legendary white players

[frederic38]

i wanted to create this thread for a long time, i don't think that there is a thread here dedicated to talking about the legendary white players in the history of the sport
i'll start with the most important players in the best french clubs in history, chronologically
i tell you right away, i will not mention any player from english premiere league because i don't know that league at all, others here can do it way better than me
so this thread is dedicated to legendary white players: you can be legendary because of your accomplishments for your club, your national team, or for your overall career

i'll start with the first french club to gain recognition in europe, stade de reims:

as you can see in the logo, the club was created by a company specialised in the production of champagne (it's the same for every historical french club, because like i said in the comments of the pele article on the homepage, professionalism was officially forbidden in france around 1930 while in england there were professional players, but actually every french club was owned by a big company so that they could pay the best players to play - sochaux was created by the car company "peugeot" for example - so the french league was not amateur by the olympic standards)

reims dominated french club football between 1952 and 1963, but they didn't win the french league every season because they were focused on the champions league
they won the french league in 1953, 1955, and then they managed to play the first champions league ever, in 1956
the best player for reims at that time was white (it sounds obvious, but actually there were already black players in france at that time so it's not that obvious), it was raymond kopa:

they managed to reach the final of the first champions league in 1956 against real madrid, and they lost 4-3 after being ahead 2 times during the match (2-0 and 3-2)
they were know for playing "à la reimoise", i.e. with great passing while the other european teams were more physical

here is their semifinal of the champions league in 1956 against hibernian:

[video=youtube_share;Gx1R64daxxU]http://youtu.be/Gx1R64daxxU[/video]

then kopa was so good that he was bought by real madrid, where he won the golden ball

but reims still dominated the french league, thanks to just fontaine:

fontaine was a "pied-noir" born in morocco ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir ) so he was also white
he still has the record for the most goals scored in reims
he was second top scorer of the league for his first season at the club in 1956-1957
then he was the top scorer of the league in 1957-1958, when reims managed to win the title again
the following season, he was, like his club, focused on the champions league, where he was the top-scorer (he still managed to be the second top scorer of the french league)
reims reached for the second time the final of the champions league, which they lost again against the invincible real madrid

he is mainly known for a record that still stands today, the most goals scored in a world cup tournament (13 goals)
france suffered the only defeat of their history against brazil during this tournament in semi final, but the score was even when a french player was badly injuried and couldn't finish the match (at that time there were no substitutions, so france lost the match with 10 players against 11)
most of the players of that french national team of 1958 came from stade de reims, like kopa and fontaine, joncquet ect

unfortunately fontaine had a big injury so his career ended too soon, otherwise he would have become one of the best players ever

so these were the star players of the first french club to have an impact in europe

 

[frederic38]

something i posted about forlan a while ago:




-unlike popular belief, forlan's first contact with european football didn't happen in manchester united
he tried to turn professional in france, in the second division side nancy back in 1995
he was one of these talented white players that the french clubs didn't care about (in the words of Erick Mombaerts, responsible of the youth development of the french talents: "the skinny white boys that are in the "pole espoir" (the place where players are trained),are not chosen by the professional teams. They don't take them, in every case, even if they are good players" )

after being refused by this second division french club, he came back to south america and turned pro in argentina

-in 2001, forlan was bought by manchester united
he is said to have been a flop because he didn't score much (17 goals: http://youtu.be/CLrALYBDrBc ) and was sold for a ridiculously low price (3.2 million euros)
but as forlan himself said, manchester united never gave him the chance to prove his worth, as althought statistically he played a lot of matches, actually he played only the last 5 minutes of each match, so it was very hard for him to impress or score
(source: interview with eurosport after the 2010 world cup)

during his spell at manchester he played for the first time with uruguay
he scored in his first match, a friendly against saudi arabia
then he played 45 minutes at the 2002 world cup, enough to score the most beautiful goal of the tournament: http://youtu.be/xvvzB7pbJuQ



-he signed with villarreal in 2004, where he made history, and broke records: he established himself as the most important player in villarreal history

*for his first season (2004-2005) he finished top scorer of the spanish league (25 goals), ahead of etoo who played at barcelona at the time
he also won the golden shoe awarded to the top scorer in europe
one of forlan's big accomplishments from our point of view was belittling etoo because without forlan, etoo would have been 3 times top scorer of the spanish league
thanks to forlan, villarreal qualified for a european tournament for the first time in their history
villarreal was even the best club in the world according to IFFHS in december 2004 http://www.iffhs.de/?3d4d443d0b803e8b447cce02285fdcdc3bfcdc0aec28d6edbc05

*in 2005-2006, forlan had a great champions league campaign thanks to other great south american players and manuel pellegrini, a great coach
they lost only to arsenal in semi-final, because riquelme missed a crucial penalty
this would be forlan's only champions league campaign played as a titular

*in the 2006-2007 season he scored 19 goals in the spanish league, and became the all-time top goal-scorer for villarreal

-he was bought by atletico madrid in 2007: he would became one of the most important players in atletico madrid history
but i was already realising at that point that forlan was overlooked because of his nationality, because when you are the top scorer in europe you deserve to go to a top club
since he scored more than etoo from barcelona while playing with a small club, and taking into account the obvious world class talent forlan displayed, it would have been fair for forlan to take etoo's place in barcelona


*for his first season (2007-2008) he scored 16 goals, allowing atletico madrid to qualify to their first champions league in more than 10 years


*in the 2008-2009 season, he became the top scorer of the spanish league for the second time with 32 goals, once again ahead of etoo
he allowed atletico madrid to qualify for the champions league by scoring the impressive amount of 12 goals in the last 8 games
he won the golden shoe awarded to the top scorer in europe for the second time: so far no player ever won it more than 2 times
ofcourse he's the only atletico madrid player to have ever won the golden shoe award

meanwhile, he had a great champions league campaign, but his team lost in 8th of finals to fc porto
forlan scored in the first leg, and they did a draw 2-2
atletico madrid needed to score in the second leg as a 0-0 draw would have been enough for fc porto to qualify, but for some reason the coach decided that forlan shouldn't play this match
it was the starting point of the problems for forlan
to this day i have no idea why forlan didn't start this match
ofcourse atletico madrid did 0-0 and were kicked out of the champions league

he got no offers after the 32 goals he scored in 33 matches with atletico: http://www.espnstar.com/football/primera-liga/news/detail/item278726/ATLETICO-DENY-FORLAN-INTEREST/

""Footballers play where they want to play," he said. "Diego has two years more on his contract and if he really wants to play with us he will do and if not it will be because he has a better offer.""

and:
http://www.espnstar.com/football/primera-liga/news/detail/item278325/Agent:-No-offers-for-Forlan/


*in the next season (2009-2010), things got worse as forlan suffered unfair criticism from the fans, only 1 year after being the spanish league top-scorer: http://www.elconfidencial.com/depor...n-aficion-atletico-madrid-derbi-20100326.html
he was still the 5th top scorer of the league

forlan answered with an outstanding europa league campaign
he scored 6 goals, all in the most important matches
from the semi-finals, he scored each goal of his team: 2 goals in semi-final and 2 goals in the final
he was named best player of the tournament
thanks to him, atletico madrid won their first continental trophy since 48 years

to this point, forlan had played 6 years in spain and scored a lot of goals
but even more impressive than his incredible goal-scoring record (120 goals in 208 appearances) are the teams against which he scored these goals
forlan is known as a player who always is at his best in the most important matches
his goal-scoring record for uruguay, with only 5 goals out of 33 that were scored in friendlies, shows it
this comes from a very individualistic approach in the preparation leading to the match, which comes from his years when he played tennis
the teams against which forlan scored the most goals to this point were:
1-athletic bilbao
2-barcelona (10 goals in 9 matches)
this means that when one looks at forlans career, he has to see beyond the incredible goal-scoring record because forlan is even better than that
this is why forlan can challenge players like messi or ronaldo or rooney for the "best player in the world" status
this proves that forlan not only is a very good goal-scorer like the media says, he's actually the best in the world

during this season forlan scored this goal for example: http://youtu.be/-wQ-7ZZ6pLE inflicting barcelona their only defeat in their incredible season




-the 2010 world cup:
forlan became the most important player for uruguay since at least 50 years, by allowing his team to qualify to the 2010 world cup with crucial goals like his penalty against ecuador
it was the most important moment in uruguayan football for atleast 50 years because had forlan missed his penalty, uruguay would have been criticised a lot for not having participated to 2 world cups in a row and disappearing from the international scene (by the way forlan wasn't part of the team that failed to qualify to the 2006 world cup)
but forlan scored his penalty and uruguay came back to its glory days
this penalty was the turning point in modern history for uruguayan football
overall, during this qualification campaign forlan was the top scorer of his team with 7 goals

then he was named best player of the 2010 world cup and was tied for the most goals scored, while playing in a play-maker role
http://youtu.be/eWs74IX4VpI
uruguay lost only to holland in semi final, when forlan was forced to leave the field injuried because of the unpunished violence of the ghanaians and the dutch
referees who watched the match later counted 13 significant refereeing mistakes favouring holland and 1 favouring uruguay

Had he not been uruguayan, he would have won the golden ball this year

once again, even after his incredible world cup, he got no offer (source: interview with eurosport after the 2010 world cup and http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1013957/atletico:-no-offer-for-forlan )

so for the next season (2010-2011) he stayed at atletico madrid but wasn't even titular, obviously for non-football related reasons


-2011 copa america:
during this copa america, he helped uruguay to become the team with most titles on earth, with 15 continental titles and 4 world cups (if you count the 1924 and 1928 titltes for what they were)
by scoring 2 goals in the final, he became the all-time top scorer for uruguay with 31 goals, beating the record of the legendary Hector Scarone, who won the world cup 3 times in a row (as of today forlan has 33 goals)
this record was standing since 1930
he's also the player with most appearances for uruguay in history
so althought not very popular with the fans, forlan is definitively one of the most important players in uruguayan history

[video=youtube_share;8WzjQ4DVFSs]http://youtu.be/8WzjQ4DVFSs[/video]



-in 2011, he was bought by internazionale
i was guillable enough to believe that he would finally get his chance to shine in a big club, at more than 30 years old

but it appeared later that forlan accepted to play in internazionale as an unimportant player, a substitute, because he had no other oportunity, no big club wanted to have him as main striker:

Despite only scoring two times in 18 Serie A appearances for Inter Milan, Forlan insists he was not entirely to blame for his disappointing twelve-month stint at the San Siro.
''I was playing in a position where I had never played before. I accepted it because I had no other choice. I'm here now, though, and I hope to play in my natural position as striker again,'' the 33-year-old told reporters.

http://www.sambafoot.com/en/news/33...ut_of_my_natural_position_at_inter_milan.html

barcelona and real madrid were said to be interested in him, but i knew that he would never go there because they wanted him to be a substitute
they asked about other old players like klose to do the same
eventually, he accepted to go to internazionale but he knew that he was not an important player for the club

what an INCREDIBLE lack of respect for this player, it makes me mad
he's the most underrated player in the 20 last years, maybe in history

this post explains pretty well forlan's problems at internazionale: http://www.castefootball.us/forums/...-talent-FORLAN?p=243458&viewfull=1#post243458

eventually internazionale fired him and forlan went back to south america


these are the reasons why i believe that forlan proved to be one of the best players in the world, not only a fairly good goal-scorer that can only play well in small teams
his career was just plagued with double standards, racism and discrimination
an example of double standard: ronaldo won the golden ball in 2002 for his world cup, and forlan didn't win it in 2010

and in addition to all this, forlan is also a nice guy, educated, honest (he said that he would only kiss the emblem of penarol or of the uruguayn national team), fair play, he's the only one who never argues with the referee, he showed his support to suarez when he was criticised in england for insulting evra...he's perfect

 

[frederic38]

after reims in the very first editions of the champions league, french clubs disappeared from european competitions until ASSE (saint etienne, also known as "les verts") dominated french club football in the 70's

the panther in the logo is a reference to a black striker that played in saint etienne during the 60's
that's why today you can see black strikers mimic a panther when they score: here is bafetimbi gomis for example: http://b7.img.v4.skyrock.net/6615/52946615/pics/2137219375_small_1.jpg

the very famous green colour is because the club was created by the french company "casino": (again, see reims in the first post to know why all these old french clubs were funded by companies)

it's a company similar to walmart in the US, but smaller

saint etienne was dominating french club football for some time, with players like jean michel larqué, the revelli brothers (hervé revelli is still the all-time top scorer in the history of the club)
but they had they best year in 1976, when the best player in the history of the club appeared, dominique rocheteau, nicknamed "l'ange vert":

this year they won the french league for the third time in a row, but they also became the second french club to reach the final of the champions league
the 1975-1976 champions league is called "l'épopée des verts" in france because of the epic aspect to some of their matches

they managed to beat the glasgow rangers in glasgow, while french clubs almost never beat teams from great britain in great britain
in glasgow rocheteau scored the first goal and offered the second to revelli after a 50 meters run

then came the legendary quarter final match vs kiev
kiev won the first leg in ukraine 2-0 so saint etienne had to win 3-0 and hope that blokhine (who won the golden ball) don't score because a goal for kiev would have killed the match (because of the away goal rule)
but in their stadium, saint etienne was invincible
the stadium has suporters very close to the field like in england, and the suporters are mainly working class
the public has been compared to the united suporters for the social and economic context

here is the legendary quarter final match vs kiev:

[video=youtube_share;YJFrlDIrUds]http://youtu.be/YJFrlDIrUds[/video]
saint etienne plays in green ofcourse

at that time the whole region and even the whole country was suporting saint etienne
kiev's best player, blokhine, has a big oportunity to score and kill the french hopes, but he loses the ball just before shooting
then on the counter attack saint etienne scores, there were 25 minutes left
then jean michel larqué scores from a free kick
the 2 teams are even (because there was 2-0 also in the first leg) so they play extra time
in the extra time rocheteau could barely move (he had cramps) but he managed to score the winning goal

it was one of the biggest moments in the history of french football
my father watched those matches and suported saint etienne

then they managed to reach the final of the champions league after beating PSV (on a free kick obtained because of a foul on rocheteau)
they faced beckenbauer's bayern munchen but rocheteau could only play the last 8 minutes of the game because he was injuried
this final is known in france for the "poteaux carrés"

the posts and bar were square in glasgow (where the final was played) and saint etienne shot on the bar or on the post many times, and they said that it would have been a goal with regular a post
bayern munchen won 1-0 because of a free kick quickly taken

it was another of those occasions where french athletes or teams are praised by the public for losing with "panache" which is typically french, while the germans won even though they didn't play betterbut they were more pragmatic (raymond poulidor is the best example of a french "loser" highly popular in france)

the players were celebrated in paris despite their defeat:

after this, saint etienne was still one of the best european teams
they lost against liverpool in 1977 in quarter finals: http://youtu.be/vZdpzXXKpp8

then they started buying star players like platini or johnny rep and they were less succesfull
rocheteau left for paris saint germain in 1980

 

[Matra2]

When I was growing up Saint Etienne had a great reputation. They were the first French team I ever heard of. Saint Etienne just seemed to disappear in the 80s which is kind of odd given that French football in general had a bit of a golden period that decade - 1982 semi-finalists, 1984 European champions, 1986 semi-finalists in Mexico.

I didn't know Johnny Rep played for them. He was my favourite international player.

 

[frederic38]

When I was growing up Saint Etienne had a great reputation. They were the first French team I ever heard of. Saint Etienne just seemed to disappear in the 80s which is kind of odd given that French football in general had a bit of a golden period that decade - 1982 semi-finalists, 1984 European champions, 1986 semi-finalists in Mexico.

I didn't know Johnny Rep played for them. He was my favourite international player.

the key players from the 1976 team left (larqué and rocheteau) so they were less dominant
but when platini and johnny rep came they won the league in 1981 and they were 1 point from winning it again in 1982
then in 1982 they sold platini and they had financial problems (because of corruption), they sold all their good players and were relegated

platini's last match for a french club was in the final of the 1982 french cup, saint etienne lost in an incredible match against PSG, with a goal from rocheteau the former saint etienne star

regarding the 1986 world cup, rocheteau is the player who made the cross which led to platini's goal when france beat brazil in quarter finals

by the way here's the classic song about saint etienne: http://youtu.be/o9xdUMgl7lo :arms:

 

[frederic38]

the next french club to dominate france and europe at one point was marseille:

by the end of the 80's, bernard tapie became the president of the club and he was very ambitious (he owned the adidas company at one point)
he bought many talented players for the club, most of them were whites (the only expansive black player was basile boli the defender)

they won 5 league titles in a row, from 1989 to 1993

their best season was in 1991, when they beat ac milan in quarter finals of the champions league (they were the best team in he world at the time), and also won the french league
they lost in the final against a serbian team, in a typical french way, because there wasn't enough pressure
typically french: you beat the best club in the world in an incredible match, and you lose the final against an inferior team playing badly


the legendary players from that era are jean pierre papin and waddle
papin was named "player of the century" at marseille and waddle was second, so there is no doubt at all that they were the best players to ever play for marseille, and the most important players in the history of the club

here is a video about waddle and papin:
http://youtu.be/NsWm5IJ4PKw

waddle was the genious, the playmaker, and papin was the goal scorer

papin is one of the best goal scorers in history: he was top scorer of the french league 5 times in a row between 1988 and 1992 (when he left the club), and top scorer of champions league 3 times in a row (between 1990 and 1992), very few players achieved that

[video=youtube_share;OgTMXQ2mtfA]http://youtu.be/OgTMXQ2mtfA[/video]


in 1991 he beat AC milan with marseille in quarter finals of champions league:
in the first leg in milan he scored on a great pass by waddle: http://youtu.be/71mOXCOOjHM
and in the second leg he gave an incredible headed pass to waddle, who scored a crazy goal: http://youtu.be/LjYg5Fv0u1Q
waddle never tried to shoot like this with his right foot (he's left footed) even in training, but this time he shot with his right foot, mabe because he was not in his right mind because he had a head trauma (he went to the hospital immediately after the match)

after this perfect 1991 season, he won the ballon d'or:

he left marseille for the rival ac milan, and when he announced to the suporters in stadium after a match that he was leaving for AC milan the rival, and everybody applauded him
then, 6 years after, he ended his career
there was an special unofficial match in marseille for this occasion, and the stadium was full to say thanks to papin:

 

[frederic38]

the next french club to be competitive in europe and to dominate the french league was lyon

they are a relatively new club, during the 90's they were a small club

they did an incredible feat between 2001 and 2008: they won 7 titles in a row, they are the only ones to do so in history
and they were a big european club, not big enough to play a champions league final though

one of the few players to have the 7 titles in a row is their best player and most important player ever, the brazilian juninho:

[video=youtube_share;gwsddfLklHU]http://youtu.be/gwsddfLklHU[/video]

he was one of the best free kick specialists of the last 20 years, and he was the best player of the club in every one of these 7 league titles in a row
he scored 44 free kicks with lyon, i think that he's the player with the most free kicks scored in the world

 

[frederic38]

two legendary white players from brazil

notice that their achievments in the "club world cup" are considered very important, which is related to today's "club world cup" won by corinthians
to see why the club world cup is much more important to south americans than it is to europeans, see here: http://www.castefootball.us/forums/threads/14384-Bitter-Pele?p=255545&viewfull=1#post255545

renato gaucho:

real name portaluppi
he's the most important player in gremio's history because he scored 2 goals in the "clubs world cup" final in 1983 which allowed gremio to become the first team from rio grande do sul to be "world champ" (yes, they really consider this to be a world champ)

rogerio ceni:

he's the most important player in sao paulo's history and he's getting closer to pele's record for club appereances

he's the goal keeper with most goals scored in hsitory

he won the 2005 south american champions league and he was his team's top scorer in that tournament, which is quite unique for a goal keeper

then he won the club world cup that year and the most memorable image was when he stopped steven gerrard's free kick:

[video=youtube_share;j57CrVW0gVY]http://youtu.be/j57CrVW0gVY[/video]