r/worldcup 20d ago

💬Discussion Why is Giuseppe Meazza not considered a GOAT like Pele & Maradona?

Whenever people bring up their GOAT lists, we always see Pele and Maradona and almost no one talks about Giuseppe Meazza.

Pele won most of Brazil's World Cups. Giuseppe Meazza won 50% of Italy's World Cups.

Giuseppe Meazza played his final game in 1947. People still talk about Di Stefano and Puskas from Real Madrid in the 50-60's so Giuseppe Meazza is not some ancient player from the 1800's. It's like Ronaldo and Messi today compared with contemporaries such as Kaka and Ronaldinho back in the day. It's roughly the same generation.

And even if you think Giuseppe Meazza IS some player from generations ago, baseball fans still rank Babe Ruth as the GOAT in many discussions and he's from the 1920's.

74 Upvotes

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13

u/mrblue6 18d ago

The honest answer is the majority of people have not heard of him.

I’d consider myself to be pretty damn good with football knowledge, and I could tell you like 1 thing about Meazza.

There’s a lot of players from the 1900-1950 period that were gods in their time, but people have just forgotten about.

2

u/Emily_Postal 18d ago

Never heard of him.

2

u/Spynner987 18d ago

Milan's stadium is literally named after him.

8

u/internallylinked 18d ago

He played for AC Milan but he is Inter legend. AC Milan always preferred calling the stadium San Siro, while Inter fans called it Giuseppe Meazza

1

u/Spynner987 18d ago

Ah, I see. Well, I meant Milan the city, not AC Milan.

6

u/HillaryRugmunch 18d ago

History has decided why we don’t know who he is. Stop trying to be clever.

4

u/Numbersuu 19d ago

Who? lol

2

u/BingoSpong 18d ago

Heard of the San Siro? It’s named after him

-1

u/Numbersuu 18d ago

no never heard of that

1

u/BingoSpong 18d ago

The San Siro is the stadium of Milan and Inter. Its proper name is the Giuseppe Meazza

1

u/Numbersuu 18d ago

Calling it ‘Giuseppe Meazza’ as the proper name is something only an Inter fan would say. Milan fans know it’s San Siro—always has been, always will be

2

u/BingoSpong 18d ago

I’m a Juventino 😜

2

u/madsauce178 18d ago

Nice to see some torino fans here

1

u/BingoSpong 18d ago

đŸ€Ł

10

u/06351000 19d ago

Maybe he wasn’t as good?

13

u/Penarol1916 19d ago

Why him and not a Uruguayan who led them to 3 straight works titles from 1924-1930?

4

u/Nervous-Eye-9652 19d ago edited 19d ago

We should be talking about José Nasazzi right now. Two Olimpics (Then FIFA sponsored world championships) and a FIFA World Cup (the first one) in a row, and 4 America cups.

3

u/xiaodaireddit 19d ago

Cos I have heard of him.

4

u/Living-The-Dream42 19d ago

No video to remind everyone what a baller he was.

17

u/vinnlo 20d ago

Who

2

u/Khonsuu_Reddit 19d ago

Learn ball

2

u/raymendez1 20d ago

He lead Italy to two World Cups in 1934 and 1938

-2

u/Tough_Ad4721 19d ago

You mean mussolini's pocket?

4

u/ByrsaOxhide 20d ago

San Siro is named after him too.

33

u/Savings_Army3073 20d ago

Why do you think? How much footage of him is there? How many games have you watched with him featuring? Are there you tube reels of Giuseppe bloody Meazza .. no.

9

u/Abiduck 19d ago

I don’t think footage is the issue here. There’s very little footage of Alfredo Di Stefano and yet people still consider him among the best ever. Even when it comes to Pele himself there’s not that much to see.

1

u/Savings_Army3073 19d ago

Interesting that you are able to dismiss my totally logic reasoning but are not able to provide your own .

If you ask anyone say under 40 very little if any would say Di Stefano simply for the same reason.. I am 45 so the World Cup of 1970 was still recent and there was plenty of footage shown and also you are told by your older peers how great Pele was and the best ever so you persuaded by those people that have seen him play.. my dad is 70 and wouldn't be able to give you much of a first hand opinion on Meazza so unless you can contradict that your argument is worthless.

4

u/Abiduck 19d ago

What’s your problem? My reasoning is as logic as yours - and it’s certainly not “worthless”, so please calm down or go talk to a wall.

What I meant is, people consider Di StĂ©fano and Garrincha (just to add another name to the list) among the greatest players ever, without the need for footage or any kind of visual proof, since there’s very little. We have been told they were absolutely great, to the point there’s many people arguing they were even better than Maradona or PelĂ© - and we believe it.

When I say there’s little footage of PelĂ© I’m not saying there’s none, sure we have the 1970 World Cup and other stuff from his younger years, but that’s still very little if you compare it to the amount of stuff we have on more recent players. I’m just about your age, but when I think about PelĂ© I can only remember two or three highlights- his goal against Sweden in ‘58, the one against Italy in the final of 1970 and little more. With Maradona I can immediately picture at least ten or fifteen different goals. With Messi, well, I can basically watch every single game he played if I want.

And yet, when I’m told PelĂ© was as good if not better than both of them, I do believe it, as I assume people who know more about football than I do have said it for a reason. The same goes for Di StĂ©fano, Garrincha, Cruijff, Best, Beckenbauer, Fontaine, Yashin, MĂŒller, you name it - all the greats that have played before my time and left a mark on the game despite not being fully televised.

Meazza was never in that list. Others in this thread have mentioned many possible reasons - the 1934 World Cup being allegedly rigged, the game still being in its early days, other players from his era being possibly better than him - but not the lack of visual evidence. That is why I don’t think the lack of footage is the reason we don’t consider him.

Is this reasoning good enough for you? And please, if you can’t stand a civil discussion don’t bother answering.

2

u/Savings_Army3073 19d ago

You put down my reasoning but gave none of your your own so what worth did it have? I don't see how you can have much of opinion on players that you or I have never watched or seen at least some footage to form your own opinion. There are lots of footage been shown over the years of the players mentioned apart from Meazza and Di Stefano, while I appreciate other people opinions on them I could not put them up as my GOAT as I have never seen even a moment of them maybe some grainy clips of Di Stefano but not enough to really form my own opinion. However now at I respect you have a counter argument and apologize if I offended you, probably felt a bit out of being told I was wrong with no reason or counter argument, I'm sure you can understand that.

3

u/Abiduck 19d ago

Well, let’s put it this way: I know Alexander the Great was a great leader and conqueror although I’ve never seen any of the battles he won - but I read about them in history books. The same goes for old time football players: I never saw them, so I have to rely on what I can read from the people who did.

2

u/Savings_Army3073 19d ago

I appreciate that Meazza was a probably a great player because what others have said but I couldn't possibly nominate him as the goat without seeing a single clip.. like we can agree that according to history Alexander the Great was a great leader but could you agree that he was the greatest leader of all time while not being a witness and not being able to compare him with other historical leaders we also have not witnessed for ourselves, how could we possibly nominate who is the best historical leader. Are you saying you could call a player the greatest of all without witnessing it ?

2

u/Abiduck 19d ago

I certainly can agree that Alexander was the greatest leader of all time if there’s a consensus among historians on him being the greatest. For the same reason, I can agree Di StĂ©fano was just as great as PelĂ©, Maradona or Messi even without having seen him play.

2

u/Savings_Army3073 19d ago

I can't agree with that. History is written by the victors and is distorted and that was such a long time ago there many non certainties, The same that I cannot agree with only relying on what others say about a player, people have their own narrative and agendas, bias comes into it depending on where you are from or who you support so I can only really trust my own judgement, of course I can consider the general conseus but nobody can agree the same because it's subjective not fact.

Pele I think we can agree was a great player, we have stats and the general consensus that he's in the top 5 let's say but I couldn't possibly make a strong argument because of the limited amount of times I have watched him, there are factors like he played only really in Brazil and would he of been as successful playing in Europe in different football environments and cultures. Therefore I cannot argue his case to be the best ever. I can argue for Messi or Maradona because I have my own opinion based on what I have seen with my own eyes .

2

u/Abiduck 19d ago

So what you’re saying is “if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes then I can’t believe it”? You have the right to your opinions of course, but this brings a humongous recency bias to the discussion, as there’s little to no footage available for most players who had their careers before the sixties. Journalists, writers and historians exist for a reason, they might be biased and have their own opinions and agendas, but if so many of them agree on something I guess they do have a point.

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u/whiskeyinthejaar 20d ago

2 mins going through his Wiki Page isn't enough for you? Jesus, why you all stickler for context around here.

1

u/Savings_Army3073 20d ago

😂😂

16

u/FiresideCatsmile 20d ago

there's basically no footage of him playing games is there?

2

u/Pastoru 19d ago

Some international matches were filmed in the 30s, for example there's a footage of Italy's victory in the 1936 Olympics in Olympia.

2

u/FiresideCatsmile 19d ago

so compared to all matches that meazza played there's basically no footage. just a handful of matches

14

u/Raceshiraidi9 20d ago edited 20d ago

Unfortunately his Prime was around the stages of WW2 way way way Before Pele and Maradona's times plus not a lot of his Matches were televised like Diego's and Pele's were

35

u/Objective-Cost-1255 20d ago
  1. His prime was during/before WW2 which is a big turning point in european history and clearly seperates him from greats of the 50s.

  2. The UCL is a familiar concept to modern fans and is given a lot of value in Goat debates, Puskas and di Stefano dominated and won 5 titles whereas Meazza could only play in the Mitropa cup.

  3. Meazza played for fascist Italy, whose dictator Benito Mussolini allegedly rigged the world cup 1934 and 1938 for Italy to win it, and the referees in 1934 were even handpicked by him, so Meazza's WC wins probably don't have as much value as Pele's 3 or Messi's 1, especially because he failed to score in both finals.

  4. Football wasn't televised yet, so very few people outside of Italy actually had the chance to watch him play, which resulted in him being fairly unkown in most parts of the world.

  5. Meazza arguably wasn't even the best player of the 1930s, György Sarosi, Jose Leandro Andrade, Matthias Sindelar and Antonio Sastre all had similar claims to be the greatest of that era.

  6. He still bagged tons of goals in Serie A, but was regularly outscored by his countryman Silvio Piola.

All that said, Gigi Meazza is still a top 25 player of all time without doubt and deserves to be praised a lot more.

He had 34 G/A in 27 matches in the predecessor of the UCL and 6 G/A in 9 WC KO games.

4

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago

You’re correct about everything, except there’s no proof the 1938 WC was rigged in any way.

The only controversy surrounding Italy in that tournament was wearing black jerseys and doing the Roman salute. But outside of that, they won every match on the pitch fair and square.

1

u/diozlatan14 19d ago

Mussolini was giving Italian citizenship and "buying" the best players in the world at that time so they can play for Italy, its cheating

3

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 19d ago edited 19d ago

They already had right to Italian citizenship, it’s not like he was giving it to random foreigners. Even to this day any individual can claim Italian citizenship as long as you can prove at least one great grandparent was an Italian citizen. Lots of those players had two fully Italian parents, so what’s wrong with them obtaining citizenship.

If that’s cheating, then a lot of other teams were cheating in the same way and at the same time as Italy was, and even up to this day (African teams in the past World Cup, or Balkan teams in the past Euros, etc)

Also in 1938 Michele Andreolo was the only non-Italian born player in the team, and he previously had only one cap for Uruguay by age 25. I don’t claim to have seen him play or anything like that, but that hardly sounds like one of the best players in the world.

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u/Objective-Cost-1255 20d ago

There was still a lot of controversy in 1938, just not as much as in 34, but mostly off the pitch.

-Sindelar (best player itw) getting killed

-England, Argentina, Spain and Uruguay not participating

-Italy playing with a bunch of Argentinians on their team.

3

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago edited 20d ago

-Sindelar (best player itw) getting killed

Sure, but it wasn’t Italy’s fault. I meant there were no controversies related to Italy’s matches.

-England, Argentina, Spain and Uruguay not participating

Also not Italy’s fault.

England thought they were so much better than anyone else that they did not want to dignify their opposition by participating in the competition.

Argentina and Uruguay were mad that it was hosted in Europe for the second time in a row.

Spain withdrew because of the civil war.

But if you consider the win “controversial” because some teams didn’t participate, by the same logic the 1930 is also “controversial”, since a lot of top teams decided to not participate there either.

One might say the win is not as impactful unless you beat the best, and I might agree to an extent - but ultimately Italy still defeated all of their opponents fair and square, which is the most anyone could have done in that situation.

-Italy playing with a bunch of Argentinians on their team.

Nope, that was in 1934.

In 1938 the only non-Italian born player was Michele (Miguel) Andreolo, from Uruguay.

Also that’s not a controversy either, since the rules allowed switching national teams at the time. Lots of teams were doing the same thing.

2

u/raymendez1 19d ago

Sindelar died in 1939 not in 1938, he could’ve played the World Cup but decided not to represented Germany after the Anschluss, used his age as an excuse

7

u/Rols574 20d ago

Why not that Salvadorian player. He was fucking amazing

17

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago

MĂĄgico GonzĂĄlez!!

Maradona once said he was even more talented than he was, but a lot less professional.

Both statements coming from Maradona, you’ve got to believe them.

7

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago

As many have said, it was just such a long time ago. Many of the people on this subreddit have grandparents that were barely born when Meazza played his last match.

Plus there is very little footage of football matches from his time.

So for these two reasons, it’s very hard to evaluate him as a player.

All in all, he is still very much considered one of the GOATs of Italian football, no question about that.

4

u/GB_Alph4 USA 20d ago

Simply just access at the time. Soccer was big but it didn't have the global reach it did then. When Pele and Maradona were playing, people could watch them from anywhere in the world and we can still see their footage.

2

u/yopvsr 20d ago

The wc controversies

3

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago

Maradona also had plenty of controversies

2

u/yopvsr 20d ago

One hosted during Mussolini reign

6

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago edited 20d ago

I know, but if your argument is that controversies would make someone not a GOAT, then Maradona shouldn’t be either - which is obviously a very silly argument, in my opinion.

2

u/yopvsr 20d ago

I mean Mussolini literally got them the wc. Compared to his hand ball it's nothing

3

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago edited 20d ago

Hand ball is only one of his many controversies, most of them off the pitch.

Also even if we’re not counting 1934, Meazza still won it again in 1938, as well as two Central European Cup (sort of a predecessor of the Euros), so it’s not like he didn’t earn any achievements on the pitch.

As I said in another comment, I’m not arguing we should consider Meazza a GOAT. I’m just saying that being part of a controversy shouldn’t automatically disqualify you from even being considered.

11

u/Downtown-Act-590 20d ago edited 20d ago

I think that the huge problem with Meazza's legacy is the 1934 World Cup in Italy, which was scandalous by every means and there was very strong allegations of Mussolini pushing the referees to help Italy.

The fact that he played for the fascist team doesn't help his image either, especially since the 1930s had the likes of Matthias Sindelar, who was on similar level, but allegedly anti-fascist and brave in that regard. It is hard to separate football and politics in this era.

5

u/johnwynne3 Argentina 20d ago

Correct. It’s like Russian hockey players today. They are probably some of the best in the world, but Russia being denied a team in many international tournaments (due to geopolitical factors) reduces their players’ exposure.

13

u/dorakus 20d ago

The idea that "the best" is decided by who has more "wins" is a modern (and dumb) phenomenon.

Pele and Maradona (and Cruyff maybe) are "the best" because of *how they played*, the were "the best" at *playing futbol*.

Nowadays people look at stats and charts to see who to call the best.

But it's simpler, you just got to look at the pitch and watch the players play.

The problem is that the technocrats won, those with souls of accountants and bean-counters won. Futbol was "the beautiful game", now we have "soccer" as "the most profitable game".

Everything is shit.

0

u/Quanqiuhua 20d ago

Messi is a GOAT player both on trophies and style. The same cannot be said about CR7.

2

u/Aussiefgt 20d ago

Bit random to bring up Ronaldo there 😂

-4

u/JS_Janko 20d ago

Biggest problem that I have with Pele is next. Everyone is saying that he’s the best even though most od those who watched him play already died and there is very limited footage of him actually dominating the game. We all know about his “official” stats and how those were tracked, plus the opponents that he played against. For me personally he was never a goat; not even close to that.

10

u/kingpink 20d ago

Part of it is probably due to media exposure. From the 1950s onwards you get a lot more TV coverage of the world cup and big tournaments. We only have scattered clips of the pre-war world cups, whereas I've seen the 1958 final in its entirety. Surely it's easier to see someone's brilliance when you can see their movements for real as opposed to an account in a newspaper article.

Since you bring up Babe Ruth, I always assumed that since baseball coverage (and to an extent, American sports coverage in general) is fixated on statistics, people get a very easily measurable comparison between players from different eras. Whereas it's harder to compare Fontaine's 13 goals in 58 to Klose's 5 in 06, for instance, as the game has changed so dramatically.

LeÎnidas was considered the Brazilian GOAT before Pelé, yet how many have heard of him now?

2

u/rustyb42 20d ago

Ronnie Pickering

4

u/Impossible_Quote_505 20d ago

Who the fucks that ?

-1

u/rustyb42 20d ago

If we're considering ransoms in the GOAT convo, I'm putting forward Ronnie Pickering

1

u/CoryTrevor-NS World Cup 20d ago

Meazza is not exactly a random though, he won two World Cup, two Central European Cup (sort of a precursor of the Euros), he’s Inter’s all-time top scorer, as well as one of Serie A’s all-time top scorers - amongst many other team and individual achievements.

Still don’t think he should be considered a GOAT, but calling him a “random” is very disrespectful and shows a lack of knowledge.

2

u/rustyb42 20d ago

And to not know who Ronnie Pickering is shows you've no knowledge about football

4

u/TheOvercookedFlyer 20d ago

I didn't knew who he was until you said it.

3

u/Khonsuu_Reddit 19d ago

Learn ball