Easy target

Pele's list of the greatest living players is open to ridicule

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By Gavin Hamilton, World Soccer Magazine

Greatest-ever lists -- be they footballers or movies, pop stars or motor cars -- are never definitive. Their subjective nature means they are always open to criticism.

Pele's list of the 100 (actually 125) greatest living footballers, published this week as part of FIFA's centenary celebrations, is no different. Pele may have been the greatest ever player, but he has struggled to gain respect for his opinions since retiring as a player.

Pele's reputation will not have been enhanced by the list. On the contrary, he has done himself considerable damage.

It's easy to pick holes in such a list -- so here goes.

A few obvious omissions:

• Jairzinho, scorer in every round of the 1970 World Cup. 
• Tostao and Gerson, two more stars from that wonderful 1970 team.
• Denis Law, arguably the greatest Scottish footballer of all time.
• Geoff Hurst, only man to have scored a hat trick in a World Cup final.
• Francisco Gento, as key a figure in the Real Madrid side of the 1950s as Di Stefano and Puskas.
• Gunter Netzer, the brilliant West Germany midfield schemer of the 1970s. 
• Tom Finney, one of the true greats of English football. And that's just for starters.

What about Florian Albert, Bebeto, Igor Belanov, Roberto Bettega, Oleg Blokhin, Dragan Dzajic, Ryan Giggs, Johnny Haynes, Ronald Koeman, Ruud Krol, Ian Rush, Matthias Sammer, Enzo Scifo, Peter Shilton, Allan Simonsen, Luis Suarez, Marco Tardelli, Jean Tigana, Paul Van Himst, Andoni Zubizarreta?

The apparent need to include as many countries as possible means Pele included two American women, Michelle Akers and Mia Hamm. But why not China's Sun Wen, voted FIFA's woman footballer of the 20th century? Would the Americans really have been that offended if Akers and Hamm had been omitted?

Similarly, would the Senegalese have minded if El-Hadji Diouf, that well-known Liverpool substitute, not appeared on the list? Ditto Turkey and Emre Belozoglu, Nigeria and Jay-Jay Okocha.

As for Hong Myung-bo, if Pele wanted to recognize South Korea's contribution to world football, why not Cha Ba-kum, the man long considered the country's greatest player and the first Asian to successfully play professionally in Europe, in Germany in the 1980s. Unlike Hong, who never played in Europe and is currently struggling to make his mark in U.S. Major League Soccer.

Present-day goalkeepers Rustu Recber and Gianluigi Buffon are included, but not Jose Luis Chilavert or Pat Jennings. Roy Keane, the man who walked out on Ireland's 2002 World Cup squad, makes the cut, but not Johnny Giles. Alan Shearer is in there, but not Jimmy Greaves.

Since retiring, Pele has always been the arch diplomat, forever forsaking the controversial comment in favor of something less offensive. He tends to pitch his comments to whatever nationality his audience is. So picking 100 players for a global audience was always going to be problematic; somebody was bound to be upset.

But Pele -- or rather, the braintrust at FIFA that suggested the names to him -- has committed the terrible error of not wanting to offend people in football's emerging nations.

Instead, he has insulted the intelligence of everybody else.

Gavin Hamilton is editor of World Soccer magazine. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.