Messi but no Ronaldo: Fabio Capello names the three greatest players in history
Fabio Capello has named who he considers the three greatest players of all time, but snubbed Cristiano Ronaldo by claiming the former Real Madrid forward is ‘not at this level’.
“Ronaldo Nazario is just behind them,” Capello said. “Cristiano Ronaldo is a good player but not at this level. He scores goals but these three players have extra imagination & make something you can’t understand.”
“These three players have extra imagination. They made something that you can’t understand.”
Here are the three names that the legendary Italian coach picked.
Lionel Messi
Capello has been consistently effusive in his praise of the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner over the years – and he’s never minced his words when it comes to the Messi-Ronaldo debate.
“After 25 minutes of the match I approached Frank Rijkaard and asked for the loan of Messi to Juve,” Capello reminisced of the first time he saw the Argentinian in a 2005 friendly. (via Mundo Deportivo)
“That a player of his age could play like that, before 90,000 fans, undeterred by [Federico] Balzaretti, the full-back who marked him and it seemed [Messi] knew everything he was going to do.
“His personal quality, dribbling, fantasy…he grabbed the ball and went straight for goal with an unusual audacity.
“[Franco] Baresi or [Paolo] Maldini were players who we knew would reach the top because of the great talent they had. From there, a lot depends on the head of the player.
“If they like to sacrifice: train, train, play, train, train, play…but with Messi, I noticed something different from what we had seen so far.
“With what he showed in that game against Juve, there was no doubt he would reach the top.”
“Cristiano is a powerful player, with very good technique, but he does not possess the pure technical skill of Messi,” he later told AS.
Pele
“I played against him once,” the 78-year-old recalled after the mention of Pele’s name.
It took some digging to find the game he was referring to. Pele made his final appearance for Brazil in 1971, and Capello didn’t make his Azzurri debut until the following year.
It turns out the game was in a 1976 tournament created by the North American Soccer League in 1976 to celebrate the United States’ 200th birthday in which a ‘Team America’ lined up with the biggest NASL stars including a veteran Pele, Bobby Moore and Giorgio Chinaglia.
Capello, meanwhile, featured for an Italy side that boasted future World Cup winners including Dino Zoff and Marco Tardelli. He scored twice, with Brazil winning the four-team tournament and Italy ending up third. Pele’s Team America ended up dead last.
Diego Maradona
We thoroughly recommend watching Asif Kapadia’s Diego Maradona documentary to get a gloriously technicoloured idea of the force of nature the Argentinian was during his Napoli prime.
Capello would’ve been fortunate to have witnessed the genius of Maradona in real time, having started out his fledgling coaching career at AC Milan in the 1980s.
After playing a starring role in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup triumph, El Diego inspired Napoli to two Scudetti in 1986-87 and 1989-90. Anyone fortunate to have watched Maradona in those prime years will likely describe a deity of a footballer in rarefied terms.
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