| Welcome to Soccer Futbol Forum. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Your Childhood Football Idol | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 13 2011, 10:58 AM (553 Views) | |
| carioca | Dec 13 2011, 10:58 AM Post #1 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
With the recent death of Socrates and the eulogies which were made for him, I got to thinking how it would be interesting with the diverse group of posters on this message board, to read who were our childhood football idols. I am sure most named will be very familiar to us, but maybe there will be some lesser known names as well and it will be good to read how these players may have influenced our views of the game. I will start with my footballing idol, Artur Antunes Coimbra, also known to the world as Zico. Growing up in Rio de Janeiro and being a Flamengo fan my childhood was spent watching Zico play for some extraordinary Flamengo teams. For almost a decade from the mid 70s through the mid 80s, Zico was the star during Flamengo's best ever era. A playmaker who was also an excellent goalscorer, Zico was also a fine team leader who would get the team going in troublesome moments. In addition I have never seen a better free kick taker. Zico was the plyer not only for that great Flamengo team but as we have been discussng with Socrates' death, those wonderful Brasilian national teams in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. For me it was Zico who first brought me joy in watching this great sport. For your enjoyment, a compilation of some of Zico's goals throughout his career, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARpEnjZIWko |
![]() |
|
| Yogi | Dec 13 2011, 11:52 AM Post #2 |
![]()
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
A great topic to start carioca, well done. I remember Zico well, first of course from the World Cups he played for Brazil but also for his time in Italy with Udinese, some of the goals on the link carioca provided are from Zico's days at Udinese where he made that small club competitive with the giants of Italian soccer during a time when players like Maradona and Platini were at Napoli and Juventus respectively. An excelelnt player, and as carioca wrote, a master of free kicks. My childhood idol was Gianni Rivera, the playmaker for Milan and the Italian national team. Back in the early to mid 70s I was not able to see Rivera play live but remember going with family members to see films of him playing with both Milan and Italy. Rivera was class personified, a fine passer of the ball he was in my eyes one of the best playmakers Italy have ever had and his stylish play is what really got me hooked on following this sport in general and Miln in particular. A little before my time he led Milan to the 1969 European Cup title, after being a big part of Italy's 1968 European nations Cup winning team and was voted European Player of the Year in 1969. it was more towards the end of his career when I did get to see him play with Milan and saw his stylish passing open up defenses. Rivera is now a member of the European Parliament |
![]() |
|
| Johnbuildr | Dec 13 2011, 02:41 PM Post #3 |
|
Advanced member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
That was enjoyable, carioca, thanks! Besides mind numbing skills, Zico had Superman like tree trunks for legs. His legs looked like those sculpted from a Mr. Universe-like weightlifter! |
|
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum | |
![]() |
|
| Merengue | Dec 13 2011, 04:30 PM Post #4 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Good observation John, one of the things which struck me the first time I saw Roberto Carlos play in person was this exact same thing you noticed about Zico. Powerful legs, especially in the thighs which is where I imagine Roberto Carlos generates the power on his shots. Zico was not known for having a cannon of a shot but he was, as carioca explained, an excellent goalscorer and a superb free kick artist. With his powerful build he was not easy to knock off the ball much like a contemporary of his who also had big legs for his size, Diego Maradona. Zico and that great Flamengo team in 1981 is what ignited my love of Brasilian football which only increased the following year when he and Socrates were part of that great 1982 Brasilian World Cup team. So I do have a place in my heart for Zico. Good topic carioca and here is my boyhood footballing idol, Amancio Amaro, the outside right for Real Madrid and Spain who was popularly known just by his first name. Amancio was coming to the end of his 14 year long career at Real Madrid when I was still young but you could still see his quality every time he touched the ball. Fine technique, good vision, an eye for goal (he was the pichichi of the league as late as 1970) and a good crosser, I was in awe every time I saw him play whether live in the stadium, on the occasional Tv broadcast or more regularly listening to the radio. When Amancio was on the ball you knew good things were possible. |
| http://twitter.com/#!/SocrFutbolForum | |
![]() |
|
| Sammy Maudlin | Dec 13 2011, 09:03 PM Post #5 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Rodney Marsh, he made soccer look fun. A very skilled player but also a maverick, he left England and became a star in the old NASL with Tampa Bay Rowdies who as a kid I thought were simply the coolest sports team around. |
![]() |
|
| vince stravino | Dec 13 2011, 10:18 PM Post #6 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Giorgio Chinalgia of the NY Cosmos and Paolo Rossi of the Italian National team during the 1982 WC finals. These were only TV heroes and it was hard to get much on the tube without cable. For some reason, however, I seem to remember watching quite a few Cosmos games growing up in Pennsylvania. In person, I was lucky enough to have a pro team in my area. It had one of the great all-time names for any team. The Pennsylvania Stoners! My favorite player was The Chief, Christian Nwochocha (Clemson/Nigeria). |
![]() |
|
| xeneize | Dec 15 2011, 10:42 PM Post #7 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
This is a really great idea for a thread and with the diverse group of posters we have on this site it is nice to read about the wide variety of players who first influenced us here. This was my boyhood idol, Mario Kempes, even though he never played for my club Boca Juniors, Kempes was my hero growing up. I admired him when as a 20 year old he broke into the national team and played at West Germany 1974 and his club play where he scored numerous goals with first Rosario Central and then later Valencia. But his crowning achievement of course was being the top player at Argentina 1978 and leading my country to it's first World Cup title. He became THE player all the boys wanted to copy in our games in the neighborhood. I had other players I really liked in my youth, Hugo Gatti, Rene Houseman, Ernesto Mastrangelo but Kempes was my real hero. I appreciate that I can now listen to him commentating on games on ESPN Deportes where he has made a very good career as a match analyst. |
![]() |
|
| libero | Dec 17 2011, 11:30 AM Post #8 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Gaetano Scirea, the defender for Juventus and Italy, the man who played the position so effortlessly that I adopted his position as my screen name here and it is also were I played. Scirea is not just my boyhood idol, to this day he remains my idol in the sport. |
![]() |
|
| calimocho | Dec 17 2011, 03:23 PM Post #9 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
My boyhood hero was the 5 time pichichi, Quini whose real name was Enrique Castro. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quini A great goalscorer for both Sporting Gijon and Barcelona. A lot of people remember him for being kidnapped in 1981 but he was rescued unharmed. |
![]() |
|
| Don Balon | Dec 18 2011, 07:43 AM Post #10 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Great player Quini but a native of Oviedo who went over to the dark side and played for Sporting! I really did admire Quini and his goalscoring ability but I would have had trouble with my mates at school if my favourite player then was playing for Sporting! It was another goalscorer who was my hero as a child, Carlos Santillana. From nearby Cantabria, Santillana played for Racing then later Real Madrid where he made his name. Although I have never been much of a Madrid fan I was one of Santillana for his hard working style and great heading ability even though he was not a tall man, about 1.80 metres if I recall correctly. But if you put the ball in the air, chances were good Santillana would get to it.
|
![]() |
|
| Simon | Dec 18 2011, 07:55 AM Post #11 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Great topic. I would go for Bryan Robson, who remains one of a handful of the very best midfielders I've ever seen play the sport. Though he's from the same north east 'Geordieland' background as another United legend Bobby Charlton, Robbo made his name in 1975 in the midlands with West Brom. His touch, technique, accurate passing and great intelligence were what first stood out, but he was thought to be too slight and frail for top level football. Where Barcelona used growth hormones with Lionel Messi, the remedy West Brom used with Robson was slightly less scientific - a diet of raw eggs and Guinness! It did the trick though, as Robson became a powerful physical specimen, able to charge around the pitch as the archetypal 'box to box' midfielder. His tackling was robust yet precise, but equally he would often simply intercept passes or tidy up loose balls thanks to his great anticipation and reading of the game. And he was perfect for launching attacks by spotting the movement or opportunity that no-one else had seen and delivering inch-perfect passes. His trademark was to let the attacking play develop and then make a late darting run into the box with perfect timing to score with a header or volley. Commentators were constantly saying "Robson just happened to arrive in the right place at the right time", but of course there was no coincidence or accident to it. In 1981 the West Brom manager Ron Atkinson became United manager and of course he wanted Robson to follow him, but Robbo was top of everyone else's wish list as well. Atkinson asked the great Bill Shankly how much he thought he should pay to get him, and Shankly who of course was a great judge of a player replied "every penny it takes, Ron, every penny". And so in 1981, Robson signed for a then record £1.5m (how times have changed!). He was simply a one-man midfield during his thirteen years at United, there was nothing he couldn't do. He was nicknamed 'Captain Marvel' for his incredible comic book exploits - no game or cause was ever lost when he was on the pitch. Sadly he was in an inconsistent and average United team, and was regularly injured. The statistics that compared United's results with Robbo in the team and also without Robbo when he was injured should have made the others blush. The injuries also affected his international career as he played through injury at Spain 82 and had to be sent home injured from both Mexico 86 and Italia 90. Still, in that first World Cup he made his mark by inspiring England to a 3-1 win over Platini's France and scored the fastest ever WC goal in the process. He was England captain for 65 of his 90 internationals and scored 26 goals from centre-mid in the process. He is also the longest-serving United captain and the first man to lift the FA Cup three times, while also winning the Cup Winners Cup, two PL championships and the League Cup. He also showed immense loyalty to the club, always declining the opportunity to go for big money transfers elsewhere. Juventus were particularly insistent on several occasions in the 1980s and goodness knows if he had gone he could have won more trophies and made a heck of a lot more than United were paying him in those pre-Sky TV days. These days Robbo is an official ambassador for Manchester United, having resigned as manager of the Thailand national side in June this year to concentrate on his treatment for cancer. I was pleased to see that a poll done earlier this year among former United players decided that he was the greatest United player of all time. Certainly if I could choose any player from United's past to be able to sign afresh for the current side it would definitely be Bryan Robson. |
![]() |
|
| Martin | Dec 27 2011, 07:07 PM Post #12 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
This is a great thread, but i have to say my two favorite players of all time, Zico and Michel Platini were not childhood idols because when they came to prominence I was already a teenager so i won't discuss them here but my childhood idols were two other attacking midfielders, each of whom were stars in the 1970s. The two are Peruvian Teofilo Cubillas and Brazilian Roberto Rivelino, each stars of the 1970 World Cup and two of the best free kick takers the game has ever seen but also two of the smoothest passers in the game. Teofilo Cubillas Roberto Rivelino |
| Club Sportivo Desamparados | |
![]() |
|
| shelsoccer | Dec 30 2011, 12:11 PM Post #13 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Rather mundane, but mine was Pele, though as an American I got very few glimpses of him. After that, I'd have to go with Cruyff, though I was in my 20's by the time I saw him play. |
![]() |
|
| The Artful Codger | Dec 30 2011, 03:59 PM Post #14 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Hard to top your two idols shelsoccer! My idol was Ian Callaghan, the right winger for Liverpool and England in the 60s and early 70s. A real gentleman off the pitch and a splendid player on it, he was a key part of Liverpool's success under Bill Shankly. He was a member of England's 1966 World Cup winning squad too but only played one match in the group stages as Alf Ramsey preferred not using wingers. But it is with Liverpool where Callaghan became my favourite. A later player I admired at the club was Steve Heighway, another winger for Liverpool in the 1970s and one of the few professional footballers in England who received a college degree. |
![]() |
|
| Sporting | Jan 2 2012, 07:24 AM Post #15 |
|
Advanced Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
As a young lad in the late 60s I lived near Swindon, and quite often got on the local bus to see Swindon Town play. At the time the club was challenging for promotion from the old third division, and also embarking on a League Cup adventure that they would eventually win. The star player was Don Rogers, a young man with a dash of verve and style on him. Look at him scoring the third goal here in the final of the League Cup on a Wembley mudbath: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4oQTUv37nU...1D75435D05F1C46 And here is his (ITV) 1973 goal of the season when playing for Crystal Palace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJw4m_rZ8fAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJw4m_rZ8fA Here's the local newspaper on the great man:
|
![]() |
|
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · General Soccer Discussion · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2





![]](http://z1.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)




I really did admire Quini and his goalscoring ability but I would have had trouble with my mates at school if my favourite player then was playing for Sporting! It was another goalscorer who was my hero as a child, Carlos Santillana. From nearby Cantabria, Santillana played for Racing then later Real Madrid where he made his name. Although I have never been much of a Madrid fan I was one of Santillana for his hard working style and great heading ability even though he was not a tall man, about 1.80 metres if I recall correctly. But if you put the ball in the air, chances were good Santillana would get to it.
6:35 AM Jul 11