Until a few years ago, I used to think that Pelé was the greatest player ever (although I would maintain Maradona was better), largely because everybody said he is "the King". When I know more about soccer, I was surprised to read about a player named Alfredo Di Stéfano. I discovered the real experts, those who served in the profession long enough to actually witnessed the action of the greats, dubbed the man the best ever. So I started to find out more about the player and saw what he achieved. Notwithstanding Pelé, I have not seen more superlatives rolled upon one player. (See the experts' comments)
MARADONA |
|
| I cannot tell you whether Pelé or was
better because you cannot, in absolute terms, compare players who played
in different positions, in different eras and on different continents.
It is not fair to judge basing on statistics such as goals scored or you
will be telling me Gerd Muller is a better player than Franz Beckenbauer;
or judge according to titles won or you are saying Gento is better than
Di Stéfano.
Although Di Stéfano and Pelé
both made their names as strikers, their playing styles are totally different.
So I would not draw a conclusion and play a Ronaldo: "I know who was the
best player in the world but I will keep it to myself". But I would
like to contrast their achievements, footballing style and qualities here
in this homepage, so that the younger soccer fans outside of Spain will
know more about the Argentine, the world's greatest all-rounder.
Some people thought I must like Di Stéfano a lot to write a homepage about him. I should confess that I'm not the greatest fan of Di Stéfano. He had played his last competitive match a few years before I was born ! I have other heroes. But I wanted to do a homepage for a big player and unlike, Pelé and Maradona, Di Stéfano did not have a web site. He is not very famous among people of the current generation because he never played in the World Cup. I like the Spanish club Real Madrid and think I might know about him more than other English-speaking fans. (He was a much bigger player in the Spanish world.) I think as a player, the story about him was very interesting to write about. So I chose Di Stéfano.
|
|
 |
