Is Federer the greatest sports-person in the world?

[bennymacca]

here is a thought

for most sports, we seem to be able to reel off at least 2 or three players who stand head and shoulders above rest, and who could legitimately lay claim to being the best ever.

when i try to think about this for afl, i can't do it as well. i could name you 20 that could be considered, but none stick heads and shoulders above the rest (maybe robran and ebert in sa footy, but lets restrict it to AFL/VFL at the moment)

why do you think this is?

i reckon it might have something to do with the amount of players on the field. because there is 18 in footy, it means that your team makes a BIG difference to how good you are. for a second, think of matthew richardson. most people wouldn't put him in the bracket of all time great, but probably just below that.

but he has kicked 700 odd goals in probably the worst team in the last 20 years (conistently). if he was playing for north melbourne, and carey was playing for richmond, would we still rate the players the same? i am not sure if we would. the gap at least would certainly be a lot tighter.

every other game here is either an individual game (golf, tennis) or a team game that allows people with extreme skill to basically be in the action all the time. with basketball, you can build a team around one player and just give it to him every time. with cricket, your best players have extended periods of time to execute their skill for long periods of time.

with afl however, you are in the game for such a small period of time that its harder to let your skill advantage influence the game.

football is one of the only games i can think of where 1 single player cann'ot completely turn around a team. rugby is possibly another, but given that there are less on the field, single players can have bigger impacts.

[AceLosesKing]

football is one of the only games i can think of where 1 single player cann'ot completely turn around a team. rugby is possibly another, but given that there are less on the field, single players can have bigger impacts.

You'd think that, but Fevola seems to pull Carlton out of the bucket every single game they're behind. I agree with your points though, much harder to find a single player in AFL who is head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.

[bennymacca]

yeah but fevola has, for the most part, pulled a bottom 4 side and turning them into abottom 8 side (they are turning around this year though)

i am talking about a single player completely dominating to a point where the other players are really just bit part players.

chicago team of the early 90s. with the exception of pipen, the others on the starting lineup (longley, rodman, harper) were nothing more than bit part players. extremely good bit part players, but still thats all they were. same could be said for cleveland around lebron james, and even for the lakers around kobe.

i don't think this occurs in afl because there are just too many players for everyone else to be bit part players. and the stars are just not in the action enough.

[gundog]

There are vast amount of players from elite football code that the title champion could be applied to, each era would throw up its group of champions.

Its realy hard to measure players from the old SANFL/VFL to todays full time footballers in the AFL, one worth mention is Micheal Tuck and I suppose Jim Stynes would get a special mention considering where he came from to acheive being call a champion.

I have a more admiration for those players that stayed at their club even when they were offered big dolars from other clubs ie Robert Harvey.

[bennymacca]

i am not talking about calling players champions gundog, there are obviously lots of them, including all the players you have mentioned.

i am talking about the sportspeople that stand head and shoulders above everyone else that has ever played the game. i.e everyone automatically says tiger woods for golf, there is no discussion. in tennis, you could narrow it down to sampras, federer and laver pretty quickly. valentino rossi for motorbikes, schumacher for F1, armstrong for cycling, etc etc come to mind as well

in afl however, there doesn't seem to be a player or even a small group (<5) that you can say stand truly above everyone else.

[Russ]

i can think of one afl player, Kurt Tippett, nuff said

that shall be my first and last ever post..

[bennymacca]

sorry i forgot all about kurt tippet

clearly he is the best sportsperson to ever live. forget durrr, i wanna have tippett's babies first

nice first post

[AJG]

learn a bit of humility - a simple oops, my bad would have done. instead you have to come up with some crap excuse as to why you dont know the answer to something.

Check bottom of page 6 benny the cunt, that was EXACTLY my response: 'My Bad'....
I then saw all the post laughing at the simple fact i didnt realize Federer had won this year's French Open... and posted again... & I didnt give any excuse other than to say I couldnt watch it...

But why dont you guys learn a bit of maturity and not ridicule someone simply because they didnt know a piece of sporting information?

[AJG]

i wonder if he had a full schedule of races during that time, or whether he only prepared each year for the tour de france and thats it.

As far as I know (my brother is a cycling nut, been to France a few times just to watch it!) your right, he did concentrate majority of his efforts to the Tour de France... And as AK says, it probably not a bad idea

I havent followed AFL this year, but last year Fanklin seemed to be considered a superstar...
Also maybe another reason players dont stand, as you say Head and Shoulders above other players in footy is because, there are so many different positions requiring different skillsets (defense, FF, Ruckman etc)?
Where as for example tennis is a single (ar 2 player) sport, and Basketball all players have very similar skill requirements, they all have to play offensive and defensive... Same with boxing, swimming etc.
So you'd need to compare Ruckman or Full forwards whatever?
Just a thought?
Although I do think it is possible to comment on an individuals overall contribution to their teams preformance/results... Or players who alwaays seem to perform excellently...

Oh in Boxing, putting divisions aside, Roy Jones Jnr would get my vote!
And the 'Woodies' in men's doubles tennis? That would be hard to find a counter example for I think...

[maccatak11]

For all of the top cycling professionals there is really only a few events each year that they aim to do well in, and there are a lot that are just tour-de-france specialists, dedicating their whole years and careers to this race. So they would obviosuly have lots of other races during the year, all of which are essentially preparation for the tour.

Nobody would care if Usain Bolt has won olympic gold medals but only three world cup meets if that makes sense (i made up that stat btw, but it think its a good enough example).

Big tour racing is also pretty different to a lot of the races that occur during the year. Almost like the difference between a middle distance runner and a marathon runner, people like armstrong and even cadel evans will do better in races like the tour de france, giro de italia (think thats spelled right) and whatever the big spanish race is called. The stages are longer, often over bigger mountains etc so certain types of cyclists are better at winning them.


If you brought a fully fit lance armstrong and placed him against a fully fit stuart o'grady in a short tour like the tour down under (assuming they have equal teams) i would probably pick o'grady for the win. (well maybe not but you get the point).