I was watching some all-time XI’s by former footballers and analysists and was asking to myself: “Did football start in the 90’s for these people?”
I understand that people will always be biased towards the players that they got to experience and have an attachment to, but do you think that players from the old era like Eusebio, Rivera, Meazza, Di Stefano, Etc… are underrated compared to modern legends?
Agreed
Yes. You cannot compare greats from different generations. You don’t know how anyone in pst generations would have developed today and vice versa.
There are no GOATS imho just generational greats.
There is recency bias and there is also nostalgia bias.
The greatest from the past would still be among the best from today,is also true that even tho old players might be just as good at football itself as the top players from today, it is also true that there have been some very significant improvements, specially in therms of physicality. So, for example, if Man City from today was playing against Brazil from 1970, I would probably bet on Man City beacuse of the higher level of physical strenght nowdays, and if City actually won, it would not mean the City players are better at football then 70’ Brazil. Give the good old players all today’s tech and they would catch up in no time. Also, if you could put any good player from today in the past, they would not necessarily be as good, specially if he is a player that is better at following today’s tatics than He is at playing football itself. So, old players are Just at good at FOOTBALL, and as I said, the best from that time would still most likely be among the best from today, even tho the game itself might be at a higher level overall.
I think modern players are better in general because of the advances in sports medicine, tactics and a change in professional discipline.
This is to say that if you plucked out those greats from before had them time travel to now and stuck them in a team for a season they would not perform as well as the modern greats.
Now if you plucked those greats out while they were young children and brought them to modern times and had them grow up and develop through the exact same environments as today’s players then there would be no telling how they would do. Meaning we can’t say if Pele, Maradona, and Messi all grew up at the exact same time who would actually be the best.
How do you rate a player you’ve never seen? You can’t. Simple. And it’s not youtube or wikipédia that will give you a fair understand of how to rate them.
So people rate the ones they can rate. Sure they can throw in Pelé or Di Stefano. But it would just be throwing at random places players they can’t accurately rate.
Unless you have been alive and following football since it’s inception, or found video footage of every great player in history and watched it all, it is absolutely foolish to claim who you think is the greatest players of all time. You just don’t have the knowledge or the experience of watching those players play, nor the challenges they faced compared to modern players. It’s not recency bias, its bias to what you’ve actually seen vs what you haven’t. You can only truly pick the best player of your lifetime or more specifically, since you started watching football.
Sports evolves so logically it’s normal to rate modern players more because they are playing a better sport