Best Player in the World

Who is the best player in the world? Every generation has that one player that changed the way the game was played. Is it necessarily the most talented? I'm sure talent has a lot to do with it, but then again so does efficacy; that ability to use his talent and impose his will on not just a match or a tournament, but on a league and an era and helps define it.

Pele and Garrincha might have left their mark on the 1958 World Cup for the legendary Brazil squad, but it was someone who never won it that defined that decade. Alfredo Di Stefano's career started at River Plate in Argentina, he helped create the myth of the Millonarios in Colombia and was already an albiceleste international long before he committed himself to los merengues in Spain. Anyone who saw him play, and Sir Bobby Charlton is one of them, said that he was the most complete player they ever saw. Essentially an attacking midfielder, el diez original, he tracked back like any of the classic box-to-box mid-fielders in defense and supported the likes of Ferenc Puskas in attack. He played all over the pitch, passed better than anyone else and scored more goals than any other Real Madrid player until recently. Do we value him less because he left such a small footprint internationally first for Argentina and then later on for his adopted country of Spain? No, his legacy endures in the trophy cabinet of Real Madrid.

Pele's career straddled the space between two World Cups, a decade of world-wide success for a smallish club from a small port city outside of Sao Paolo. Pele helped Santos win 8 state championships, 6 national championships, 2 Copa Libertadores and 2 World Club competitions beating the likes of Benfica and AC Milan. Pele was the sport's first global superstar, its first goodwill ambassador, a political figure on the level of certain revered religious leaders, and ultimately he earned his nickname well on the pitch long before he retired: O Rei, the King.The 1960's was Pele's but his legacy endures in the value that we assign to that legendary 1970 Brazil team that won it all.

Like Di Stefano, Johann Cruyff never won a World Cup. They should have beaten Germany in '74 and his conspicuous absence from Argentina '78 might have cost them the title. He wasn't the most prolific scorer on the list and quite often when developing these lists of the best player ever, his name is skipped over for more famous or more controversial, but on the whole he might just be the most important player of all time. He was one of the prime architects of Total Football at Ajax and Clockwork Oranje, a science experiment that maximized space, created oppositional confusion, and developed players whose roles were interchangeable and greater than the sum of each part. Every fine-tuned machine though needs a gifted operator to run it and no one ever ran it better than he did. His legacy endures through the club he built as manager in Barcelona; the dream team that he managed and the philosophy of play that endures for the blaugrana.

Diego Maradona missed out on that 1978 final, but his decade: the decade of excess was the 1980's. For me he was the hero of Mexico 86, where he scored the goal of the century accompanied by that other ball, the handball that sunk the English, but he was far more for the residents of Naples, Italy. After his relative failure in La Liga, Diego put that provincial club on his back and killed the northern monsters winning scudetti where there hadn't been before. His skill lives on in the smallish kids like Lionel Messi, Pablito Aimar, Javier Saviola, Kun Aguero, Diego Buonanotte, and Ezequiel Lavezzi that continue to come out of Argentina looking for a prize that is less and less likely for boys of their stature. The only reason they still attract attention, is the fact that the greatest player who ever lived was no bigger than they.

Since then we have had the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo O Fenomeno, team-mates at Real Madrid who have won individual honours and players for their national teams who have won World Cups. They have had highs like no others and lows all the same. The sport is different because they played. Every young Frenchman is the next Zidane. The greatest scorer in Brazilian World Cup history has no replacement and might never have. Have they left their mark? Quite certainly. In that time we've also had the likes of Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Thierry Henry, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Deco, Shevchenko, Roberto Carlos who have shown for periods of time but for varying reasons their stars have waned. What separates Zidane and Ronaldo from their contemporaries is their individual and club accomplishments and their sustained excellence.

So, when someone asks me, "Who is the best player in the World?", I stop and I think. I place them in my long list of players who matter for their time and also those who continue to influence today. Is it Lionel Messi who is still being compared to the Argentine masters? Will he ever escape their shadows and be the best Messi who ever lived rather than the second best to Maradona or DiStefano? Is it Cristiano Ronaldo who petulantly sulks off the pitch at Old Trafford because he won't make some monetary incentive? In his case did the club make the man or vice versa? His influence is clearly not enough for Portugal. Does that count against him? Absolutely. Or is it neither of the two and the best player in the world actually Ricky Kaka at AC Milan; the future captain of the rossoneri? They've all won individual honors, and trophies both domestic and European, but the deciding factors for me will be:

1. Can they win a World Cup?


2. Can they set a standard of excellence for a defining period of time: 5-10 years of defining excellence.