Only rarely in each sport is there a universally acknowledged “best player.”
Examples:
- Pele, soccer, 1960s
- Gary Sobers, cricket, 1960s
- Bobby Orr, hockey, early 1970s
- Michael Jordan, basketball, 1980s/1990s
- Pete Sampras, tennis, 1990s
- Tiger Woods, golf, 2000-present
Even this list will be disputed. So, how do we evaluate who is the world’s best player?
Many of us rank players’ skills and attributes according to what we ourselves value in sports. It’s natural for small, fast amateur players (& fans) to rank, say, the blazing speed & lightning reflexes of hockey’s diminutive but dominant Patrick Kane – one of the world’s best forwards – over the sheer power and presence of a big man like Zdeno Chara (often considered hockey’s best defenceman these days). Also, in team sports, players who score – usually forwards or at least midfielders in soccer – are most times going to attract more attention than defenders do. We’re drawn to the brilliant & balletic performance. Among those myriad “top 10 goals” reels on Youtube (most consisting of grainy, degraded video set to badass hip hop), how many highlight reels have you found that are devoted to “Top 10 defensive plays of the year”? Let’s admit it – we haven’t even searched for those ones…
Hence the debate. Most team sports do not have the finality of a field-destroying spectacle like Usain Bolt’s 9.58-sec 100m – there, you can’t argue about who’s best. Nor can you argue – very successfully, anyway – that Tiger Woods hasn’t been the world’s best golfer in recent years, whatever you might think about his off-the-course activities.
The question is, can we develop objective criteria for team sports to figure out who’s best?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I Agree a lot with this article and team sports are really hard to find a definition for a “best player”, but not to say it’s easy to do so for other sports. If we are to define a player that is truly above all the others, we should define each position (forward, midfield, and defender, and goalkeeper), or give an example of a player that you can put at every position, or at least in all positions but goalkeep, and be successful, and this does not necessarily mean scoring goals but simply fulfilling that positton’s requirements. The one player in the world right now who is at that status is Andres Iniesta, but the world will continue to define the ebst player as the best forward or midfield, and for the next few years Lionel Messi will be head and shoulders above the rest
Interesting idea, Matt – for team sports, measure how well one player can fulfill ALL the roles on the field, from forward to midfield to defender. You nominate Iniesta in soccer; it’s true, he’s a great all-rounder.
In some sports, the skill sets for scoring v defending have become so specialized that this process might be impossible. Eg American football – no way of comparing a fast & agile wide receiver with a 275-lb defensive lineman. Both valuable, but as different as a Ferrari and a Mack truck.
Looking back to Matt’s incredible prescience of April 19. The guy names Andres Iniesta as the best at “fulfilling (his) position’s requirements” – and, fast-forward from April to July and the World Cup final, and who’s the best player on the field? Iniesta – not only because he scores the goal, but because he’s everywhere, and he’s dangerous, and he’s the Spaniard most clearly taking the game to the Dutch.
Well spotted, Matt.
Thank you sir
Also sorry for the mistakes; I was typing on my mobile