Hobnobs
Pinko
- Nov 29, 2011
- 8,915
- 2,272
Is Gretzky the most dominant athlete ever in any major sport?
- Thread starter Cursed Lemon
- Start date
VMBM
And it didn't even bring me down
Cruyff is probably my favourite soccer player of all-time and almost certainly the best player in the 1970s (Beckenbauer the only rival for that), and the 1974 Netherlands with their 'total football' (equivalent of USSR in hockey?) is my favourite national team ever, even though I've only seen the highlights from the 1974 tournament. Shame that they didn't win. And too bad that Cruyff didn't play in the 1978 tournament (although his doppelganger Rob Rensenbrink did
).But is Cruyff really often in the discussion (on the world's best player ever)? I've always sort of automatically thought that he was just a little below the Pelé/Maradona level, and I don't think it's just because he doesn't have a world cup.
Maradona took them to the final twice; won in '86 but lost in '90 (both vs. West Germany).
And he was poor in the 1982 tournament; yes, he was pretty young (21) and the opponents did focus on him a lot (there was some rough stuff and all). But e.g. Pelé at 17 was one of the best players (along with Didi, Carrincha, Just Fontaine etc) already in his first World Cup in 1958, and certainly the best player in his last one in 1970, although he did have his 'off-years' too in between.
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BTW, it's nice to talk about something else than hockey for a change.
Hobnobs
Pinko
- Nov 29, 2011
- 8,915
- 2,272
Maradona took them to the final twice; won in '86 but lost in '90 (both vs. West Germany).
And he was poor in the 1982 tournament; yes, he was pretty young (21) and the opponents did focus on him a lot (there was some rough stuff and all). But e.g. Pelé at 17 was one of the best players (along with Didi, Carrincha, Just Fontaine etc) already in his first World Cup in 1958, and certainly the best player in his last one in 1970, although he did have his 'off-years' too in between.
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BTW, it's nice to talk about something else than hockey for a change.
Pele was as you said a dominant player when he was 17 but there is a position in football that imo has delivered the best footballers of all time. Centerbacks!
Paolo Maldini and Franz Beckenbauer were just two of the most dominant footballers to ever take the field.
and along with Maradona and Pele, Messi, Cryuff and Franz Beckenbauer is mentioned as best ever. Then we have players like Platini, George Best, Di Stefano...
laughable, La Liga is a better league then the PL. Put barça, Real, bayern or Atletico in the PL and they would win it comfortably. The PL is more marketable but stats don't lie, compare the performances of Spanish team in Europe to English teams. The uefa and IFFHS both rank La Liga as the top domestic league.
Most of you should just stick to discussing hockey because the knowledge of football/soccer and basketball is low.
These days in basketball circles no one rates Wilt in the top 3 anymore.
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DaveG
Noted Jerk
Cruyff is probably my favourite soccer player of all-time and almost certainly the best player in the 1970s (Beckenbauer the only rival for that), and the 1974 Netherlands with their 'total football' (equivalent of USSR in hockey?) is my favourite national team ever, even though I've only seen the highlights from the 1974 tournament. Shame that they didn't win. And too bad that Cruyff didn't play in the 1978 tournament (although his doppelganger Rob Rensenbrink did
But is Cruyff really often in the discussion (on the world's best player ever)? I've always sort of automatically thought that he was just a little below the Pelé/Maradona level, and I don't think it's just because he doesn't have a world cup.
Good possibility, may just be an inherent bias on the part of some of those I talk soccer with on a regular basis. Very much a group that's Euro-centric in a lot of regards with a few of us that are Dutch homers. That said, a lot of the talk we do in regards to Cruyff is similar to the talk about Orr in how he (and the entire Dutch system obviously) changed the way the game is played with Total Football.
Oh what could have been with that 78 team if Cruyff was still in his prime.
Sens Rule
Registered User
- Sep 22, 2005
- 21,251
- 74
Except Jordan won the scoring title every year. He won the title almost every year. And not with Walton, McHale and Parish, or Kareem and Worthy... But basically just with Pippen.
James does not have the mental make-up of Jordan (or Gretzky). He is amazing, he is physically perfect, he rarely makes mistakes, he works hard all the time. But he still does not have the iron will to be the best. He doesn't care if he wins the scoring title. He finishes 2nd every year. He could win them if he was a bit more selfish... If he NEEDED to win them all, but he doesn't NEED to. Jordan needed to. He needed to be the best in a way that almost no one on earth wanted something. Same with Gretzky. Same with Bird for instance (though he doesn't have the same talent). Lebron has it all, but the mentality to destroy everyone. And I am
Not saying he is soft, or that he is not incredibly determimed. His will is amazing... But it is not pathological like Jordan's was. Jordan was not the best because he had this bucket of skills no one else had. Drexler, Carter, Dr. J had incredible skills (maybe not Jordan's but similiar). What Gretzky and Jordan had was an incredible desire to be the best. Lebron WANTS to be the best. Jordan NEEDED to be as much as he needed oxygen and water to live. It is a difference, the difference. And it is no fault of Lebron, he is probably better and happier not being a psychotic win-aholic. But he is also not better then Jordan and never will be.
vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
- 28,964
- 16,559
kobe's brain in lebron's body, only with lebron's good teammate tendencies instead of kobe's awful teammate tendencies. that frankenstein would be greater than jordan. jordan's brain in lebron's body... i can't even imagine.
Czech Your Math
I am lizard king
Sentinel
Registered User
This is bottomline crazy. You take a man with very questionable work ethic and without noticeable statistical domination over the hardest working athlete on god's green earth with an insane will to win and 64 records in the books?
"Most educated soccer fans"... translation: "people that agree with you." Pele is #1. Maradona needed to cheat to beat teams weaker than his own. His teammates were not as weak as you make them sound (Valdano, Burruchaga, etc.). Yet he suffered his share of bad losses.
Gretzky's LA had no goalie or defense, that's why he didn't win. Nothing to do with Gretzky, who was still lighting up the league. Far more than Maradona.
K Fleur
Sacrifice
- Mar 28, 2014
- 15,439
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I think in basketball more so than many other sports, the great players legacy's are defined by signature moments in there careers. Moments were they rose above the norm of an NBA superstar. With MJ you have 6 finals appearnces, 6 finals wins, and 6 finals mvp's. All of those finals filled with signature moments(flue game, shot against Utah, airborn move against the lakers etc.), that add to his legacy.
LeBron is quite possibly the greatest physical specimen in sports history, and has been the best player in the NBA since his 2nd season IMO. He plays in such a unique way for an NBA superstar. Unique by being a player that can dominate scoring wise, but chooses not to for the benefit of his team, which is incredibly rare for NBA superstars. The thing that will hurt LeBron's legacy is that he does not have the signature moment's, espescially in the finals, in his career like MJ does. That's not to say he doesn't have some great moments, the game against detroit, the buzzer beater against Orlando. But the most memorable moments of LeBron in the finals are of him cramping up against San Antonio, and coming up short against Dallas in 2011 while being guarded by Deshawn Stevenson...
But LeBron is still young, and can add to his legacy. I just don't think he will ever reach MJ.
This is bottomline crazy. You take a man with very questionable work ethic and without noticeable statistical domination over the hardest working athlete on god's green earth with an insane will to win and 64 records in the books?
"Most educated soccer fans"... translation: "people that agree with you." Pele is #1. Maradona needed to cheat to beat teams weaker than his own. His teammates were not as weak as you make them sound (Valdano, Burruchaga, etc.). Yet he suffered his share of bad losses.
Gretzky's LA had no goalie or defense, that's why he didn't win. Nothing to do with Gretzky, who was still lighting up the league. Far more than Maradona.
This just shows u know nothing about soccer. Attacking midfielders dont dominate through goal scoring. They set up the attack and they produce a ridiculous amount of assists. Maradona has more assists than goals.
Maradona also played in serie a and la liga. Serie a is by far the most defensive minded league. Pele played in the brazilian state league, lol.
Maradona beat teams that were powerhouses and much better than the teams he played for. Im just laughing at your non-sense, you really know nothing about soccer.
Ac Milan of the late 80s, the german-french-italian national teams were much better than the teams maradona played for.
Brazil won the world cup without pele. In fact his team had 5 guys make the world cup all star team. How many of maradona's teammates made the world cup all star team, oh thats right none. Where did pele score his goals? The state league, lol garbage competetion. Maradona is much better than pele. Go on a soccer forum and say this and everyone there will laugh at you.
Gretzky's teamates in la were easily better than maradona's teammates for the national team or napoli. Robitaille and Nicholls are hall of famers, so is rob blake. Kelly Hrudey was a solid goalie. They had kurri-granato--sandstrom-mccsorley. Hardly the slobs that your making them out to be.
The gap between juventus/milan/internazionale compared to napoli is much bigger than the gap between the best nhl teams & gretzky's la kings. To even try and disagree with that is laughable. Gretzky couldnt win a stanley cup with the la kings, while maradona won serie a with napoli, when serie a was by far the best league in the world, because maradona makes a bigger impact towards winning games. In soccer, the player that brings the ball up, set up the attack and stays visible throughout the entire game is the guy that makes the most impact, not the centre forwards that just cherry pick and score goals.
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Iain Fyffe
Hockey fact-checker
Another thing about statistical domination. Zinedine Zidane only averaged 0.25 goals per game, is he a scrub? Beckenbauer averages are even lower, is he terrible? Judging soccer players by numbers is so meaningless since the league you play in and the position on the field determines your numbers.
Beckenbauer and Zidane dominated soccer games and thats why they are bonafide all time greats. They dont need a stat sheet to determine their domination, its pretty visible by actually watching them play. Same thing applies to maradona, except he can also score goals and dominate by controlling the game from the midfield and keeping possession of the ball and moving it forward. There is much more to soccer than scoring goals, lol.
Beckenbauer and Zidane dominated soccer games and thats why they are bonafide all time greats. They dont need a stat sheet to determine their domination, its pretty visible by actually watching them play. Same thing applies to maradona, except he can also score goals and dominate by controlling the game from the midfield and keeping possession of the ball and moving it forward. There is much more to soccer than scoring goals, lol.
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You do realize back then the Brazil league was amongst, if not the, strongest in the world, right?
I don't see why they would laugh considering he's seen by majority as the greatest of all time. Seems like you just have a lot of hate for him more than anything else, did the dude sleep with your wife or something lol
Lol what, besides his second cup win where he was injured, he lead his team for the other 2. Dude was only 17 and he scored a hat trick in the semis and then 2 goals in the finals, that's crazy and we're probably never seeing that again. One thing's for sure, he didn't have to use the hand of God to win world cups
Lmao, you make it sound like all a striker does is poach, even though it's the most important position on the field. Besides, Pele played as an attacking midfielder also in his own way as well, the man was really versatile
Anyway, top 5 most dominant compared to their sport:
1) Gretzky
2) Jordan
3) Pele
4) Ruth
5) Bolt
Bradman's probably up there too, but I can only go by statistics since I don't know that much about him
Sentinel
Registered User
ushvinder: your post is so out-of-line there is little else to add to what the others said. It's full of misconceptions (striker's role), distortions (I only brought up national team performances to make it more even), factual errors (Nicholls), and ignores other facts that I mentioned (work ethic, cheating, etc.). NOBODY will laugh at me on any soccer forum if I call Pele #1. And no sane coach / GM would pick Maradona over Gretzky to start a club (unless it's a strip club we're talking 
).
Btw, what is the NT assist count for Pele and Maradona? I couldn't find the data, but it will take A LOT of assists for Diego to overcome the HUMONGOUS deficit in goals (34 in 91 games vs. 77 in 92 games for Pele).
That said: I'm not belittling Maradona's accomplishments. What he did in Napoli and in the World Cups was spectacular. He just wasn't Pele, that's all. Not in numbers, not in accomplishments, not in work ethic. But that's OK. In the real world, athletes are not divided into "GOAT" and "scrubs." Zidane and Beckenbauer were not scrubs. They just weren't Pele. They'll be the first to tell you that.
).Btw, what is the NT assist count for Pele and Maradona? I couldn't find the data, but it will take A LOT of assists for Diego to overcome the HUMONGOUS deficit in goals (34 in 91 games vs. 77 in 92 games for Pele).
That said: I'm not belittling Maradona's accomplishments. What he did in Napoli and in the World Cups was spectacular. He just wasn't Pele, that's all. Not in numbers, not in accomplishments, not in work ethic. But that's OK. In the real world, athletes are not divided into "GOAT" and "scrubs." Zidane and Beckenbauer were not scrubs. They just weren't Pele. They'll be the first to tell you that.
ushvinder: your post is so out-of-line there is little else to add to what the others said. It's full of misconceptions (striker's role), distortions (I only brought up national team performances to make it more even), factual errors (Nicholls), and ignores other facts that I mentioned (work ethic, cheating, etc.). NOBODY will laugh at me on any soccer forum if I call Pele #1. And no sane coach / GM would pick Maradona over Gretzky to start a club (unless it's a strip club we're talking
Btw, what is the NT assist count for Pele and Maradona? I couldn't find the data, but it will take A LOT of assists for Diego to overcome the HUMONGOUS deficit in goals (34 in 91 games vs. 77 in 92 games for Pele).
That said: I'm not belittling Maradona's accomplishments. What he did in Napoli and in the World Cups was spectacular. He just wasn't Pele, that's all. Not in numbers, not in accomplishments, not in work ethic. But that's OK. In the real world, athletes are not divided into "GOAT" and "scrubs." Zidane and Beckenbauer were not scrubs. They just weren't Pele. They'll be the first to tell you that.
Maradona has 47 assistsand he played in a much lower scoring era in pele's world cups, just fontaine put up 13 goals in 5 games. Pele is not seen by the majority as the best, go on internet soccer websites and you would be surprised.
You keep bringing up numbers, despite the fact that maradona isnt a centre forward. Is ibrahimovic better than zidane?
The bbc voted maradona as the greatest worldcup player, not pele.
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He isnt seen by the majority as the best, maradona won the fifa internet poll in a landslide. Many players and coaches view maradona as the best.
Striker isnt the most important position on the field, that is your opinion.
Neither of pele's world cup runs compare to 86. Why did you ignore the fact that brazil won without him and 5-6 of his teammates made the all star team, while maradona never had any of his teammates make the world cup all star team.
Pele scored most of his goals in the brazilian state league, where your are constantly playing teams two or three tiers below your own team. It has always been a stat padding league. You are just buying the fifa marketing hype of pele.
Dont try and act like pele is seen by the majority as the best, hes not. Most websites are now ranking maradona higher, as do players that saw both. You are simply buying the fifa marketing machine. An organization that hates maradona.
Your comparing the level of competition in the brazilian state league to serie a, your kidding right? Pele would have never put up those numbers in serie a, the brazilian state league is very unbalanced.
Go on soccer sites and say this, shoving pele down a hockey website doesnt prove anything. You wont win though because most soccer sites are picking maradona now.
Pele didnt lead any team, they didnt need him to win in 62, in 1970 jarinzho scored twice as many goals and he had 5-6 players make the all star team, maradoan had Zero. Pele never played in serie a and la liga. You cant compare their competition. In brazil, pele was playing worldclass teams a few times a year, th other games were against regional state club team. The compeition is literally amatuer compared to seriea a in the 80s. People on soccer forums would actually laugh at u if u suggest pele had tougher compeition at club level, because hes basically unproven outside world cups. Maradona is better than him deal with it.
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TheDevilMadeMe
Registered User
If you're talking about the 2002 poll, Maradona won it by a very slim margin over Pele: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_Dream_Team
Pegi90*
Registered User
the athletes who comes to mind immediately from my childhood or current athletes:
motorsport:
sebastien loeb, rally 8th time world champion, michael schumacher, 7th time world champion from formula 1.
boxing:
mayweather, undefeated on like 40-50 matches, how you can be more dominant than that?
track and field:
yelena isinbajeva, basically broke the world record for 15 times and won everything during that span.
swimming:
michael phelps
badminton:
lin dan, all major tournaments, olympics, world champs etc, undeferated since 2006.
tennis:
i would like to bring up federer or nadal but they were playing in the same era. if they were playing different eras, they both would have 2x grand slams. basically they are considered more legendary now but it reduced the amount of dominance by having both at the same time.
soccer aka real football:
don't know if there's been really that dominant players due the fact the sport is the most played on earth which reduces the amount of possible dominance since there's so many players. if i had to name 1 it's pele.
hockey:
gretzky, not because of his point totals compared to his peers, it's the art rosses which makes it. he is in the league of his own at that category.
biathlon:
ole-einar bjoerndalen, explained it on the previous post somewhere.
snooker:
stephen hendry and ronnie o'sullivan.
Pegi90*
Registered User
voting, the missing part of the absolute truth we have been looking for years.
Horvath Broncos
Registered User
- Aug 21, 2013
- 2,093
- 11
Look guys, if including individual athletes a strong candidate was named a couple of days ago.
No one so far seems to beat the great squash player Jahangir Khan.
During 5 years and 8 months, he won alll 555(!) competitive games he played.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahangir_Khan
It might not be a "sexy" answer.
No one so far seems to beat the great squash player Jahangir Khan.
During 5 years and 8 months, he won alll 555(!) competitive games he played.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahangir_Khan
It might not be a "sexy" answer.
jekoh
Registered User
- Jun 8, 2004
- 4,416
- 4
How exactly did Cruyff play "against the best" any more than Pelé did?
If anything qualifying from South America is more difficult than qualifying from Europe.
vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
- 28,964
- 16,559
i think wilt is the greatest physical specimen in basketball history, and if we calculate his physical abilities relative to his peers it's probably "not even close." i'd probably put young shaq ahead of lebron too. for a guy who was 300 lbs to move like that, i still can't really believe i saw it.
but where i'd give lebron the crown is he's maybe the basketball player most likely to excel at any sport -- and maybe any position in any sport -- that you ask him to put his mind to.
EDIT: but to get back to hockey and the gretzky comparison, gretzky was none of those things: the greatest physical specimen (mario? lindros? howe?), or the most likely to kill it in any other sport (maybe lindros or howe again?) neither, in fact, was bobby orr. those guys were pure -- mind, body, and soul -- hockey players, kind of like crosby today. totally dedicated to doing what they do at the highest possible level, and put all their energy to maximizing their gifts/skillsets. basketball comparison would be jordan obviously (suuuuucked at baseball), russell in the past, and kobe in the present/very recent past (basketball's own pouty, unlikeable crosby), not your perfect, created-in-a-lab frankenstein players.
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