cristiano Ronaldo's sister:p
Anyway on topic Gazza not the best english player ever, great talent and poor choices lead to his downfall.
He will always be a legend for scoring that goal against the jocks at Euro 96.
I'm with Cantona on that, I don't see how you can include him among the all-time greats based on a career that was tragically cut so short. He deserves his status as a legend, even in the short time he was with us he earned that. But taking a cold, detached appraisal of his contribution to the game, many others achieved a lot more.
Its hard to say that. Holland of 1974 were sublime, but even with a goal start inside 2 minutes couldnt beat germany.
4 years before that, we had the peerless 1970 brazil side.
And 16 years before that, although its hard to judge them at this distance, we had the amazing Magyars who also contrived to losa a lead to the germans.
I think great players would be great players in any era.
Zatopek would have been a great runner.
Joe Louis would have been a great boxer.
Don Bradman had a career average far above any other player before or since.
Great post but I disagree with the BIB. Edwards was a totally different player to Moore. Edwards was basically a defensive midfield player who had the ability to go forward whenever he felt like it. There would have been room for Moore and Edwards.
You can only be the best of your era and certain players would have been great in any era.
BIB...Who is this ?
Cantona's opinion on Duncan Edwards won't be based on who he looks like, even if the player plays for Liverpool.
That's like saying any criticism he makes of Danny Welbeck will be based on the fact that he looks a bit like Daniel Sturridge.
The team will be putting more of an effort in against Italy.
Pre tournament friendlies mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, they are just a way to gain match fitness, and to mould the group together.
Indeed. If England go on to lose every group game then you can look back on the warm-ups and ask what went wrong, but one decent result when it matters and these games mean absolutely nothing.
People turn a blind eye? Feel free to point them out because it seems anywhere you go nowadays people are no different to you and completely sh*t on England.
What any of this has to do with Gascoigne, fu*k knows.
He is still the best