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.
