27 replies to this topic

[Acss]

I thought it would be nice to share opinions about this one.
Just post some info's / pics / videos with the best players from your country (in your opinion) and let us know them so we can improve our knowledge.

I will start with Romania's Gheorghe Hagi:

One of the best attacking midfielders in Europe during the 80s / 90s, Hagi is considered the greatest Romanian footballer of all time. Galatasaray fans called him 'Commandante' (The Commander) and the Romanians called him 'Regele' (The King). He played for the Romanian national team in three World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 1998, as well as in three European Football Championships in 1984, 1996 and 2000. He won a total of 125 caps for Romania, being ranked second after Dorinel Munteanu, and scored 35 goals, being ranked first.

He is one of the few footballers to have played for both the Spanish rival clubs Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. In 2000, at the age of 35, Hagi had the best days of his career winning every possible trophy with Galatasaray. This raised Hagi's popularity even further with the fans and made French ex-international Luis Fernández to say that "Hagi is like wine, the older it gets, the better it is". In March 2004, he was named among the top 125 living footballers by Pelé.

Hagi retired from professional football in 2001, age 36, in a game called "Gala Hagi" on 24 April. He still holds the record as Romanian national team top scorer. He is at this moment (2012) the founder of Gheorghe Hagi's Football Academy and the chairman of the football club Viitorul Constanta (you may know this from johnnykarp's FM story).

For me personally, Hagi is the main reason for which I've started to love football, after seeing his performances at the World Cup 1994, when I was just a little boy. He is my idol since then...I don't know if there will be another Romanian player that will raise at his level in the near future, those golden days seems lost forever and I really miss him...I love you Hagi!

Clubs:
1982–1983 Farul Constanţa 18 (7 goals)
1983–1987 Sportul Studenţesc 107 (58 goals)
1987–1990 Steaua Bucureşti 97 (76 goals)
1990–1992 Real Madrid 64 (16 goals)
1992–1994 Brescia 61 (14 goals)
1994–1996 Barcelona 36 (7 goals)
1996–2001 Galatasaray 132 (59 goals)

HAGI - "The Maradona Of The Carpathians"

[Sears]

For us Irish, it has to be Robbie Keane because of his phenomenal goal scoring record for us ...

Robbie Keane - Ireland Goals Tribute

[Jake Lenahan]

I guess I am inclined to go for the Swedish side of me since someone else can fill in the English haha.

But it has to be the one and only, Henrik Larsson - King of Swedish football.
Below is a documentary about his time at Celtic and the like.. Worth a watch.

http://www.youtube.c...&v=8cef-3GVeqk#!

[Ana Garcia]

Am going on players I have seen rather than true greats such as Rafael Aranzadi or Telmo Zarra (both Bilbao legends) as they are way before my time! And the list of great Spanish players, well I could post thousands!

So here are my two that I believe are the best I have seen :

Raúl González

Raul top 10 goals

Xavi Hernández (Who else! ))

Xavi Hernandez - The Best

A Barcelona legend and a Real Madrid legend cant be any more fair than that!

[Jake Lenahan]

Xavi Hernández (Who else! ))

Xavi Hernandez - The Best

A Barcelona legend and a Real Madrid legend cant be any more fair than that!

If Messi and Ronaldo weren't around, Xavi would be touted as the best player in the world. That vid I posted up last year (somewhere here..) just emphasises how humble he and his life is, living with his parents and enjoying life even though he is one of the best players in the world. Class act.

[Karl Deighton]

i have something like a 1/16 Maltese in me so i will do Malta.

In my opinion it is Carmel Busuttil, he is one of the only Maltese players to play successfully abroad.
He was awarded the Maltese 'Golden Player' and has made the most caps (111) for his country
he also scored 23 goals for his country

Clubs:

1979-1987  Rabat Ajax    106 (47)
1987-1988  Verbania        20  (8 )
1988-1994  Genk            183 (57)
1994-2001  Sliema Wanderers  191 (78)

total:                                  500  (190)


He has won the:

Maltese Premier League 1985, 1986, 1996
Maltese Cup 1986, 2000
Maltese Super Cup 1985, 1986, 1996, 2000

[darthbane999]

My country's best football player would be Fandi Ahmad. I live in Singapore and he is a legend here.

He is probably the first and only Singaporean up to now to play in Europe successfully. (Home United's current goalkeeper Lionel Lewis came close, he went for trial in Belgium but decided that the environment did not suit him)

He started his career at Singapore FA, the then Malaysian Cup squad. Back in the day, Singapore and Malaysia had a knockout tournament known as the Malaysian Cup. Sinagpore only had 1 team then and the team played against the Malaysian teams from each state. He left 2 years later to Niac Mitra, an Indonesian team. After spending around another 2 years there, he left for Gronigen (Holland) and made 36 appearances, scoring 11 over 3 seasons. He later signed for OFI Crete. After that, he returned to Malaysia, playing for Pahang United. He returned to Singapore FA before playing for Geylang United and the new SAFFC in the S-League. He played a 100 times for the national team, in the process scoring 52. He is currently managing Johor FA in the Malaysian league.

After his retirement, he set up the Fandi Ahmad academy, where they are grooming local talent.

I don't know much about him, but I know that his children are playing youth level football at some of the biggest clubs in Europe. (Chelsea I think) The last time I checked I found him on FM so of you want to hire him as your coach or whatsoever you can look him up.

Currently, we also have a young lad called Hariss Harun. He is one of our brightest talents, being awarded MVP at Barcelona's La Marcia academy. He's only 21 and is already the captain of the national team. He is currently with the Lions XI in the Malaysian league so you can look him up. The last time I checked club wanted 100k for him. All his technical stats are around 10-11. The rest I think are decent.

For myself, my personal idol in Singapore would be David Lee. About 6-7 years ago, I used to play football with the Eurasian Association (EA in short, I used to think they had something to do with the game producer Electronic Arts). He was once my coach for about a year or two, at that time I didn't know he was a national team player. After I found out, I went to watch a match he played in. It was a charity match between Singapore's old-timers against Malaysia's old-timers. (Both teams consisted of retired players entirely) He played his old, usual position, goalkeeper. He made a spectacular save, cartwheeling across the goal to save the ball. (I'm not lying, I really saw it) The match ended in a draw, but with things like that, it was enjoyable. The last time I checked he is a goalkeeper coach on FM of around 13-15 goalkeeping training so I think he makes a decent goalkeeper coach. You can always look him up if you are interested.

That's all from me. Hope you people learnt something about Singapore's rather short football history. Maybe you can even pick up some decent players an coaches from here!

[davysrfc1901]

For us Irish, it has to be Robbie Keane because of his phenomenal goal scoring record for us ...

Robbie Keane - Ireland Goals Tribute

Can't agree with ya there. In my opinion Ireland has had far better players......

[darthbane999]

For us Irish, it has to be Robbie Keane because of his phenomenal goal scoring record for us ...

Robbie Keane - Ireland Goals Tribute

Can't agree with ya there. In my opinion Ireland has had far better players......

Can't agree more about that. I would rank Shay Given higher than him.

[davysrfc1901]

For us Irish, it has to be Robbie Keane because of his phenomenal goal scoring record for us ...

Robbie Keane - Ireland Goals Tribute

Can't agree with ya there. In my opinion Ireland has had far better players......

Can't agree more about that. I would rank Shay Given higher than him.

I'd rank Glenn Crowe higher then I'd rank that piece of s***e and I despise that fella........In my opinion the best players Ireland have had over the last 20 years (Since just before I was born) have being Kevin Kilbane, Shay Given, Mick McCarthy and more recently Richard Dunne. These are players who have put everything into the shirt and earned every cap they have got.

Ireland is one of those countrys which will have extreme mixed opinion. My opinion is anyone who ranks Roy Keane (quitter!) as anywhere near the best player in Irish footballing history is just as bad as he is! But there are people ehre who rank him as one of the best players Ireland has ever produced.

[davysrfc1901]

Am going on players I have seen rather than true greats such as Rafael Aranzadi or Telmo Zarra (both Bilbao legends) as they are way before my time! And the list of great Spanish players, well I could post thousands!

So here are my two that I believe are the best I have seen :

Raúl González

Raul top 10 goals

Xavi Hernández (Who else! ))

Xavi Hernandez - The Best

A Barcelona legend and a Real Madrid legend cant be any more fair than that!

Would you rate Fiernando Hierro (Apologies for the awful spelling) as one of the Greater players of your time?

[Ana Garcia]

Would you rate Fiernando Hierro (Apologies for the awful spelling) as one of the Greater players of your time?

LoL!

I would (despite him playing for Real Madrid!) but most of the time I look more favorably on attacking players hence Raul and Xavi, we should post or greatest ever lineups of our time then I can fit in all the great Spanish players!

[davewig1980]

Xavi Hernández (Who else! ))

Xavi Hernandez - The Best

A Barcelona legend and a Real Madrid legend cant be any more fair than that!

If Messi and Ronaldo weren't around, Xavi would be touted as the best player in the world. That vid I posted up last year (somewhere here..) just emphasises how humble he and his life is, living with his parents and enjoying life even though he is one of the best players in the world. Class act.

When I went to the Nou Camp to watch Barca play, I was far more impressed with Xavi than Messi.  Obviously Messi is very exciting to watch but Xavi is more of a thinker and I like thinkers

[Ana Garcia]

When I went to the Nou Camp to watch Barca play, I was far more impressed with Xavi than Messi.  Obviously Messi is very exciting to watch but Xavi is more of a thinker and I like thinkers

This may be mad what I'm about to say but I think Xavi has been underrated for most of his career. Its been only the last few years that he has gained the fame and praise he deserves from the world wide media.

I guess the problems were there were 'bigger' star names I guess at Barcelona from Rivaldo, to Ronaldinho to obviously Messi that took most of the headlines and probably rightfully so but he has always been my favourite player at Barcelona.  

[Acss]

Found this on UEFA site, about Hagi's Academy...for who's interested

http://www.uefa.com/...l?autoplay=true

[Sibo373]

LoL!

I would (despite him playing for Real Madrid!) but most of the time I look more favorably on attacking players hence Raul and Xavi, we should post or greatest ever lineups of our time then I can fit in all the great Spanish players!

I'll edit it slightly as I haven't followed football for long enough to really see major rotations in national teams, so I'll give a go to the best ever Dutch XI:

Edwin Van Der Sar

Koeman-Gullit

Rijkaard-Cocu

Overmars-Cruijff-Van Bronckhorst

Bergkamp

Kluivert-Van Basten

Odd formation I know, but they'd most likely be playing Total Football anyway so it won't matter as they all rotate round and cause havoc with the other team's defence!

[dami]

tough call. may take a while to decide

[mufcvarun]

As I live in England for me it has to be Steven Gerrard. He's a great leader for club and country and im sure everyone knows that too.

[BRELCOLLASKEK]

LOL. This worked. valium no prescription The comments have not been altered to endorse the drug in any way; only the personal information, (eg. I didn’t get anything like that with this (thank god) Maybe it was because they were taking it so much.

[Pedro Fontan]

Eusebio obviously ,Luis Figo! Rui Costa, Paulo Sousa, Joao Pinto, Paulo Bento, Sergio Conceicao, Nuno Gomes, Pauleta, Fernando Couto. Also C.Ronaldo
Just read this post now!