V2 Magazine Feature! The Greatest Players to Grace the Game

Hi All,

A new feature which will be appearing next months magazine is 'The Greatest Players to Grace the game'..every month we select a position and countdown the greatest players to ever play.

The opening month is the turn of the central defenders. So I would like nominations to go forward to the shortlist which will then be whittled down to just 2 players who will appear in our 'Greatest Team Ever'.

I would like you to nominate a player/players but also discuss why you think he should be in the team, what made him great etc etc. Good chance to open up some debate about old vs new...under appreciated players and such things.

So...nominate away!

Bobby Moore and Duncan Edwards must be very strong contenders here. If necessary, I'll say a bit more as to why later on.

Bobby Moore. I'd be disgusted if he wasnt in

People's ability to sell them to me & the rest of the V2 team will play a part; after all an argument for including someone does need some substance rather than just a name

Michael Turner and Gary Doherty

Gary Hart and Guy Butters

Fabio Cannavaro

- Only defender to win the Ballon d'Or
- 136 Caps for Italy
- World Cup winning Captain

Robbed the rest from his Wiki:-
Parma
Coppa Italia (2): 1998–99, 2001–02
Supercoppa Italiana (1): 1999
UEFA Cup (1): 1998–99
Juventus
Serie A (0): (originally 2004–05, 2005–06, both revoked due to the Calciopoli scandal)
Real Madrid
La Liga (2): 2006–07, 2007–08
Supercopa de España (1): 2008
Italy
UEFA Under-21 European Championship (2): 1994, 1996
UEFA European Football Championship: UEFA Euro 2000 (Runners-up)
World Cup (1): 2006

Individual
Euro 2000: Team of the Tournament
FIFA World Player of the Year: 2006
Ballon d'Or: 2006
2006 FIFA World Cup Silver Ball Award: 2006
2006 FIFA World Cup: Team of the Tournament
Serie A Footballer of the Year: 2006
Italian Footballer of the Year: 2006
Serie A Defender of the Year (2): 2005, 2006
UEFA Team of the Year: 2006
FIFPro World XI (2): 2006, 2007

Ian Rush...quite simply the best. 600+ goals for LFC and only three of them from the penalty spot. Instinctive finisher and absolutely deadly in the box. Probably one of the best players never to play in the World Cup.

Peter Osgood. The only player to score in every round of the FA Cup in the same season. Upstaged his uncle by having a heart attack and dying at his funeral. God rest his soul. The original King of Stamford Bridge.

Scored the famous swan dive diving header vs Leeds in the 1970 FA Cup final replay at Old Trafford. Scored the winning goal in the 1971 Cup Winners Cup final vs Real Madrid.

Used to take the underground to training and matches.

Edit.

Copy and paste this for the strikers edition.

DAVE667 wrote:Ian Rush...quite simply the best. 600+ goals for LFC and only three of them from the penalty spot. Instinctive finisher and absolutely deadly in the box. Probably one of the best players never to play in the World Cup.

Maybe read the the article before commenting    Im pretty sure Ian Rush is no defender   

John Terry.

Puts his body on the line for club and country. He'd have to be declared dead to leave a game. Is the greatest central defender to grace the Wembley pitch since Bobby Moore, and the greatest at The Bridge since Chopper Harris. Plus he's an all round top bloke up for a laugh. Also, he's never "merked" anyone on national tv.

Fernando wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:Ian Rush...quite simply the best. 600+ goals for LFC and only three of them from the penalty spot. Instinctive finisher and absolutely deadly in the box. Probably one of the best players never to play in the World Cup.

Maybe read the the article before commenting    Im pretty sure Ian Rush is no defender   

Where's the fun in that?

I saw "Greatest", thought of Rushie and decided to go for it anyway...besides, saves me typing it out again when you get to the bit about forwards...although I may simply extol the virtues of Phil Thompson just to be contrary....either him or Eric Bristow

DAVE667 wrote:

Fernando wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:Ian Rush...quite simply the best. 600+ goals for LFC and only three of them from the penalty spot. Instinctive finisher and absolutely deadly in the box. Probably one of the best players never to play in the World Cup.

Maybe read the the article before commenting    Im pretty sure Ian Rush is no defender   

Where's the fun in that?

I saw "Greatest", thought of Rushie and decided to go for it anyway...besides, saves me typing it out again when you get to the bit about forwards...although I may simply extol the virtues of Phil Thompson just to be contrary....either him or Eric Bristow

Dave - to be fair to you, Bob Paisley often used to talk of ''Ian Rush defending from the front''.   

Greatest ever centre back.

Like it or not, Beckenbauer.

Get a defence of Bobby and Franz together and we can laugh at the notion of "holding midfielders"

CFCNick wrote:Peter Osgood. The only player to score in every round of the FA Cup in the same season.

Not quite the only player to have ever done it, Nick:

Archie Hunter for Aston Villa in 1887
Sandy Brown for Spurs in 1901
Harry Hampton for Aston Villa in 1905
Harold Blackmore for Bolton in 1929
Ellis Rimmer for Sheffield Wednesday in 1935
Frank O'Donnell for Preston in 1937
Stan Mortensen for Blackpool in 1948
Jackie Milburn for Newcastle in 1951
Nat Lofthouse for Bolton in 1953
Charlie Wayman for Preston in 1954
Jeff Astle for West Brom in 1968

You need to do your homework a bit better, old chum.

(I had compiled that list to send in as a Zlatan question, but I couldn't resist the temptation to use it now)

The Fourth Lion wrote:

CFCNick wrote:Peter Osgood. The only player to score in every round of the FA Cup in the same season.

Not quite the only player to have ever done it:

Archie Hunter for Aston Villa in 1887
Sandy Brown for Spurs in 1901
Harry Hampton for Aston Villa in 1905
Harold Blackmore for Bolton in 1929
Ellis Rimmer for Sheffield Wednesday in 1935
Frank O'Donnell for Preston in 1937
Stan Mortensen for Blackpool in 1948
Jackie Milburn for Newcastle in 1951
Nat Lofthouse for Bolton in 1953
Charlie Wayman for Preston in 1954
Jeff Astle for West Brom in 1968

You need to do your homework a bit better, Nick.

Did all of these players really score in every single qualifying round plus the main draw rounds all the way up to and including the final? Wow!

Marky wrote:

The Fourth Lion wrote:

CFCNick wrote:Peter Osgood. The only player to score in every round of the FA Cup in the same season.

Not quite the only player to have ever done it:

Archie Hunter for Aston Villa in 1887
Sandy Brown for Spurs in 1901
Harry Hampton for Aston Villa in 1905
Harold Blackmore for Bolton in 1929
Ellis Rimmer for Sheffield Wednesday in 1935
Frank O'Donnell for Preston in 1937
Stan Mortensen for Blackpool in 1948
Jackie Milburn for Newcastle in 1951
Nat Lofthouse for Bolton in 1953
Charlie Wayman for Preston in 1954
Jeff Astle for West Brom in 1968

You need to do your homework a bit better, Nick.

Did all of these players really score in every single qualifying round plus the main draw rounds all the way up to and including the final? Wow!

The only person who could have done that would have been Sandy Brown because Spurs won the cup as a non league team in 1901 (the only team to have done so). The others had entered the cup in the competition proper.

Making this:

The only player to score in every round of the FA Cup in the same season

A lie anyway

I would agree that Bobby Moore should be included.

I would nominate Jimmy Greaves as a player who was probably the most naturally gifted goalscorer the English game has ever produced.   His record of 366 league goals in 528 appearances for 5 different clubs in England and Italy, at a rate of a goal every 1.44 games, or approximately 1 every 129 minutes is a scoring ratio hardly equalled by any other.  

He scored 44 goals for England in 57 matches, at a rate of a goal every 1.29 games, or 116 minutes (give or take).  He holds the record for the number of hat tricks scored by an England player (six) and the most goals in a single season (13 in 1960-61).

Some say that he was dropped from the England team in the 1966 world cup because he didn't score in the group matches, but the real reason was because of a shin injury sustained in the match against France.

Sometimes accused of being a tap-in merchant, he was actually a highly skilled player with both feet who had pace, control and accuracy.  He had the happy knack of scoring on his debut for every team he played for (including England).  

He was a bit of a rebel though, playing only 12 times for AC Milan, but scoring 9 goals, a rate of scoring which was unheard of during the era of the Cattenacio defensive system and brutal man marking.  He didn't mind that though.  He returned to England because he was unsettled by the Italian club's conditioning code which included being shut away in training camps, a strict dietary regime and (tellingly) a ban on alcohol.

To support my nomination for a player I saw play a number of times and score some superb goals, I offer the youtube clip below (at around 1 minute in)

Tap in merchant..?  I don't think so:

Emile Heskey

Oh dear Oh dear! Really chaps?!

DEFENDERS!! Unless suddenly past players have changed where they used to play, nominating strikers or any other position other than the one i've asked for really serves no purpose at all. It will be April/May by time I get to strikers and I'm not going to be sifting through posts to find those nominated here just because some lazy kumquats couldn't be bothered to read the OP or decided that it's far easier to just stick it in this thread for the future!!

Those that have actually nominated useful people i.e. central defenders, thanks very much!

Worrying that one of our football writers doesn't know that Emile Heskey was a striker

owen10ozzy wrote:Oh dear Oh dear! Really chaps?!

DEFENDERS!! Unless suddenly past players have changed where they used to play, nominating strikers or any other position other than the one i've asked for really serves no purpose at all. It will be April/May by time I get to strikers and I'm not going to be sifting through posts to find those nominated here just because some lazy kumquats couldn't be bothered to read the OP or decided that it's far easier to just stick it in this thread for the future!!

Those that have actually nominated useful people i.e. central defenders, thanks very much!

I somewhat think that throwing a hissy fit and spitting out your dummy isn't going to endear you or your project to anybody.

Perhaps a more conciliatory attitude might get a better response.

Perhaps;

But then again when you've spent the last two months putting together a magazine, spent every Wed & Thur for past 3 months doing podcasts...and also use your spare time to run the twitter accounts and set up interview...all in the aim of driving traffic to this site and the journal to help them continue to run for the benefit of all of you guys....patience wears a little thin when people can't simply be bothered to spend 30 seconds reading the OP!

He-Man was the defender of the universe.

Lighten up Owen, your own fault for not going part-time   

I tend to get a few odd looks when I say this, but I honestly have never been more impressed with any centre half than I was with Jaap Stam when he was at Man United between 1998 and 2001. Struggled on his debut in the '98 Charity Shield, and things went sour in the summer of 2001 with his fall out with Ferguson, but he was immense between those two low moments.

I guess in terms of overall career consistency, though, I'd have to put him behind Alessandro Nesta and he'd probably be my other candidate from my own time as a fan.

Historically, Beckenbauer is a must, I think. Outside of him, Daniel Passarella or Bobby Moore.

The Fourth Lion wrote:

... Jimmy Greaves ...

Whilst I can understand where Owen is coming from, I think all of us sports fans should give thanks to the Lion for sharing a little bit of Jimmy Greaves' mastery with us. Let the frustration subside and just marvel at the control and acceleration of one of the world's greatest ever players.

Yes, the Lion may be a maverick but we've already lost one today from my main sport and I don't want to lose another here!   

A couple of guys in that Spurs team (Johnson, Clayton, plus the sub) who I don't remember at all - didn't think that was possible!

Wonderful to see Gilzean in those clips too, plus Dave Mackay, of course.
Thanks Lion.

I'd like to nominate Cafu.

One of the greatest Brazilian footballers ever seen. He is also their most capped player.

He has appeared at 3 World Cup Finals and won 2 of them. He is the only player to play in the World Cup Final 3 times. He was named South American Footballer of the Year in 1994.

He has won:

The Champions League
UEFA Cup Winners Cup
World Club Cup
Italian Super Cup - Twice
Serie A - Twice
Coppa America - Twice
Confedarations Cup
Plus numerous other cups

Pele also named him as one the 125 Greatest Living Footballers. Not a bad accolade!

Just a note on my post....I'm sure Cafu has played Centre Back before   

I'll also nominate Franco Baresi.

Spent his whole career with 1 club.
1 World Cup medal
6 Serie A titles
4 Italian Super Cup medals
3 Champions League (European Cup) medals
3 European Super Cup medals
Named Serie A Player of the Year in 89/90