The Greatest Players of All-Time

I think I can understand why this feature has not been added already (it's a team management game rather than a retrospective look at players), but something I'd like to see that would certainly add interest to long-term games is the addition of a screen that displays a list of the greatest players of all time.

The criteria (which would apply to both past players and those from the game world) would need to include the sum total of the trophies won by the player and their relative value, as is currently the case for the Hall of Fame for managers (in fact it would be interesting if a player's Hall of Fame could also be added using these 'trophy-haul' criteria)

But to calculate the 'best' players of all time would also involve something extra. After all, simply being in a team that wins trophies does not mean that a player is the greatest ever.

Something like the following criteria could therefore be used:

1. Value of trophies and awards won (i.e. what did he achieve)

2. Maximum CA (i.e. how talented was he)

3. Duration that CA was at max, or within a % of max, or over a certain CA (i.e. how long was at his peak of ability, and was his peak ability comparable with other greats)

4. Duration of Worldwide reputation (i.e. how long was he recognised as a worldwide superstar whilst playing)

Calculating and applying these criteria to past players, it would be interesting what the results would be. Adding the ability for players from the teams you manage, and for other players in your game, to earn the right to be included in the list would be a really interesting feature.

In long-term games, you really start to care about the players in your team. You nurture them and you want them to succeed and be recognised for their success. To have one of your players recognised as one of the greatest of all-time would be the ultimate achievement.

Good luck deciding wether Pele or Maradona takes the top spot........

I like the idea, I'm sure it would have its difficulties, but it would be nice to see. I guess you can look back at the winners of the World Player of the Year awards and things, but it's not quite the same. Good thinking mate

Good luck deciding wether Pele or Maradona takes the top spot........

Using something like the method in the original post, the whole point is that there would not be an arbitrary decision about which player is top - it would all be calculated.

Of course for past players the difficulty would come in researching and defining each player's max CA (well, points 2, 3 and 4 really) - but that's what football fans do all the time anyway, isn't it, and I'm sure the team of researchers would relish the task.

It would then be a case of the developers tweaking and balancing the different criteria to get the optimum results.

Well if it was rated based on how many trophies players had won a lot of the current barca squad would be above maradonna and pele.

There is a history in the game for awards like world player of the year, although its not the same thing the players on that list would be pretty much the same i would imagine.

I quite like the idea but I feel it should be done a different way based on the average rating over their careers, number of yearly awards won, how they performed for their country and their performances in big matches. I think it might be hard to put into the game but personally I would not be bothered about the players being compared to older legends. I have holidayed to 2121 and would love to have a list of the top 50 players of all time in game, maybe the game could save their history and bio for us to view after they have retired but that would depend on how big the list is. A player hall of fame would be a great feature.

I think we should combine AcidBurn's suggestions with the OP and use all those criteria, that way you would get the most accurate picture of the great players. If the game could in someway save a picture of their attributes in their primes that would be brilliant, but I imagine that would be very difficult

I quite like the idea but I feel it should be done a different way based on the average rating over their careers, number of yearly awards won, how they performed for their country and their performances in big matches.

Good ideas.

I think using average ratings would really only be possible for in-game players, not for the past legends (it would be impractical to estimate the average ratings for the whole career of past players).

Also, average ratings are all relative - you could have a player who averages above 8.5 for 15 years, but if he's always played in a 'small' league then his rating is misleading. This is also where the use of the Worldwide reputation comes in.

For me the real value of this feature is that SI/SEGA could do two things:

1) They could market the feature that they had calculated who the best players of all-time were (based on defined criteria, rather than the existing lists that exist that are perhaps a bit less scientific). I think there would be great value in this, if only from the publicity it would get.

2) They would encourage long-term games by giving the FM manager the ability to see how their actions resulted in changes to this list (i.e. after spending time scouting, signing, training, nurturing, protecting and supporting a player, could that player be recognised as one of the greatest of all-time). It would also be possible to quantifiably compare players from different saves.

Well if it was rated based on how many trophies players had won a lot of the current barca squad would be above maradonna and pele.

It wouldn't simply be a count of trophies won - Nicky Butt won an awful lot of trophies but not many would say he's one of the best players ever.

Equally, someone like Kevin Keegan won the Ballon d'Or twice, and numerous european and domestic titles, but some would argue that as he made the absolute most of his relatively limited abilities (i.e. his max CA was relatively low - maybe 170?) he's often not considered one of the best ever.

As in the OP, the list would be calculated based on a combination of criteria, of which achievements is only one.

Good luck deciding wether Pele or Maradona takes the top spot........

Easy fix, don't include Maradona at all as he was a drug addict cheat...

Not sure it would be practical. However, I'd appreciate in game if there were to be an all time world best 11+subs. Can't be that hard to beat. I'd like to see if the players I bring through are the best the game has ever seen.

It wouldn't simply be a count of trophies won - Nicky Butt won an awful lot of trophies but not many would say he's one of the best players ever.

Equally, someone like Kevin Keegan won the Ballon d'Or twice, and numerous european and domestic titles, but some would argue that as he made the absolute most of his relatively limited abilities (i.e. his max CA was relatively low - maybe 170?) he's often not considered one of the best ever.

As in the OP, the list would be calculated based on a combination of criteria, of which achievements is only one.

your other criteria don't hold much weight though, CA and reputation stats won't be in the database for a lot of the players you would expect on the list which would then require SI dedicating resources to figuring all those values for all those retired players. Generally lists like these irl are down to what trophies a player won and how important they were in winning it so unless you rated the world cup as far superior to any other trophy i can't see anyone but Messi topping that list. But if you do rate the world cup as being so significant than surely Xavi and Iniesta would be sitting at the top. And as soon as you spit out a list like this without either pele, maradonna or zidane at the top you'll get all sorts of complaints.

I put up a post about a player Hall of Fame last year - I'm a big fan of the idea - but

1. I don't think that they'd do it for past players, only players as they perform within your FM career, in the same way that the overall best XIs only work based on the seasons that you yourself play. Asking the researchers to submit ratings and history for every quality player there has ever been would be ridiculous. For some of the older players, that stuff is very hard to research.

2. I don't think they should show the rankings of players like they do for managers. It'd be great to see a pantheon of something like 100- 10 GKs, 30 defenders, 40 midfielders, 20 strikers - and perhaps an "all-time World XI" but ranking defenders definitively against STs and GKs always looks a little odd to me, though it is frequently done.

3. To make this feature cool, they'd have to

a) keep the biographies for the players that retire and make it into the Hall of Fame, and preferably their entire history too

b) take a snapshot of a player's stats when he reaches a certain rep value- so that the HoF could display what a player's attributes were in his prime.

If they let you edit the size of the HoF, so those with crap computers could save themselves the extra processing, and those with supercomputers could save the bios of 1000 star players, that'd also be good. Next time someone runs one of those "holiday 200 yrs into the future" threads, it'd be cool to look in detail at the best ever players in that time period.

As for how to rate them, a minimum rep value to qualify (so that Nicky Butts would never make it), and a minimum trophy haul (no Matt LeTissier), then maybe average rating across the best 5 seasons? That'd avoid punishing players who take a while to retire, but just about skip out over-rating Ronaldinho types, who are outstanding, but not for long.

I'd try to keep CA out of it, at least to a large degree, because there is nothing more satisfying than taking a fairly limited player, and crafting the perfect role for him, in which he excels.

@Dekker2

Great post. Thanks!

I agree with almost all of your points. There are definitely a lot of ways it could be done. Not sure it would be that much of a task to define the necessary data for ~1000 past players.

The important thing is that I think it would add a great deal of depth and realism to the game.

I'm not sure you'd need 1000 players in it though, surely just 50 or 100 would be enough?

Top 100 would be best.

Average ratings should be used against the reputation of the league they were playing in at the time. Trophies is not something that should be used too much in my opinion.

I would like to nominate the legend that is Emile Heskey!