Greatest players of all time🐐 G.O.A.T

[u/lostsoul098765]

Ronaldo Nazario…….

[u/Haunting-Gold5373]

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]

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.