Bully Wee Villa Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 3 minutes ago, German Jag said: Fritz Walter was the captain in Germany's first WC win in 1954, in a final which is known in Germany as the "Wunder von Bern", which was probably the 1st landmark event for the country after the 2nd world war. Yeah I know who he is. But it was considered a massive shock that they won that. Beckenbauer was the star of the team that helped turn (West) Germany from some Denmark/Greece/England type team that had one success into one that expects to win tournaments on a regular basis. He's easily the most significant German footballer, IMO. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneteaminglasgow Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 10 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: Anyway, I notice none of the actual list is filled in yet. Shall we attempt to do them in order? First up, Afghanistan. Football: Not sure, can find a fair few players that have played at semi-pro or amateur level in Europe (mostly Germany) but not too many who have made it big. Zohib Islam Amiri has the record for most caps so maybe give it him. Other sport: Rashid Khan (cricket), the only Afghan cricketer to be ranked number one in any ODI list (as an all rounder). Rohullah Nikpai (taekwando), Afghanistan's only ever Olympic medallist, winning bronze in 2008 and again in 2012. Conclusion: other sport wins. Anyone disagree or have any knowledge of Afghan sport? Don’t know anything about Afghan sport, but I’d say we’re pretty safe in the conclusion that it won’t be a footballer who’s their greatest sportsman. Their greatest ever footballer probably isn’t male - would imagine Nadia Nadim has achieved more in the women’s game than any of her male counterparts. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 That's a can of worms as she plays for Denmark. Are we allowed to count Eusebio as Mozambique's greatest footballer or restricting him to the Portuguese debate? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin.Hood Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 26 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: Anyway, I notice none of the actual list is filled in yet. Shall we attempt to do them in order? First up, Afghanistan. Football: Not sure, can find a fair few players that have played at semi-pro or amateur level in Europe (mostly Germany) but not too many who have made it big. Zohib Islam Amiri has the record for most caps so maybe give it him. Other sport: Rashid Khan (cricket), the only Afghan cricketer to be ranked number one in any ODI list (as an all rounder). Rohullah Nikpai (taekwando), Afghanistan's only ever Olympic medallist, winning bronze in 2008 and again in 2012. Conclusion: other sport wins. Anyone disagree or have any knowledge of Afghan sport? Doing one country at a Time could be fun rather than people just doing random ones. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 (edited) Agreed. Though I think that, at least, Kosovo and Chinese Taipei/Taiwan should be added to the list. Maybe other countries that aren't independent but effectively act as such in sporting terms should be included, too. Examples: Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong. Edited July 17, 2021 by Bully Wee Villa 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneteaminglasgow Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 6 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: That's a can of worms as she plays for Denmark. Are we allowed to count Eusebio as Mozambique's greatest footballer or restricting him to the Portuguese debate? That’s a fair point which I had kind of forgotten about. On reflection, I think restricting them to the country they actually represented is best, otherwise you’ll end up with nonsense like Raheem Sterling being Jamaica’s best ever footballer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurkst Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 2 hours ago, HalfCutNinja said: People who say Andy Murray is Scotland's best ever sportsman are arseholes. Andy Murray is Scotland's best ever sportsman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 The reason I specified sportsman in the title is because I imagined including women would make the non-footballers even harder to quantify - where would Serena Williams fit in for instance, given the quality of her competition has been so comparatively low? Anyway, Afghanistan seems like Zohib Islam Amiri as their most capped player with 61. Elsewhere it's cricket, and while I'm fucked if I'm understanding any of these numbers it seems to be Rashid Khan - Wikipedia who takes the honours. Comparing the two I'd say Khan wins since he's been at a higher level than Amiri. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 1 hour ago, Bully Wee Villa said: Anyway, I notice none of the actual list is filled in yet. Shall we attempt to do them in order? First up, Afghanistan. Football: Not sure, can find a fair few players that have played at semi-pro or amateur level in Europe (mostly Germany) but not too many who have made it big. Zohib Islam Amiri has the record for most caps so maybe give it him. Other sport: Rashid Khan (cricket), the only Afghan cricketer to be ranked number one in any ODI list (as an all rounder). Rohullah Nikpai (taekwando), Afghanistan's only ever Olympic medallist, winning bronze in 2008 and again in 2012. Conclusion: other sport wins. Anyone disagree or have any knowledge of Afghan sport? Oh I'd forgotten I'd quoted this. Whoops. Some Olympic medals seems better than some cricket numbers so that sways me. 38 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: Agreed. Though I think that, at least, Kosovo and Chinese Taipei/Taiwan should be added to the list. Maybe other countries that aren't independent but effectively act as such in sporting terms should be included, too. Examples: Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong. The list in the OP comes from the wikipedia page "List of Sovereign States," for whatever that's worth. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 Up next, Albania. Their most capped player is Lorik Cana - Wikipedia who played for Marseilles, Galatasaray and Lazio, playing in the Champions League and retiring from international football after captaining his country at Euro 2016. In other sports they have no Olympic medals. The best I can do seems to be long jump or weightlifting. A gold in the long jump in the European Indoor Championships in 2017 for Izmir Smajlaj - Wikipedia A gold in the 2014 European Weightlifting Championships for Erkand Qerimaj - Wikipedia Smajlaj is getting my vote her I think, but they're all well behind Cana so it's a win for football. Any objections? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 Surprised they've never even managed one Olympic medal. Poor show. They also have a European pommel horse gymnastics champion in Matvei Petrov and weightlifter Pyrros Dimas won three Olympic golds and a bronze so would almost certainly be Albania's best if he hadn't switched allegiance to Greece before those events. So, yeah, I'm happy to go with the footballer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brummie Clyde Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 Isn't the world pool champion Albanian? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thistle_do_nicely Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 (edited) little surprised there isnt an Albanian UFC fighter or something that's dominated their weight class - so going by the above Cana is the standout yeah. Edited July 17, 2021 by Thistle_do_nicely 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneteaminglasgow Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 4 minutes ago, Thistle_do_nicely said: little surprised there isnt an Albanian UFC fighter or something that's dominated their weight class - so going by the above Cana is the standout yeah. Apparently, there’s an Albanian boxer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Marku) who’ll be fighting for the IBF international welterweight title in a few weeks time, which I assume is a big deal but have no idea really. I’d still go with Cana as being their best, although there were presumably some great Albanian players in the past who weren’t allowed to leave Albania and are thus basically unheard of here. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GNU_Linux Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 For Puerto Rico it'd be baseball right fielder & hall of famer Roberto Clemente. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 Think I'm going to stick with the long jumper here since he's won something, but I don't think either he or the boxer compare to Cana. The world pool champion is also Austrian, we'll see if he can unseat Alaba in a few countries' time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 (edited) I hadn't thought about pool, or even boxing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eklent_Kaçi Edit: ignore boxer I was going to suggest, he was German! Edited July 17, 2021 by Bully Wee Villa 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 On to Algeria and their post-independence football team is an interesting one. They were the team which missed out on qualifying from their world cup group when West Germany and Austria kicked it about for 80 minutes, and lots of the players from the 80s team ultimately won the 1990 African Cup of Nations which Algeria was hosting for the first time. Rabah Madjer - Wikipedia played for Porto in the 80s and won lots of league titles and the 1987 European Cup. Lakhdar Belloumi - Wikipedia is their most capped player and was voted the 4th best African player of the century, although he spent his whole playing career in Algeria. Riyad Mahrez - Wikipedia is the other obvious candidate and I don't know how you compare these three guys together given when and where they've played. Consider this a dress rehearsal - is Messi better than Maradona? Is Mahrez better than these other people from the past? Outside of football your best bet seems to be middle distance runner Taoufik Makhloufi - Wikipedia who won a gold at London 2012 and two silvers at Rio 2016. Any thoughts? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 2 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: I hadn't thought about pool, or even boxing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eklent_Kaçi Has been world number one in pool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Krasniqi World boxing champion. I reckon boys have more of a claim to greatest ever than a footballer who most, even on this predominantly football-based site, wouldn't have heard of. Given the boxer represents Germany I'd say it's a bit out there 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 You quoted before the edit! I Googled "Albanian World boxing champion" and his name came up. Stupid Google. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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