In the recorded history of soccer, there were many top class foot-ballers came into this planet and with their sheer artistry of marvelous footwork with the ball, they have dazzled the spectators. However, the two more talked about foot-ballers are the Brazilian Pele known as Black Pearl and the second is Diogo Armando Maradona an Argentinian. Between the two I rate Pele, after watching him on Video Films and other TV documentaries and even by reading, as the most perfect player and as such the best this planet has so far produced. He was the perfect player because he used his both the legs with perfect equal ease and above all he used his head so perfectly well that some of his best goals came thru his header including the most memorable one he scored in 1970 World Cup final against Italy. With his right foot he could tell the ball to do anything he wanted except talk.
Besides, he was very tricky and could easily fool the defender by pooling towards him when he would run in the different direction and leaving the ball empty for his colleague to shoot in the goal. However, the greatest gift of his was his good luck that helped him to be closer to the ball near the goalmouth facilitating him to easily score the goal. In football luck is the most important factor otherwise the 1982 Brazilian squad captained by Dr. Socrates would win the World Cup instead of losing to Paulo Rossi’s Italy in the midway; Brazilians then had everything in their team to become champions except luck and that bad luck denied them the much needed draw only and not the victory, against that crucial match with Italy.
The 1982 Brazilian team consisted of gigantic players of which type never seen before not even in 1970. Can we get again players like Eder, Dr. Socrates, Zico, Serginho and others? And what about their teamwork created by their genius coach Tele Santana? We will never see again such a brilliant teamwork nor another Tele Santana.
Maradona no doubt a great but not perfect as Pele because Maradona was one legged player using his left leg only and totally weak in the header. During his playing days Maradona became very popular because during his time TV transmission was easily available all over the globe for the people to see him around the World playing his excellent game. This TV coverage gave him lot of extra mileage and tremendous publicity that made the people to say that he was like a God of foot-ball as it was accepted him in Banglaesh. Such a TV and Video coverage was not existent during Pele’s time and because of this much of Pele’s greatness remained hidden from the eyes of the people worldwide.
If you go a step further, you will still find 2 more foot-ballers who according to some world renown soccer pundits remain much taller than both Pele and Maradona. These pundits did their evaluation and assessment based on their first hand information after watching all of them playing on the field. And finally they passed their verdict that the great Alfredo Di Stefano an Argentinean who later on got the citizenship of Spain and the other one was Ferenc Puskas a Hungarian. Their highly skillful soccer remained far from the major portion of the World. At least Puskas played in one World Cup for Hungary and soon he joined Real Madrid where he found equally great player Di Stefano in mid fifties. Their best of soccer they both played for Real Madrid where they were scoring so many goals. Their duo was unstoppable, it was said at times that they were communicating with each other thru Telepathy to take the next step to score the goals. And it was also said that without turning their heads back, they used to pass the ball to each other as if they were having extra eyes at their back side too.
Such foot-ballers come to this planet only once in centuries.
Such foot-ballers come to this planet only once in centuries.
A.Veronica Fernandes.