A Legendary Argument

Sky One screened the first their eight-part The World’s Greatest Sporting Legends series last night with the football edition.

It was certain to provoke a wide-ranging mix of views and certainly proved to be at odds with The AFS Ultimate Footballer - our soon to be launched international player ranking system. Sky One screened the first their eight-part The World’s Greatest Sporting Legends series last night with the football edition. It was certain to provoke a wide-ranging mix of views and certainly proved to be at odds with The AFS Ultimate Footballer - our soon to be launched international player ranking system.

In the run-up to the programme, co-host Des Lynam commented: “I’m amazed nobody has thought of this before. I’ve already started a row among my friends in the pub about who should be in it, never mind win it.”

An expert panel consisting former England managers Sir Bobby Robson and Graham Taylor, Liverpool European Cup winning captain Phil Thompson and respected journalist Joe Lovejoy were given the onerous task of selecting the games’ top-ten all-time legends.

After much thought and deliberation, they revealed their chosen ten to be:

Pele, Diego Maradona, Michel Platini, Johan Cruyff, Bobby Moore, Zinedine Zidane, Ferenc Puskas, Franz Beckenbauer, John Charles and Sir Bobby Charlton.

Rather than rely on the vagaries of personal opinion, having compiled comprehensive databases for over 25 years, the AFS International Player Ranking System takes full advantage of extensive statistical analysis.

Although players are awarded points for international appearances, this is ‘weighted’ by such factors as the country played for, the result, competition and additional recognition such as being the team captain.

Individual and team honours are also taken in to account, again with careful consideration given to their true value.

This can also be configured to produce a certain country or teams greatest all-time XI or the best-ever players in each position, for instance.

The calculations to decide our all-time top ten have yet to be finalised but, from early analysis, it would seem there will be considerable and controversial differences to the Sky One version. Why no Ronaldo or Marco Van Basten (the “Leonardo da Vinci” of football), for example?

At this stage, we can exclusively reveal that there will be no place for Sir Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore in our top ten, but both the England heroes of 1966 would be selected if the criteria was restricted to performances in international football only.

Much has been made of George Best’s omission from the Sky selection and, unfortunately, we have to agree. Based on statistics, this is mainly due to two reasons - his relatively short career and lack of success on the international stage.