Elías Figueroa | 1974-1976

[Brezza]

Name: Elías Ricardo Figueroa Brander

Nickname: "Don Elías" | "Gran Mariscal" | "Muralla Roja" | "Míster Lujo" | "El Coloso" | "Dios de Beira Rio" | "Gran Capitán" | "El gran Elías"



Club: Internacional


Growth type: Standard/Lasting

INFO:

He was considered the best player in The Americas in 1974, 1975, 1976, one of the world's best defenders in football history and all-time best football player in Chile.
FIFA named him Player of the year in 1976. He was named by Pele as one of the 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.

He scored 2 goals in 70 app. for Chilean NT. And about ~20 goals playing for clubs. He was very good positioning himself in the rival area, although he didn't score a massive amount of goals, but important ones. About his career, he was selected as:
- Best CB of World Cup '74
- Named by FIFA One of the world's 100 best soccer players of XX century
- Chilean all-time best football player
- Member of the sudamerican dream team of all time
- Considered four times as the best CB of the world (CEDEP)
- Considered six times as the best CB of America (CEDEP)
- Considered the best player in America in 1974, 1975, 1976


VIDEOS:




ADDITIONAL LINKS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El%C3%ADas_Figueroa

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El%C3%ADas_Figueroa

http://www.eliasfigueroa.com/

http://www.goldenfoot.com/acm-on-line/H ... o6103.html

[Phil]

wow was he really that good lol ??? this makes him like the best defender ever

[CDDRodrigo]

These stats actually make him the 2nd best, behind Baresi.

[Phil]

Yeah i know being actually the best defender ever wasn't what i was getting at, i was just sayin he seems a little overrated

[CDDRodrigo]

Maybe you're right, he is overratted or Maldini is underrated. Because Baresi, Maldini and Figueroa consist the best defensive players of all time.

[sencesor]

Very subjective, depends on what you're looking for in your defensive players.

I personally wouldn't use any of them in my best 11.

[CDDRodrigo]

It's really a matter of opinion. All three of them are very technical, but Figueroa has a lot of strenght with BB of 91.

[sencesor]

True, this is really his strong point in comparison to the other ones.

[Phil]

He seems a little light for his BB, but then again i've never seen him play a lot so i wouldn't really know

[sencesor]

sencesor
Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:08 pm

Re: Elías FIGUEROA | 1974/1975

CDDRodrigo
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:21 pm

Maybe you're right, he is overratted or Maldini is underrated. Because Baresi, Maldini and Figueroa consist the best defensive players of all time.

Very subjective, depends on what you're looking for in your defensive players.

I personally wouldn't use any of them in my best 11.

CDDRodrigo wrote:

It's really a matter of opinion. All three of them are very technical, but Figueroa has a lot of strenght with BB of 91.

sencesor wrote:

True, this is really his strong point in comparison to the other ones.

Correction, after playing him for a while (as a RSB actually.. ) - can be in my best 11 any time he wants...

[sencesor]

Was just wondering about him at work today. I entered this post just to check if his stats are real/still...

[Brezza]

I agree that defence and balance can be dropped by a couple of points but Figueroa was an absolute colossus, not the best defender ever, but definitely one of the best. The 3 consecutive South American player of the year awards he received ahead of all the other star names during that that period shows how highly he was rated. Him and Passarella were like the Nesta/Cannavaro of the 70's although they were technically superior. Their positioning were just as good as good as them.

[Phil]

I've never seen much of him but was he this much better technically than Baresi or Passarella ????

[Classical]

I can see his stats have suffered changes but there was no thread open about this.

Am I missing something?

psiqueus can you see it?

[Classical]

Brezza come on, you've changed an overall of 18 points divided by some parameters.

I think I can label them as "not that small changes", it could be discussed, no? At least just a little taste as for Figueroa there are many people willing to discuss his stats.

[psiqueus]

I agree with you, Classical, and as for you, that changes aren't that small. I have changed some of the stats again, according to the old Figueroa stats submited long time ago. I also want to apologize for a long absence, due to Univerisity work. Hope everyone is doing well and, if possible, happy =)

[Phil]

His other technical stats seemed better, he looks overrated with DA and TECH. I mean was he really THIS MUCH better in these than cultured defender like Popescu, Baresi, Scirea, Passarella, Blanc, Chivu etc. ????

[Classical]

I am not with the excel file here with me, but yesterday I compared it and Figueroa was showing these values:

Def - 98
BB - 91
DA - 83
MENT - 98
TW - 95

Probably were something like this.

Now, and discussing what is really important:

It is valid to say that Figueroa and Baresi were the best central back ever ( I will not include Maldini here because part of his career was played as a left sideback).
About Baresi, most of us saw him playing probably ( I saw even if already in his late years) and he was clearly the defender everyone wanted to be, because he did defend and he was the "boss" type player, the ones who everyone see as a leader and knows what to do with the ball when attacking. These are the most popular kind of players, and my personal opinion tells me he is my favorite defender which I saw playing.
But about Baresi youtube shows a lot of stuff, so it is easy to elaborate conclusions on him.

Now Figueroa, what do we know about him?
I am sure there is plenty of data to research ( which I didn't do yet, but probably will if the need for that happens in this thread) but we have the facts. Always the facts.

Based on the background text of this player we can see his individual titles: Best CB of WC, Best Def of South America 6times and of world 4 times. Best player of Americas 3 times and BEST PLAYER OF THE WORLD 1 TIME.
His curriculum is flawless.
Now to emmulate stats, the one who does it will have to do an intenssive search and post a lot of backdata (as if his CV wouldn't be enough) but we must decide, as a 1st step a single question:

Is Figueroa the Best Ever Defender until the days of today?

If yes is the answer, we could be using similar values of the initial ones as they portray him as best ever.
If no is the answer, we could be using the silent updated values which, still, make him second best and a fantastic defender in all the aspects of his game.

I honestly think that we could start this thread based on the relative perception we have (or will have) between him and Baresi.
And once again, let me say that Baresi is my favorite defender ever, so I am not really trying to increase Figueroa's stats just because yes.
No. What I intend is to learn and know who really was the best, and since Figueroa is by far one of the best ever defenders and, consequently, one of the best ever players of football, it is very important to make this discussion rolling to get to a consensual agreement which will have impact on the ladders, because it is very nice and useful to know who's the best to setup a basis of comparision while stats making.

I hope this posting of mine can help you guys to decide to take action here. We can do it.

[Pumpernikiel]

most overrated player ive ever seen

[Phil]

His other technical stats seemed better, he looks overrated with DA and TECH. I mean was he really THIS MUCH better in these than cultured defender like Popescu, Baresi, Scirea, Passarella, Blanc, Chivu etc. ????

Can you at least admit DA & TECH are overrated. He isn't better this much better than the above named players. By the way I rate him as one of the best defenders i've seen, from what footage i've seen of him (although i'm not the right person to make that call, because i haven't seen that much of him) and this along with the many personal accolades he has received in his career show that these stats are fairly accurate. However i really don't know how you could have his DA & TECH so high.