Great World Soccer Players

OK, to go along with the end of this World Cup, which actually turned our pretty well even with the meltdowns and letdowns of Italy, France and England early on I am going to post about great past players who never played in the world cup and a few more who never won the cup. The inspiration for this post came to me in my sleep last night but I am posting about it now.

OK, here we go, I will begin with the best players to have never played in any World Cups. When one looks at Pele's list of 100 best living footballers from 2004 (which has numerous subjective faults but is a starting place) it is like a who's who of great international and club play because it is common for the greats to make it to the cup with their national sides. There are a few exceptions to this though.

At the absolute top of the list is Alfredo Di Stefano who played internationally for Argentina, Columbia and Spain but never once played in a World Cup over the course of a 23 year top-level career. These are in no particular order but Eric Cantona is a notable player to have never played in a World Cup when France twice didn't qualify in 90 and 94 while he was at his prime. George Weah of Liberia won the world player of the year in 1995 but never played in the cup. George Best who hailed from Northern Ireland is another who never made it to the cup. Another longtime Man U fixture is Ryan Giggs from Wales.

The great players who never won a world cup but played in at least one is a much longer list. This list I will place a little more value judgments on. Most of these near the top are classical players including Eusebio of Portugal and Sir Stanley Matthews of England! There are a couple of Hungarian greats who went undefeated for 4 years only to lose the '54 cup final to W. Germany to place here at or close to the top - Ferenc Puskas and Sandor Kocsis!!! There are three Frenchmen - Just Fontaine, Raymond Kopa and Michel Platini. A horde of dutch players led by Johan Cruyff and Marco Van Basten along with Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Dennis Bergkamp from over the years. A few more Englishmen - Gary Lineker and Peter Shilton who suffered against Maradona in '86 (hand of god) and '90 along with Alan Shearer of later years. Too many Spanish players to name though this new crop won today! Teofilo Cubillas of Peru, Roberto Baggio and Paolo Maldini of Italy.

There are more but there are few people anywhere who would leave any of these players off of any "best" lists when they were playing in their prime and most of these players had extensive careers and were at top form for many years, not just a meteoric rise and fall from stardom.