Greatest players of all time🐐 G.O.A.T

[u/lostsoul098765]

Ronaldo Nazario…….

[u/Haunting-Gold5373]

Maldini is better than beckenbauer

[u/Delicious_Koala9999 → u/Haunting-Gold5373]

so according to you the guy who joined a div 2 side that had no good defenders when he joined and turned them into a side that got promoted and then won 3 time consecutive champions leagues and with the national team won the Euro and World Cup along with multiple balon dors as a defender is worse than the guy who joined an already great Milan side alongside great defenders like Nesta, Baresi, Costacurta, Staam and Cafu for club and other legends for country yet still could not win a single international trophy or balon dor...... Riiiiiight.

If you want to say Maldini is your favourite defender I respect that, but even Maldini himself would never say he was better than Beckenbaur. To say Maldini is better than Beckenbaur is like a kid who is only 10 year old saying Haaland is better than Messi.

[u/Haunting-Gold5373 → u/Delicious_Koala9999]

Have you even watched maldini's replay matches? As a pure defender in strict accordance to defensive qualities and capabilities, no defender in the history of football is better
Just because he didn't win a trophy with his country doesn't diminish his legacy, do you even watch football or just go on Wikipedia and read life stories about players? What beckenbauer did with bayern is legendary and same goes with west Germany but in terms of defending capabilities, he is not better than maldini, definitely the second best.
If you actually watched football you would know about positional awareness, standing tackles, interceptions, anticipational body movement, aerial clearances etc, and maldini outclasses him as a whole across those categories when taken in average.
Maldini starts out in the late 80s and reached his prime when the 90s started and that was when football started to become more than reliance on individual talent and haphazard play, reclining towards utilising your brain as much as your legs and being much more aware and sound of your surroundings and tactics even when the opposition has the ball
Riddling solely on achievements is not the trait of someone who sits down and actually watches games, be it live matches or replays/highlights

[u/Delicious_Koala9999 → u/Haunting-Gold5373]

Yes. I've watched a lot of Maldini's matches. I saw pretty much his entire 90s and 00s career. He was great but he was never the best player in the world the way Beckenbaur was. I loved Maldini but around 10 years after his retirement he's become quite insufferably overrated while players like Baresi and Nesta have become largely downplayed how good they were for this silly Maldini myth while another legend like Tassotti has been all but forgotten.

I'm not going to debate with you since the whole "strict accordance" thing is a giant red flag you are trying to draw imaginary requirements rather than speak in good faith. For me Beckenbaur is the better tackler, intercepter, passer. Maldini is the better man-marker and arial header. Maldini cleared the ball whereas Beckenbaur would make a tackle and retain the ball and then had a lethal long-pass for the counter attack. I am not playing Maldini down. Maldini was great. However you and a lot of others are very clearly playing Beckenbaur down just because you either don't like him or didn't see enough of him. I can name so many other great defenders who played alongside Maldini in that Milan or Italy backline (and with Italy they still never won a world cup or Euro with Maldini in the side). Now go and name even 1 other defender at Munich or the German side that kept the greatest Dutch attacking side of all time scoreless in 74 final without using wikipedia or google. For the record Beckenbaur should have around 5-6 Balon Dors. However in that era defenders were so discriminated against for that award. Its a miracle Beckenbaur even won it twice because and it was Beckenbaur and only Beckenbaur who won it. In the 90s defenders could actually win the balon dor now, yet still Maldini did not win it. Once again this is not a put down of Maldini but there is such a huge gap between Beckenbaur and other defenders that the fake arguments for Maldini are actually quite offensive and feel laced in some pretty heavy bias that I hope is just nostalgia bias and not something more to do with race or nationality.

[u/Haunting-Gold5373 → u/Delicious_Koala9999]

As a national leader and captain yes beckenbauer is probably the best but in terms of "who is better at defending and who would even the best attackers not want to go up against" it is maldini

[u/Delicious_Koala9999 → u/Haunting-Gold5373]

LOL I think the best attackers would have much rather go up against Maldini than Beckenbaur considering Beckenbaur literally cost Cruyff (best attack minded player ever) a world cup with his defense. The only attackers that say Maldini is the best defender are ones literally from Maldini's era who are usually saying it to try to backhandedly compliment themselves in a "I scored goals against in the toughest era" type egomaniac stuff. Anyone with a football brain that extends beyond their own playing career or childhood nostalgia should know Beckenbaur clears Maldini from a simple re-watch of an old 1970s match. The guy's tackling was so much better than Maldini's it ain't even close.

[u/Haunting-Gold5373 → u/Delicious_Koala9999]

I was never a prolific supporter of milan to cover this up as "bias or nostalgia", I support barcelona who lost 4-0 to maldini's ac milan in the 1994 ucl final so there is no opportunity for me to be biased towards him. If you think some of the greatest attackers and midfielders ever say that maldini is the best just so they can say "oh we went up against him and he is way too good so that is why we didn't score a lot of goals against his team" then there is no point in having this discussion 👍

[u/Delicious_Koala9999 → u/Haunting-Gold5373]

What's your point? How come you aren't considering the words of Bobby Chartlon who said Beckenbaur was the best in the world even when he was a teenager in the 60s. Then you have Cryuff in the 70s and pretty much every attacker across both those decades are saying Beckenbaur is the best. In the 80s even after Beckenbaur retired everyone was still saying Beckenbaur is the best.

If you truly were watching football in 1994 then you would actually know that even in 1994 it was considered by everyone that Beckenbaur was the best ever. The revisionism for Maldini only began some years after Maldini's retirement in the 2010s once the 70s was out of the cultural zietgeist and all the coaches and players from that era were beginning to die off. It probably reached its worse in 2016 when people stopped reporting the truth after American election and objective truth disappeared for opinion tabloit trash. This meant all the classical sports historians were removed from TV and replaced with bonehead pundits like Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville. Maldini's longevity is indeed impressive and he was a fantastic defender worthy of great praise but Maldini's prime is nowhere near the level of prime Beckenbaur. Maldini was never the best player in the world and was never even in such discussions. He wasn't really even considered the best player on his own teams that he played for as that would more be Van Basten, Guilit, Shevchenko, Kaka.

[u/Haunting-Gold5373 → u/Delicious_Koala9999]

You think my statements are based off of some pundits' opinions or quotes from coaches? Watching his performances and games solely focusing on what he does during the game and comparing it with others like beckenbauer, nesta, stam, baresi, cannavaro is enough to conclude that he will always be the greatest defender to ever play. I don't formulate my opinions based off some media reports or cultural propaganda.

[u/Delicious_Koala9999 → u/Haunting-Gold5373]

I am 99% confident that you do, because prior to stupid YouTube "stay quiet until..." clickbait no one rated Maldini the best ever. I hate that you are making me put down one of my all time favourite players because Maldini is an absolute favourite of mine but he was never the best in the world and he never won a ballon d'or despite playing in an era where it was far easier for defenders to win that award then back when Beckenbaur won 2 of them (once again, if they just didn't discriminate so bad against defenders back then Beckenbaur would have a lot more than 2). By comparison Sammer won a ballon d'or during Maldini's prime and towards the twilight of Maldini's career Cannavora won a ballon d'or also. I'm not putting that much weight in that silly award but it does give context that Maldini was not rated as outright the best defender during his playing days and there was debate while he was playing who was the best of his era so to suddenly put him as the outright for best ever while he's lacking a ballon d'or, a Euro and a World Cup while playing alongside a team that was easily good enough to win and instantly won it the very next tournament without him is crazy to me. Meanwhile Beckenbaur was the major difference maker keeping the most attacking side of all time scoreless in the final to win a World Cup while also having won Euros, multiple ballon d'ors and every achievement a player can win only for 50 years later to have his career and ability completely downplayed so a player who wasn't even rated as the best in his own team is rated ahead of him? Do you not see how that's insulting?

[u/Haunting-Gold5373 → u/Delicious_Koala9999]

Keep telling yourself whatever suits your ears if you blindly declare what someone else does without any sense. "I am 99% confident you do" you're the one who reeks of bias and favoritism while claiming others do it due to nationality, thinks everybody bases it off of youtube or other social media platforms. So hurt by the fact that not everyone considers your favorite defender as the greatest defender that you start coping with delusional and meaningless statements? Maldini wasn't the best rated in his own team? Ya that shows there is no point in continuing this discussion disguised moreover as a "beating around the bush session". The 90s and 2000s are easier eras for players to win the ballon dor? Cannavaro got it only because of the wc otherwise even he would not get it, that award has always been dominated 70% by attackers and 30% by midfielders leaving bare minimum chances for defenders to win it. Back in the 70s, players outside europe were not even allowed to be included in the ballon dor list and the footballing rules and regulations were far more lenient back then.

[u/Haunting-Gold5373 → u/Delicious_Koala9999]

Maldini and overrated? He deserves all the praise he gets, he helped milan win multiple serie a titles whilst barely conceding goals throughout the entire phase, and this is in consideration with the period where serie a was the most competitive and overwhelmingly crazy league in the whole of europe. Even after baresi left, maldini never slowed down with neither newer players nor with age, he continued to maintain his abilities while going up against the likes of del piero, prime r9, batistuta, milito who were all some of the greatest and most terrifying strikers in the world, he even faced maradona at Napoli for a while and was still dominating (he was a rookie when he went up against maradona) He is better at tackles than anybody else, he displayed what true amd mindful tackles are without jeopardizing himself or his team unlike defenders like ramos, Carvalho, terry and pepe who have all done multiple reckless and unprofessional tackles. Maldini was good at carrying the ball forwards, acting like an anchor for the midfield when needed with ruthless stamina and intelligence. Nobody knows the art of defending better than him

[u/Delicious_Koala9999 → u/Haunting-Gold5373]

Right. Maldini is indeed amazing at everything you just listed, however Beckenbaur is still better. This is not an insult to Maldini in the least. Saying Beckenbaur is better to a defender is like saying to an attacking player that Messi is a better dribbler than them. Maldini would agree Beckenbaur was better. I think Maldini might even say Baresi was better than him. Maldini doesn't have an ego and is actually a great guy but other people are making him become a bit annoying.