It’s 1958

[harms]

Aye. In the absence of organised continental competition those games had a lot of cachet at the time. Dynamo Moscow's tour of the country in 1945 is still talked about by Rangers fans of that generation to this day.

Yeah, it's one of the most famous stories in Soviet's football history as well — it was the first time when the West recognised us as a footballing nation, and were genuinely surprised by our level, and international recognition was always very important for USSR. We owe a lot of our success from the 60's and 70's to that trip.

 

[antohan]

@antohan great post there.

I'm not sure with the exclusion of Didi there tho. He was pretty good in 54', already won the state championship and Campeonato Carioca with Botafogo and established Brazil player for more than half a decade.

On the back of that WC as well in 1958 he should IMO be top 10 based on his total work.

Apart from that Kubala is certainly top 10 for me. In the 50's it was all about Di Stefano and Kubala in Spain and probably were the hottest topic in club football with the emergence of both sides as prominent ones in European football.

Kopa is a definite must in the top 10 - regular Ballon D'or nominee and winner in 58.

To me the top 10 isn't much different to what @Moby posted:

1. Alfredo Di Stefano
2. Ferenc Puskas
3. Zizinho
4. Ladislao Kubala
5. Sandor Kocsis
6. Guiseppe Meazza
7. Raymond Kopa
8. Josef Bican
9. Jose Manuel Moreno
10. Juan Alberto Schiaffino

with Liedholm narrowly missing out.

Depends on how current you want to make it. I'm a sucker for Kubala in particular. If you wanted a top 10 in 1958 they would all make it, but this is all-time.

You are right the Mbappe comparison would be more akin to Pelé/Garrincha, while Didí would likely be more Pogba/Griezmann.

I'm still very much of the idea that with current players you keep them as candidates and wait until the tail end of their careers (e.g. Kopa was 27 and hitting his peak). With Didí you also have the issue there's not enough goals relative to, say, a Sarosi or even Zizinho. That's who you are competing for a place with.