Legends

Why not EMP they were great footballers maybe more unknown names to the people but definately people have heard of Hristo Stoichkov and Sammer.

Dark Savante wrote:Why not EMP they were great footballers maybe more unknown names to the people but definately people have heard of Hristo Stoichkov and Sammer.

This was the original post in the thread: Who do you regard as legends of the game that don't get the recognition they deserve? e.g the likes of Mostovoi, Le Tissier, 'Magico' Gonzalez

I posted those players in page three and there was no mention of them again until I did, so they not only did not receive the recognition they were due in football, but not even in this thread that should have recognised the abilities of players such as them. Hence they were perfect for this thread, but somehow still got ignored. Kempes won a world cup and was a great success in La Liga. Is he really that obscure? And if so why? Scirea was a great defender who died early. Jimmy Greaves once said he was in his top 5 defenders. I thought at least some of the posters who are old enough or know of Serie A and Italy would recognise his achievements. Leonardo da Silva, I'll give you, but even then Brasilian posters would know of and appreciate him. He is one of their greatest ever players, yet few know of his achievements. Savicevic was part of the great Milan side in the 90s, yet even he gets ignored here. Alain Giresse was part of the great French midfield of the early 80s. Tigana got mentioned but not Giresse. Abedi Pele was a great player for Ghana and in France and later Italy. He succeeded wherever he played in terms of form even if not all his teams did.

EMP wrote:
Leonardo da Silva, I'll give you, but even then Brasilian posters would know of and appreciate him. He is one of their greatest ever players, yet few know of his achievements.

Ok here's a nice story about Leonidas de Silva which i have read. he was the star player of the 1950 WC, (there was no finals in WC'50 but a league between the top 4 teams I think,) the final match of the league was the effective final b/w Brazil and Uruguay, and he was not played, as Brazil needed just a draw to win the cup. Well, they lost, and Leonidas never won a world cup therefore.

BTW, he was also supposed to have invented the bicycle kick / back volley.

And there is this statue of him, I think at some museum / at the Maracana, which is airborne.... which is him playing a bicycle kick...

Ouch sorry. Who is Leonardo Da Silva? I took it to be Leonidas by default. Did you mean Leonidas?

godof86 wrote:

EMP wrote:
Leonardo da Silva, I'll give you, but even then Brasilian posters would know of and appreciate him. He is one of their greatest ever players, yet few know of his achievements.

Ok here's a nice story about Leonidas de Silva which i have read. he was the star player of the 1950 WC, (there was no finals in WC'50 but a league between the top 4 teams I think,) the final match of the league was the effective final b/w Brazil and Uruguay, and he was not played, as Brazil needed just a draw to win the cup. Well, they lost, and Leonidas never won a world cup therefore.

BTW, he was also supposed to have invented the bicycle kick / back volley.

And there is this statue of him, I think at some museum / at the Maracana, which is airborne.... which is him playing a bicycle kick...

godof86 wrote:

EMP wrote:
Leonardo da Silva, I'll give you, but even then Brasilian posters would know of and appreciate him. He is one of their greatest ever players, yet few know of his achievements.

Ok here's a nice story about Leonidas de Silva which i have read. he was the star player of the 1950 WC, (there was no finals in WC'50 but a league between the top 4 teams I think,) the final match of the league was the effective final b/w Brazil and Uruguay, and he was not played, as Brazil needed just a draw to win the cup. Well, they lost, and Leonidas never won a world cup therefore.

BTW, he was also supposed to have invented the bicycle kick / back volley.

And there is this statue of him, I think at some museum / at the Maracana, which is airborne.... which is him playing a bicycle kick...

former aston villa chairman Doug 'Cheap' Ellis proclaimed himself the inventor of the bicycle kick. i'm inclined not to believe him

Have Schuster, Netzer and Augenthaler been mentioned yet?

They should be.

Pires, Kinkladze, Asprilla, Conceicao.

Good ones Effi.

EMP wrote:

EMP wrote:Mario Kempes.
Alain Giresse,
Sammer,
Abedi Pele
Hristo Stoichkov
Leonidas da Silva
Dejan Savicevic
Gaetano Scirea

I take it none of you think any of the players mentioned above deserves recognition. Perhaps that means they are te classic players for this thread.

Kempes and Stoichkov definitely do get recognition in Spain. Abedi Pele definitely doesn't get recognition he deserves.

How about Arveladze?

At least most players mentioned have a decent story written on them on Wikipedia.

I nominate Rene 'El Loco' Houseman the best Argentian winger EVER. Short carreer because compared to him George Best was a Monk. Still managed to get 55 caps (13 goals) for Argentina in the late 70s.

1 of the best players ever according to Maradona & Cruyff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_Houseman

godof86 wrote:Ouch sorry. Who is Leonardo Da Silva? I took it to be Leonidas by default. Did you mean Leonidas?

godof86 wrote:

EMP wrote:
Leonardo da Silva, I'll give you, but even then Brasilian posters would know of and appreciate him. He is one of their greatest ever players, yet few know of his achievements.

Ok here's a nice story about Leonidas de Silva which i have read. he was the star player of the 1950 WC, (there was no finals in WC'50 but a league between the top 4 teams I think,) the final match of the league was the effective final b/w Brazil and Uruguay, and he was not played, as Brazil needed just a draw to win the cup. Well, they lost, and Leonidas never won a world cup therefore.

BTW, he was also supposed to have invented the bicycle kick / back volley.

And there is this statue of him, I think at some museum / at the Maracana, which is airborne.... which is him playing a bicycle kick...

In my original post I did type Leonidas da Silva, who is the player I meant, Leonardo was mistyped. You did have the player I meant. Interestingly, Leonidas himself said he didn't invent the bicycle kick but copied it - though not from Doug Ellis . However, he popularised it to the point of patenting it. He was also one of if not the first black players to make it in Brasil. I thought Leonidas was 'rested' in the 1938 competition. He was one of the stars of that competition. Are you sure he played in 1950 as well? Could be wrong, but I thought he played in 1934 tournament as well.

[quote="Juego de la Okkas"]

EMP wrote:

EMP wrote:Mario Kempes.
Alain Giresse,
Sammer,
Abedi Pele
Hristo Stoichkov
Leonidas da Silva
Dejan Savicevic
Gaetano Scirea

I take it none of you think any of the players mentioned above deserves recognition. Perhaps that means they are te classic players for this thread.

Kempes and Stoichkov definitely do get recognition in Spain. Abedi Pele definitely doesn't get recognition he deserves.

How about Arveladze?[/quote]

Definitely deserves some recognition, but I think he will suffer a bit because of prejudice regarding the clubs he played for. Kempes played for Valencia and Stoichkov for Barca and outside of Spain even they don't get the recognition they deserved.

Sure about 1950. That was in the Maracana.

There were other black footballers in Brazil before Leonidas, but most possibly he was the first black superstar.

Also, incidentally, 1950 was the only time India qualified to play in the world cup (and could not participate for some apparent reason)

EMP wrote:

godof86 wrote:Ouch sorry. Who is Leonardo Da Silva? I took it to be Leonidas by default. Did you mean Leonidas?

godof86 wrote:

EMP wrote:
Leonardo da Silva, I'll give you, but even then Brasilian posters would know of and appreciate him. He is one of their greatest ever players, yet few know of his achievements.

Ok here's a nice story about Leonidas de Silva which i have read. he was the star player of the 1950 WC, (there was no finals in WC'50 but a league between the top 4 teams I think,) the final match of the league was the effective final b/w Brazil and Uruguay, and he was not played, as Brazil needed just a draw to win the cup. Well, they lost, and Leonidas never won a world cup therefore.

BTW, he was also supposed to have invented the bicycle kick / back volley.

And there is this statue of him, I think at some museum / at the Maracana, which is airborne.... which is him playing a bicycle kick...

In my original post I did type Leonidas da Silva, who is the player I meant, Leonardo was mistyped. You did have the player I meant. Interestingly, Leonidas himself said he didn't invent the bicycle kick but copied it - though not from Doug Ellis . However, he popularised it to the point of patenting it. He was also one of if not the first black players to make it in Brasil. I thought Leonidas was 'rested' in the 1938 competition. He was one of the stars of that competition. Are you sure he played in 1950 as well? Could be wrong, but I thought he played in 1934 tournament as well.

According to the article below he retired in 1949.

Leonidas da Silva 1913 - 2004
Errol Lawrence


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Errol Lawrence is an historian and freelance writer based in London. He is currently researching the development of the football boot from the Victorian era to the present day.

"an explosive and singularly gifted player who paved the way for every great Brazilian forward"

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Brazil
Leonidas da Silva 1913 - 2004
Brazilian brilliance is cream of Milk Cup



If Pele was “the culmination of fifty years of Brazilian football”, his most illustrious predecessor was surely Leonidas da Silva, who died in January at the age of ninety after a long struggle with diabetes and Alzheimers disease.

A small, dapper man, with a broad smile and a casual demeanour, Leonidas was the most popular footballer of his time and the first Brazilian forward to win world renown.

Playing at inside- or centre-forward, Leonidas was a magician who possessed all of the great virtues. He had speed, excellent technique and an incomparable elasticity. He was the player who patented, if not invented the bicycle kick, and was known in Brazil as “O Homen Borracha” (the rubber man). Leonidas played for some of the great clubs in Brazil and Penarol in Uruguay and was capped 23 times, making his debut for Brazil in 1932 at the age of eighteen and scoring twice against Uruguay. He represented his country in two world cups, becoming the tournament’s leading goalscorer in 1938, with eight goals in four games. After that tournament, Europe feted him as “The Black Diamond” – a soubriquet which underwrote his value and the esteem in which he was held.

Leonidas was something of a pioneer and acutely aware of his own worth. One of his earliest clubs secured his services only after supplying him with two suits, two pairs of shoes and two pairs of gloves as part of his signing on fee. He was also the first Brazilian footballer to endorse a product – a chocolate bar named Diamante Negro was produced in his honour, which to this day remains one of the most popular in Brazil. His image was also featured on packets of cigarillos. He became one of Botafogo’s first black players at a time when Brazilian football was barely integrated – he was later manager of the club – and his style of play and popularity saw him held up as an example of racial integration in Brazil and helped football become firmly embedded in the culture of the nation.

In the early 1940s, a short gaol term for avoidance of military service did little to damage his public appeal. In 1942, after his release, a crowd of more than 70 000 people watched his debut for Sao Paulo. After retirement in 1949 he became a prominent radio commentator.

In Brazil, the memory of an explosive and singularly gifted player who paved the way for every great Brazilian forward from Ademir to Ronaldo remains indelible. Leonidas was an undisputed choice in each of the all-time representative national teams chosen by Brazilian media at the turn of the last century. A dramatised film of his life is scheduled for release in 2005.

Errol Lawrence
27/01/2004

According to Wikipedia's entry for Brasil's squad of 1950 Leonidas wasn't in it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Brazil_Squad_1950_World_Cup

You are right, my bad. Confused up the dates. The story stays by the way, just that it was in the semis of the 38 world cup.

Here's the Fifa note.

The Italy-Brazil semi-final promised to be the final before the event itself, until the Brazilian coach Adheniar Pimenta made a gross error of judgement and decided to leave out two key players, most notably his marksman Leonidas. "I am resting him for the final," declared Pimenta. Far from being overawed, the Squadra Azzurra ran out victors (2-1) and earned the right to defend their title against Hungary, easy winners over Sweden.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/edition=5/overview.html

godof86 wrote:You are right, my bad. Confused up the dates. The story stays by the way, just that it was in the semis of the 38 world cup.

Here's the Fifa note.

The Italy-Brazil semi-final promised to be the final before the event itself, until the Brazilian coach Adheniar Pimenta made a gross error of judgement and decided to leave out two key players, most notably his marksman Leonidas. "I am resting him for the final," declared Pimenta. Far from being overawed, the Squadra Azzurra ran out victors (2-1) and earned the right to defend their title against Hungary, easy winners over Sweden.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/edition=5/overview.html

No worries, at least you know of him and give him some credit, which is what I was after.

By the way I heard that the reason India did not play in the 1950 World Cup finals despite qualifying was because they were not allowed to play bare-foot, so they refused to go.

That's the way the local legend goes.

I don't really believe it though. Indians played with boots as early as the first quarter of the 1900s....

EMP wrote:

godof86 wrote:You are right, my bad. Confused up the dates. The story stays by the way, just that it was in the semis of the 38 world cup.

Here's the Fifa note.

The Italy-Brazil semi-final promised to be the final before the event itself, until the Brazilian coach Adheniar Pimenta made a gross error of judgement and decided to leave out two key players, most notably his marksman Leonidas. "I am resting him for the final," declared Pimenta. Far from being overawed, the Squadra Azzurra ran out victors (2-1) and earned the right to defend their title against Hungary, easy winners over Sweden.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/edition=5/overview.html

No worries, at least you know of him and give him some credit, which is what I was after.

By the way I heard that the reason India did not play in the 1950 World Cup finals despite qualifying was because they were not allowed to play bare-foot, so they refused to go.

The true reason was of course that the Indian Football Association did not have the funds to send the team... the "boots" story was actually used as an official excuse to FIFA apparently!!

godof86 wrote:That's the way the local legend goes.

I don't really believe it though. Indians played with boots as early as the first quarter of the 1900s....

EMP wrote:

godof86 wrote:You are right, my bad. Confused up the dates. The story stays by the way, just that it was in the semis of the 38 world cup.

Here's the Fifa note.

The Italy-Brazil semi-final promised to be the final before the event itself, until the Brazilian coach Adheniar Pimenta made a gross error of judgement and decided to leave out two key players, most notably his marksman Leonidas. "I am resting him for the final," declared Pimenta. Far from being overawed, the Squadra Azzurra ran out victors (2-1) and earned the right to defend their title against Hungary, easy winners over Sweden.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/edition=5/overview.html

No worries, at least you know of him and give him some credit, which is what I was after.

By the way I heard that the reason India did not play in the 1950 World Cup finals despite qualifying was because they were not allowed to play bare-foot, so they refused to go.

bluenine wrote:The true reason was of course that the Indian Football Association did not have the funds to send the team... the "boots" story was actually used as an official excuse to FIFA apparently!!

godof86 wrote:That's the way the local legend goes.

I don't really believe it though. Indians played with boots as early as the first quarter of the 1900s....

EMP wrote:

godof86 wrote:You are right, my bad. Confused up the dates. The story stays by the way, just that it was in the semis of the 38 world cup.

Here's the Fifa note.

The Italy-Brazil semi-final promised to be the final before the event itself, until the Brazilian coach Adheniar Pimenta made a gross error of judgement and decided to leave out two key players, most notably his marksman Leonidas. "I am resting him for the final," declared Pimenta. Far from being overawed, the Squadra Azzurra ran out victors (2-1) and earned the right to defend their title against Hungary, easy winners over Sweden.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/edition=5/overview.html

No worries, at least you know of him and give him some credit, which is what I was after.

By the way I heard that the reason India did not play in the 1950 World Cup finals despite qualifying was because they were not allowed to play bare-foot, so they refused to go.

So they couldn't afford boots either