You should post more when you're half-cut.
The best player who has never won the Ballon D'Or
- Thread starter Don Alfredo
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He really wasn't. His defensive reading of the game is still unmatched. He wasn't an equally great physical one on one defender compared to some of the others. But his positioning, his understanding of defending space, intercepting the ball and also delaying attackers by accompanying them and forcing them away from goal was absolutely amazing. You just need to watch the 72 Euro winning team where he had no real defensive protection from midfield (Netzer was often the deepest midfielder) and Vogts was injured and replaced by Höttges. It was absolutely elite stuff to keep that team together in defense.The best part about that is that we're talking about sweepers, beckenbauer is almost unanimously considered the best ever, and he was by far the worst of them defensively
It's as silly as claiming his career path was comparable to Mascherano and that Beckenbauer was just a midfielder shifted to defense later in his career.
He was a centerback from the start of his professional career, it was his prefered position and he won Bayern's first trophies playing there. He obviously was an exceptional central midfielder when he was asked to play there by Schön for the nationalteam, who was a really conservative manager who trusted his established defense with world class players like Schnellinger and Schulz in '66 and '70 instead. But that's an entirely diffent story to Mascherano. Here's the lineup for the cup winner's cup final in '67: Bayern's first international trophy. Long before the likes of Breitner, Hoeneß added quality to Bayern's build up, Beckenbauer was still playing in his regular centerback position.
Agree, I've argued the same in another one of those threads here. His vision and situational reading extended to the defensive side of his game as well. In many ways he played like a modern, zonal defense era defender (like probably other libero types as well).
Another good example would be the second half against Dresden at home in 1973. Only 30 Minutes of footage have survived, but they are worth watching. Beckenbauer chokes off a lot of Dresden's attacking play with his anticipation, pace, and clean tackling. No heroics, but very, very effective. Also a good showcase for Schwarzenbeck's forgotten offensive contributions, which I mentioned somewhere as well. When looking at the combined offensive and defensive contributions of those two players there, that's a hell of a CB partnership.
(2nd half starts at 41:08. Most of Beckenbauer's defending after 49:00. There's a better quality version on Footballia.)
Funnily the first half, when Bayern was collectively overwhelmed by Dresden's fast and positionally flexible attacks, is among the worst I've seen from Beckenbauer defensively. Makes the comeback in the second half all the more impressive.
Do we put Thierry Henry in this discussion?
Yeah, he certainly was a better player than some of the Ballon D'Or winners over the years, and would look back at his peak form in the first half of the 2000s as deserving on the whole of that level of recognition. That said, it would be difficult to say which year he was the standout ahead of the winner. He was unlucky not to win it in either 2003 or 2004 IMO. His 2002/03 campaign - 32 goals and 23 assists - was well ahead of any other attacker. What Nedved added though was being the main man as Juventus reached the Champions League final on top of another impressive domestic title-winning season. Whereas Henry's Arsenal fell short in the second group stage. He was arguably even unluckier in 2004 though coming on the back of a 39-goal campaign. Personally would have given it to him that year ahead of Shevchenko, but he too was hugely influential for Milan in Serie A and didn't have a flabby Euros tournament to consider against him.
The problem he had was that 3 of his best seasons - 2001/02, 2003/04 and 2005/06 - coincided with the voting for major tournaments. And his best tourney was probably in none of those years, earlier in 2000. Getting sent off in 2002 as France flopped was never going to cut it, while he didn't show a great deal at Euro 2004. Reached the final in 2006, but his World Cup was clearly a level or two below Cannavaro, Pirlo and Zidane. In any of those years had France won he would likely have cruised the voting, although Zidane might have pushed him close in 2006. After 2003/04, I'd say that Ronaldinho moved up a gear into his own tier to a level that Henry, as good as he still was, couldn't quite match.
Interested to hear if others think he deserved it more than Nedved or Shevchenko in 2003 and 2004.
Henry would definitely have been a worthy enough winner for those years. I think quite a few years are probably debatable to some extent regarding winner if we go through it all.
A young Pirlo was hugely influential during Milan's CL run in 2003 and that nudged Sheva over the line.
And that reminds me of Pirlo, probably the greatest DLP of all time and never won the Balon d'Or.
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