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?
Is Elon Musk a greater innovator than Da Vinci? No. Is he a more well-known figure in modern times? Yes. Could Musk have accomplished comparable feats 200 years ago? Maybe, maybe not. All these opinions are subjective and highly dependent on the frame of reference. There may come a time when a wonderkid equally as impressive as Messi finds himself on a team that shoots his career to moon and collects as many accolades if not more. Is it virtually possible? Yes. Think about what would happen if Messi/Barcelona did not have Ronaldo/Madrid in the same era. The competition would be a sum of lesser parts. Michael Jordan has arguably the greatest individual career of all sports in the time span with Bulls. However, he cannot claim that he is the greatest winner when there is the example of Bill Russell. Federer’s career was long thought to be untouchable, but Nadal and Djokovic in a relatively short time span individually eclipsed his total Grand Slam wins. If Maradona and Pele were still the greatest ever after 40-60 years from the time they had played, I would say that something is very wrong with football. Some talents transcend eras, as in Garrincha, Pele and Maradona, and people should just appreciate them for what they are, rather than getting into all these meaningless comparisons.