I’m not sure I agree with that. In Formula 1, IndyCar, and sports car (and probably others) the cars have changed so much that I think the skill set of the most successful drivers must have changed with it. Fifty years ago (“when drivers were fat, and tires were skinny”), the only aerodynamic consideration was to lower drag. Wings started showing up in the late '60s, and now aero is everything. If Fangio (or pick any driver from '65 or before) were dropped into a modern F1 car, just getting a feel for the aerodynamics, and communicating adjustments to the engineer, would take a huge amount of time, if they could do it at all.
Conversely, if you put Lewis Hamilton in a car from the '50s, I don’t know if he’d fare any better.
The best player in the world?? Better than Zidane? Better than Vierri? Ronaldo? Ronaldinho? Raul? And many others.
He wasnt even the best player in England. Henry? A young Stevie G?
Well, he finished second place for player of the year in 1999 and 2001. In 2001 he lost to Figo. Raul finished. Ronaldo was hurt that year, Ronaldinho was still at PSG. Doesn’t look like Zidane had that spectacular of a year. Depending on how short of a period he was talking about it might not be the craziest thing ever said.
Beckham was definitely overrated as a player, but I think the pendulum’s probably swung back too far in the other direction.
Beckham was basically a role player. Zidane was better than Beckham at his role, FK taker. His FK goals are legendary…at the highest level of the game. Im not saying Beckham was a poor or even average player; but in no way was he a world class player. And lets not even bring up the WC match against Argentina.
Note Asymptomatically fat said that during a period of time. If you say ffrom 1999-2004, then yes its true. He was one of the best in the world at the time, definitely consistently in the top three. Stevie G and Henry and Ronaldhinio were still coming up.
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Well, he finished second place for player of the year in 1999 and 2001. In 2001 he lost to Figo. Raul finished. Ronaldo was hurt that year, Ronaldinho was still at PSG. Doesn’t look like Zidane had that spectacular of a year. Depending on how short of a period he was talking about it might not be the craziest thing ever said.
Beckham was definitely overrated as a player, but I think the pendulum’s probably swung back too far in the other direction.
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In both years he actually won more first place votes, but because of the way the voting was weighed (second and third place had only a few less weightage) he came in second. I think his “mainstream” popularity did hurt him in the voting.
I would disagree he was overrated, those crosses from the right into the box were a treat to see and made greats out of otherwise average players like Cole and Yorke.
I would agree he would struggle in the era of heavier balls and also today. He was always a passer, not player who would go forward, like a player in his position would be expected to today.
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Beckham was basically a role player. Zidane was better than Beckham at his role, FK taker. His FK goals are legendary…at the highest level of the game. Im not saying Beckham was a poor or even average player; but in no way was he a world class player. And lets not even bring up the WC match against Argentina.
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You are right that he rarely created spectacular plays outside his free kicks. But, his brilliance was in his consistency he would consistently and always make the right and accurate pass. Its a bit like Xabi Alonso actually.
I’m surprised no one has come up with fencing. Put a modern fencer up against a real swordmaster from ~400 years ago and I’ll bet on the latter every time.
I think we have to very clearly separate whether we are talking about using a time machine and trying to slot the historical players into the modern game. Or whether we are imagining the historical players being born in today’s world and wondering whether they’d still be successful.
The only way that a historical great would not be a success in the modern game is if their sport had changed out of all recognition and their un-trainable physical traits were now totally at odds.
Otherwise, a great player born now probably has the core skills required to grow up to be a great in today’s game.
With a heavy heart, I’ll have to say you’re right here. A guy like Ali, whose best fighting weight was between 210-215 pounds, would get destroyed by today’s heavyweights. He’d probably end up cutting to cruiserweight; to be fair, it’s hard to not see him dominating in that class.
Conversely, Sugar Ray Robinson was so dominant at welterweight that I would absolutely pick him over anyone in the game today. He’s remembered today more as a middleweight, but that’s because he didn’t have any real classic fight in the lighter class–he was so far ahead of everyone else that it wasn’t competitive. It would be closer today, but you would have to give him the nod.
I’ll agree with Secretariat also, though that’s only 43 years. Those times are objectively better than any horse since, and in his case, presumably stiffer competition today would only make him faster.
Put him the level below those names myself, with the exception of Davids, although it’s hard to compare a wide player with a centre mid.
He was extremely good, though - like a lot of sportspeople who’s fame transcends their actual performances, he tends to be under-rated by those who follow the sport as a sort of reflexive pushback against the hype.
Taking him on his merits as a technical passer - he did lack a bit of dynamism in his play compared to the very best. He never ran games, but did create some superb goals. He worked really hard, as well - almost to his detriment as he could look like a journeyman at times when he wasn’t influencing play.
I don’t know how old you are to have a clear memory of the period, but I’m talking specifically about period of 1999-2001 (and probably not even the whole of that period).
Zidane, despite being one of the top players of this period had a lull following WC 1998, Ronaldo was injured for a large chunk of this period, Ronaldinho, Gerrard and Henry were very promising youngsters rather than serious contenders for best player in the world at that time.
I don’t think people remember that well how good Beckham was, he had good all-round skills for a midfielder (some people think he wasn’t a very good dribbler, when in fact he had excellent close control, his main deficit was his lack of lightening fast pace) and was a deadball specialist, however where he really excelled was crossing. So accurate and perfectly-paced were his crosses there was a point where he he was pretty much bouncing the ball off Cole and Yorke into the net. Crossing may seem like a niche skill, but it has always been one of the main routes to goalscoring and I don’t think there has been a better crosser of the ball than Beckham before or since.
After about 2001 his fame exploded well beyond his achievements on the pitch which only seemed to serve as a distraction and he never was as consistently good as he was during this period as he was after. Also he decided he was actually a centre-midfielder rather than a winger when in reality Beckham as a CM orchestrating play from the middle was nowhere near as good as Beckham as a RW crossing the ball from the sides.
I would say that between 1999-2005 he was easily one of the 4-5 best players in the world. His movement to the CM position was not exactly his fault, its was part of some really weird decisions by his managers at Man U and Real Madrid. Fergie came up with the brilliant plan of playing Scholes right behind Van Nistlerooy which caused Becks to move infield and I never thought Real Madrid knew how to use him.
I also disagree about how he did not dominate games, I can think of several, the 1999 Champions League Final was basically Byern Munich v David Beckham, it was of his perfectly placed corners that the Red Devils scored. The game against Greece, the 2002 Argentina rematch, the game he played against Real Madrid in 2003 I can go on.
Back to the OP. I don’t think either Prost or Senna would gave done well in the post 1994 rules F1, Prost retired and Senna’s performances before his death consisted of getting his ass kicked by Michael Schumacher.
Formula 1 is difficult to judge: clearly the cars are much different, but just to get a chance to drive for an F1 team, the drivers would’ve usually have had to been successful in a variety of cars (e.g. go-karts, Formula Ford, F2, F3, etc).
That said even if you take away all the technological differences, I don’t think anyone past or present was as good as Schumacher.
In my conception of it, you would take a historical player at the peak of their ability, stuff them in a time machine and transport them to the modern day. They would be given enough time to familiarize themselves with any intervening rule changes or equipment changes that have happened since their time but not enough time to train using any newly developed techniques. They would then compete according to the standard rules of the sport/game as a standard competitor against the current world champion or people commonly considered the best.
For team sports, either the entire team is transported en masse and compete under the same conditions or the star playing is transported and then given a pre-season’s worth of play to gel with their modern teammates.
I think Ali would outbox Wlad fairly easily. In 1965, Ali badly beat Terrell who was just as tall as Wladimir, although didn’t weight nearly as much. This shows that Ali wouldn’t neccesarily struggle with the height or reach aspects.
If David Haye can avoid Wlad’s shots and not get hurt while weighing 210, then I’m sure Ali can pull a decision.
I’m not saying Ali smokes him. But I think the nimble 1965 Ali would win the majority of the fights they have. The version from the 70’s would probably get killed tho.
Modern F1 is also very weight and size sensitive. Not only do you have to be good, you have to not be too tall or too heavy. Not sure what the stats of the older greats were as opposed to modern standards.
Even if I concede for the sake of argument that you’re correct about modern bidding systems, there is no reason to assume a player from 50 years ago couldn’t learn a new system. When I was playing duplicate, I played against several players that knew multiple systems, and would play whatever they wanted on a given night. I usually played a fairly basic version of SAYC, but there were modifications depending on who my partner was. As long as the card was clearly marked before the round, there were no issues.
So, you’re saying that the old timers would not be able to use computers because they didn’t know how to? That they wouldn’t get sponsorships? That they somehow would be handicapped and prohibited from using the same tools that modern day chess players have?
Because if you mean anything else then I would disagree with you. There’s nothing about modern chess that would handicap a player from 50 years given the same resources and I can’t image the question a stated would deny them the resources to compete on an equal footing.
That’s entirely unfair though. The training developments are no different than new equipment. They both change how the game is played. You’re no longer asking the guy to compete in his own sport. You’re asking him to compete in a different, kinda similar sport and not giving him the same tools to compete with. Of course he won’t be able to compete in that scenario. He’d learn quickly that he needed to adapt his methods to be competitive but would not be allowed to adapt.
If you take two athletes of today and allow one to train with modern techniques and the other must train under techniques of 50 years ago I don’t see how the first athlete loses. This says nothing about the athlete. For the question to be meaningful you’d have to let them compete equally.
Except of course Secretariat. He would win either way. Under your criteria he gets my vote since he has set records that they can’t beat under modern techniques.
