FIFA are announcing a list of the 100 greatest living football players. The list is chosen by "The Worlds Greatest Player" Pele!

The list will be published on March 4th - but, as if to whet our collective appetite, 5 of the players to make the list have been revealed.

These are:

Thierry Henry (Arsenal and France forward)
Roy Keane (brutish Man Utd and former Ireland "hard-man")
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (prolific ex Germany striker)
Roberto Baggio (inspirational Italian golden-boy)

And.....

... Mia Hamm...... um she's an American woman who plays "Soccer".

How on Earth can a woman be better than a man at playing football? Ok fair enough this girl might be able to kick the ass of the striker for your local pub team... maybe. But surely its crazy to declare a woman a better player than the men who wont make the list - the likes of Greaves or Le Tissier or any other of my heroes.

Pele can be a cock at the best of times (I wonder exactly how many Englishmen will be in the list?) but this surely is sheer stupity?!

in theory, there's no reason why a woman couldn't be good at football, it's not purely about size or muscle. there must be lots of women with a similar build to michael owen, christiano ronaldo or even david beckham. I've never seen a 'great' woman player tho.

it does sound a bit of a political decision tho, that's the growth markets for footie, america and women

Yes I think you've hit the nail on the head there Hugo - I didnt allure to that originally but yes its definitely FIFA trying to make the women's game higher profile.

Unfortunately this makes what would be an interesting list into a bit of a joke - I understand that there will be more women on the list.

Interestingly Perugia (I think it was them anyway) recently tried to purchase a Swedish female footballer to play in Serie A! FIFA allowed this but the player turned down the transfer as she didnt think she would be able to cope in such a league.

I think at the moment female and male footballers are too far apart in terms of skill (and previous coaching) to play together however in the future who knows?

Certainly in sports such as Snooker and darts I see no reason why both sexes couldnt play together at the same level.

Except of course that the women would always lose.

the argument is that it would be unfair as most male players wouldn't want to tackle women as hard as men (on the pitch anyway) but i reckon a girl who has been playing football since she was small (as lots have in many countries) could be just as skillful

ace_mcfly spouted:

How on Earth can a woman be better than a man at playing football?

Yep, it's ridiculous. Their skirts would get in the way. Next thing you know they will be allowed to vote, drive cars and join the menfolk for brandy and cigars after putting the kids to bed.

*shakes head *

It's all about marketing.

Wannabepornstar dont be silly!!! What I meant was that the best woman player in the world aint gonna be anywhere near the class of the best guy. The infrastructure (coaching etc) is such that ignoring any physical differences then men will still be better.

Take the best guy - Zidane vs the best woman - Hamm(?) who is better? Now take the 2nd best and compare them - now the third best etc etc

Do you disagree?

It'd be a bit like the debate they had re where would Serena Williams rank in the mens list. Most experts agreed not in the top 3,000.

i reckon she'd kick henmans arse

so Ace, with the same coaching and development could they ever match up?
how is the infrastructure in west africa? no good footballers could possibly come from there?
how was the infrastructure in the slums of buenos aires or rio de janeiro 30 and 40 years ago?

i'm not saying there are any women players better than the top men, there aren't. why not?

So the whole thing is discredited, as well it should be, with the easily bought Pele picking the teams. Roy fucking Keane, a poor mans Souness if you ask me, can't possibly be a serious choice. If I put my mind to it I could probably think of a thousand srtickers better than Rumenigge as well.

But if it comes to Mia Hamm, she's a complete star, head and shoulders above any other woman, and given her record,

http://www.miafoundation.org/aboutmia.asp

Why the hell not since it's only marketing bullshit anyway?

Is Jinky Jim Smith there? Paolo Rossi? I doubt it. More meaningless pap.

Yes the list is a joke , I fear one of the worlds greatest players (pele) is just FIFA's PR guy and their puppet, cos surely the man held in many peoples eyes can judge who can kick a ball and who cant.

I agree that mia may be a good player but we could sit here all day and talk about the male vs female war all day and wont get anywhere. Quite simply imo you shouldnt even compare female to males in physical games such as football,rugby,wrestling etc... as for 1 it would take a nutter to actually go full on and tackle a woman cos im sure 90% of men wouldnt feel right tackling a woman like he would another man and vice versa.

But imo you can compare them at tennis,darts etc.. has there arent actual contact so it goes on 100% on skill and technique. Thats my imo anyway

Fucking hell.

Goat Rider spouted:
as for 1 it would take a nutter to actually go full on and tackle a woman cos im sure 90% of men wouldnt feel right tackling a woman like he would another man and vice versa.


Yep, but ------ I (back in the old days) went to a rugby school and so I played hockey (mothers note etc etc). Hockey girls were harder than boys by a long chalk. I remember bouncing off a centre half once, mff tissue damage, severe bruising. She said sweetly 'Get up you soft bastard.' I, personally, never tackled a woman full on again. Well, except in the showers.

Do you think Steve McMahon never tackled a woman? Or Keiron Dyer for that matter, going full on? Ahem. Litigation pending. Jamie Carragher, Stan Thinggymooor, Becks and Jordan, Posh and Stern John. Ron 'the good life' Atkinson!

Ergh, threadjack. Ahem, Walter Winterbottle. SirrAlf - kickin' runnin' and shootin' those were the days. Sir Kenneth Wolstenholme, balls like iron. Where was I? Linament! Dubbin!!

bring back brandy christie :)

Theoretically, women's brains are less suited to such a sport as football, as their brain has less ability to interpret spatial/distance/speed perception, and is less inclined towards tactical thought.

i give you brandy christie...the woman who took off her shirt after scoring the winning penalty in the womens world cup finalfor the USA!:)

Apart from the mental thing that Kormiic pointed out, the whole make-up of the womens bone structure is weaker than a mans. You can put as much muscle as you like on a woman, but a superfit woman isnt as strong or resiliant as a male with the same level of fitness.
She may possibly hold her own for short periods playing with men, but it wouldnt stand up to the rigours of competetive football for any sustained length of time. Apart from that, she wouldnt be very good either.
As for her being in the top 100, i wouldnt put her in the top 100 thousand personally.

I'd have her in my pub side though, reckon she'd be shit-hot :)

Well........she'd do o.k til some great big hairy primate from the opposing team broke both her legs whilst trying to "win" the ball

so the best footballers = the fittest?

two (and a bit) words: Matt LeTissier

daley thompson did a bit of football too didn't he?

What about Micky Quinn - Used to play for Newcastle in the 80's. He was a fucking ace footballer but extremely larger than life...

paul gascoigne, ferenc puskas, even tubby little maradona

what about skinny players? i can only think of sicknote anderton. solskjaer isn't exactly schwarzenegger either

I think its all a plot for some big conspiracy. maybe its FIFa's way of alerting America to who these men are?

That woman has no tits. Not that that matters. I doubt she's up there in the top 5. You cant really compare men and women in that way can you?

That is one nasty bra... surely you don't need a bra if you don't got no norks? Hmm...

it's called a sports bra, it squashes your tits down

(i know this cos the missus has some of them for running)

hugo-a-gogo spouted:
it's called a sports bra, it squashes your tits down

(i know this cos the missus has some of them for running)

I know what a sports bra is... I have norks, you know... but that's damn ugly, even for a sports bra.

My tits arnt that flat when I wear mine. Anyway, back to the topic in hand after i derail completely, FIFA probably did this to appease female footballers. The thing is, I dont think Mia Hamm is a sgood as the others in the top 5, but that is just my opinion.

I wish I had arms like hers. :D

i must have missed off the [/irony] tag

she's an athlete with practically no body fat, look at her stomach! 'course she has no tits

(me prefers the smaller 'french' breast anyway)

I bet the majority of American "soccer" fans will be clueless as to who the rest of the list are. if she werent in it, they wouldnt care less would they?