The soccer is one of the great themes of debate in the world since its creation and one of its main characteristics at the time of discussion is that it is so subjective that it is difficult (sometimes impossible) to agree but it is not necessary either and one of the questions that ignites the passion of the fans is when it comes to talking about the best player of all time.
Tom Crawford, a prestigious mathematician from Oxford, came to break with so much subjectivity with a new and controversial algorithm that measures the trajectories of the great legends of the most popular sport in the world at a statistical level and put at the top Cristiano Ronaldo. Alfredo Di Stéfano, Pelé, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and CR7 they reigned in their time but how to define who was the best of all.
First of all, Crawford only considered footballers who have at least won two Ballons d’Or throughout his career and thus the final list was made up of 13 players. The seven items considered by the English mathematician were the Club titles, national team championships, club goals, national team goals, Ballons d’Or, records and “Z factors”. The latter refers to a milestone in his career such as becoming a scorer or figure in a competition.
When comparing league titles, Crawford took as a parameter the coefficient UEFA to give the fair value to each tournament. Of course, it is not the same to become champion of the Spanish League with the powerful Real Madrid to be consecrated in Serie A with the humble Naples.
Something similar happens with national team titles, where a world weighs more than one Eurocup or one America Cup and the FIFA ranking was also taken as a parameter to measure the achievement in comparison with others.
As for goals, the Hungarian Ferenc Puskás led that item at the club level while Cristiano Ronaldo He did it in national teams, where he recently became a Guinness Record by beating Iranian Ali Daei.
For the records Those that are only from a club or a selection but global ones were not counted: of all the clubs, all the selections or of a competition. And to finish polishing the statistics, the “factor z” it did take into account brands in various competitions.
The top ten of the best players in history according to Tom Crawford
2-Lionel Messi
3- Pele
4- Ferenc Puskás
5-Ronaldo Nazario
6-Marco Van Basten
7-Alfredo Di Stefano
8-Michel Platini
9-Diego Maradona
10-Johan Cruyff
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