I said 74 WC, not his club form. He wasn't bad and did display a lot of what made him great. He just didn't have the same company or play against exhausted defenders.
The Fifth Redcafe Sheep Draft SF - harms vs. Tuppet
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By the way, here's the full performance of Gento vs Djalma if anyone's interested in it — the best excepts are in the OP
Yeah that logic is really warped. Its like saying we have to judge Maradona by his performances in World Cup 82 instead of 86or Lothar Mathaus by his 1998 World Cup performances.
Because all awards were based on World Cups, that's the only time people really got to watch all these players in a competitive format.
Garrincha was miles better and in a sustained way. With Didí I can't tell really as he buggered off to Real and that didn't work out (in fact, it has been held against him before).
Feels like @antohan is harms unannounced AM (repeating a joke, sorrynotsorry)
I didn't say you should judge people on different World Cups, just that his peak level was more akin to the player of 74 than the one in 1970.
You are aware Brazil played at sea level while everyone else played at altitude, aren't you? That both Uruguay and Italy came from ET wins at high altitude? That Brazil's samba and scoring largely came in second halves?
Exceptional circumstances and company that were a perfect storm for a direct pacey forward like Jairzinho.
Oi, you sent me here to tee you up on the Rijkaard quip! Was a bit too random to post it though.
Harms midfield feels a bit weak to me.
I don't disagree that 70 was Jairzinho's career peak. And sure, there were favorable circumstances but if you count that then to be fair we would have to go through and analyze favorable circumstances for every player. For instance in the other game we'd have to downgrade Charlton and Stiles 66 WC because they had favorable home ground conditions, etc.
I just fundamentally disagree with the idea of trying to substitute a tournament well outside a player's peak and try to use that as a proxy while completely disregarding an actual tournament inside a player's peak years due to favorable conditions or what not.
If we judge a player on their peak, that is how we should judge, not arbitrarily trying to proxy another tournament which had some decidedly unfavorable circumstances. Otherwise we should disregard all top WC performances as one-offs, lucky tournaments, etc.
If the criteria is 3 years peak, lets keep it inside that peak.
Personally I feel Elkjaer - someone who never played for a top team in his career and whose club career is not all that special - is being more overrated here than Jairzinho based on a handful of international performances.
Ahuh, get that. So he scored more goals at home than Shearer did in total league matches?Well, it was his home groundBut yeah, he was insanely prolific.
I must say this argument around Jairzinho is new for me. Is there any previous of him being called overrated in any draft game here before? I don't remember it at all. I have not seen enough of him live or even full matches of him playing but everywhere he either at best listed in top 5 wingers or at worst top 10 wingers of all time.
He's absolutely ridiculous. When I watched through highlights of Fernandez' games, I stumbled upon 3 games that he played against Zico. 2 against Brazil (6:0, Zico's hat-trick and 6:0, Zico's brace) and 1 against Flamengo (2:4, Zico's hat-trick)
I mentioned it in the OP as well but Puskas has played (very successfully) with players who were similarly prolific number 10s in Hidegkuti & Di Stefano. He didn't had any problems sharing goals with other prolific players like Kocsis.Well, it was his home ground
But yeah, he was insanely prolific. Not sure how to read it though re: Puskas. Is there real synergy there or do they overlap a bit?
I know, intelligent players, will make it work, etc. Yeah, sure won't play badly, but do they add up to the sum of parts, more, less? I don't really have a clue.
That is correct to an extent but its important to not take the physical battle as the only aspect required in defending. I mean Cristiano is faster and can head better than most defenders that doesn't mean he would be a good defender. More appropriate example would be John Charles who was tall, physical, great header and played in defense as well, but is rightly not treated as an elite defender in drafts mostly because most of his reputation is based on his exploits as a striker. From what I've read the same is true for Zebec and here he is facing a truely great winger against him. Its a mismatch in my opinion.
No midfield with Rijkaard and Breitner in it can be called weak.
On my left wing, AFAIK Giggs has faced Thuram exactly once in his career. The result - Giggs scored twice giving United a 3-0 victory in Champions league -
(Funny.... I see what you did there. #rollingjoke)
Very evenly matched sides, but IMO Tuppet has a bit more quality up front, which could provide to be the difference.
I agree it's a can of worms, but whereby Sir Bobby and Stiles were consistent at that level (eg 1968 with United) and Elkjaer was third in Ballon d'Or in 84 (clearly not just an 86 WC wonder), Jairzinho's 1970 WC exploits were unexpected.
Literally nobody expected him to shine so brightly. I used to rate him based on that World Cup alone but then when I lived in Brazil kept hearing about how exceptional it was, how surprised people were that the clicked and that he in particular had scored in all games. I saw retro club footage of a very good player but not the beast he was in 1970 so started delving deeper.
It actually makes perfect sense of what everyone saw as a pleasant surprise package. Knackered defences given the run around by Gerson, Pelé, Rivelino and Tostao all game. Then late second half it always became the Jairzinho show.
So you have two things: exceptional form (which wasn't in line with his regular peak form, that being the point) and exceptional circumstances that help explain it. I'm essentially explaining why I think he is -understandably- overrated.
Dafuq?
That's Brazilian defending for you. That's why they got shown up in 82 and 86 and only got back to winning ways with Telé at São Paulo, and the likes of Parreira and Scolari, putting emphasis on defensive coaching.
Edit: not taking anything away, he was deadly alright, just not comparable records though.
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Puskas + Zico not sure how you defend against that even with Beckenbauer and Rijkaard in the team. Though that spine of harms is incredible.
Yeah, the ADS case is probably as relevant a parallelism as you can draw.
You cheated by adding breitner
Voted just to see the score, don't count it in the final count.
Seems like a weird stick to beat Jairzinho with that isn't equally applied. The exact same criticism could be applied to people like Garrincha or Zidane let alone dozens more like even Elkjaer. In Garrincha there were matches he was completely non arsed about and some where he didn't even know or care if it was a knockout match or not but he pretty much always gets rated in his 62 form only. Same with Zidane where even in the NT tournament peak draft he was judged solely on his game winning performances without much taken away for the face he got a red cards in a few big tournaments and routinely didn't show up in peak for every week for his club.
Also I never seen Jairzinho as a match winner unlike many draft games with Zidane or Garrincha who always are in their absolutely top tournament form and never judged on their inconsistent club form. So I disagree about him being overrated. Never seen someone win a draft match because of Jairzinho so you must rate him pretty low
For the record though, I do think Rivellino is definitely a better player and historically an underrated one.
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Voted just to equalize 2mufc's vote so that no one is disadvantaged due to vote totals that are different that what they appear to voters.
Vote actually does not count ofc.Both those goals came from the right (United's right, not Juventus' right). How do you suppose the opponent's right defender were to stop them? He wasn't man-marking Giggs, it was Ferrara's fault. On the other hand, Gento beat Djalma consistently, both by skill and by sheer pace.
33 y.o. Got into World Cup all-star team that year, world soccer XI in 1962 and 1963, FIFA XI in 1963 (a year later). But Gento is just that good.
Djalma knew that he won't be able to match his speed, so he tried to stop Gento from getting the ball, confronting him around the halfline — but when he wasn't successful in intercepting the ball, Gento turned up his acceleration and left him for dead.
For second goal he clearly started on the left side and left Thuram behind before going through the entire backline from left to right. It was not only to showcase the only Giggs-Thuram encounter but also just the skill and pace Giggs had. Giggs was playing as left winger & Thuram as right back, and Giggs was decisive for dragging his team to victory, I think its fair to show the video.
Makes sense. @harms can we do the same thing on the other SF ? I really want to see the score.Voted just to equalize 2mufc's vote so that no one is disadvantaged due to vote totals that are different that what they appear to voters.
Yeah, I'm not stating that Thuram will stop Giggs completely — when on song he was a truly magnificent player who could beat anyone. Giggs included Thuram in his perfect XI btw, for what it's worth.
Sure, let's do it, I'm intrigued too. Voted for 2mufc
This. Almost unstoppable in a World Cup draft, less so in a sustained peak draft. Not seeing anything decisive in the flank battles.
Yeah, as much as I bought his Scirea-bullying ability in the last round, Elkjaer probably lacks a bit of end product compared to the other strikers on show. That said, Finney's heavy goalscoring shouldn't be ignored.
Finney is definitely my favorite part of that attack. I feel Finney is a bit underrated and unknown today even compared to someone of his era like Stanley Matthews who is more recognizable as a name I think to some of the younger fans.