Just how good was Platini?

milanista99 wrote:

:{Mr.Mustachio! wrote:That Juventus side in general is under-valued and largely forgotten, Heysel made most people just want to forget that time in it's entirety.

Platini, Gentile, Scirea, Cabrini, Boniek, Rossi that was one hell of team.

Zoff, Tardelli...

It was great, and these players were in the midst of some very strong teams and players.

But they are always missed from 'greatest' lists, Platini and Scirea especially deserve to be ever present on them!

Platini was my idol as my teens were in the 80s and i'm french. From the 1982 world cup to the 1986 world cup he was the unquestioned best player in the world... better than Maradonna unanimously. He was a genius passer, great dribbler and great scorer. People forget that he was the top scorer in Serie A for three consecutive years... as a AM. In his career, he had 224 goals in 432 appearances.

To this day, he was the best FK and PK taker i have ever seen.

Just look at the individual awards during that period: 3-time consecutive european player of the year, 3-time consecutive top scorer in Serie A, 2-time FIFA player of the year. He also won every team trophy there is, except the world cup... because of France's nemesis Germany.

He didn't get his chance in a top league until after the 1982 world cup... when he was 27. So he only had a short period of time to make his mark. But did he ever.

sportsczy wrote:Platini was my idol as my teens were in the 80s and i'm french. From the 1982 world cup to the 1986 world cup he was the unquestioned best player in the world... better than Maradonna unanimously. He was a genius passer, great dribbler and great scorer. People forget that he was the top scorer in Serie A for three consecutive years... as a AM. In his career, he had 224 goals in 432 appearances.

To this day, he was the best FK and PK taker i have ever seen.

Just look at the individual awards during that period: 3-time consecutive european player of the year, 3-time consecutive top scorer in Serie A, 2-time FIFA player of the year. He also won every team trophy there is, except the world cup... because of France's nemesis Germany.

He didn't get his chance in a top league until after the 1982 world cup... when he was 27. So he only had a short period of time to make his mark. But did he ever.

This is what I'm looking for. People who grew up watching the man. We can all see his stats but stats don't tell the full story really.

Bit like if someone looks back at say Henry's career in 25 years. Stats will tell you he was a great player but its the stories from those who idolised him that give a real idea of how special he was.

And by the way how is Platini underrated.? He is rated, maybe not in these forums but his name does regularly appear in all time lists. Every promising French player who came after him, was always compared to him, even Zidane. During his Bordeaux days, Zidane was even labelled as the next Platini.

Great great player.
The second best final passer I have seen after Laudrup.
Top 10 of all time for sure.

Laudrup is not as good as Platini dude... not even close as great as Laudrup was. I saw both play. It's like saying Bekham had a better final pass than Zidane. You just don't understand the impact that Platini had on the France NT, his clubs and football in general. He was the unquestioned king during 4 years. Maradonna couldn't touch him until Platini got old and declined.

Where Maradonna was just the best naturally gifted player i've ever seen, Platini was the best field general while still being great technically. Zidane is a combo of both, although not quite as good technically as Maradonna and not the field general that Platini was.

sportsczy wrote:Platini was my idol as my teens were in the 80s and i'm french. From the 1982 world cup to the 1986 world cup he was the unquestioned best player in the world... better than Maradonna unanimously. He was a genius passer, great dribbler and great scorer. People forget that hewas the top scorer in Serie A for three consecutive years... as a AM. In his career, he had 224 goals in 432 appearances.

To this day, he was the best FK and PK taker i have ever seen.

Just look at the individual awards during that period: 3-time consecutive european player of the year, 3-time consecutive top scorer in Serie A, 2-time FIFA player of the year. He also won every team trophy there is, except the world cup... because of France's nemesis Germany.

He didn't get his chance in a top league until after the 1982 world cup... when he was 27. So he only had a short period of time to make his mark. But did he ever.

And I thought I'm the oldest one on this forum.

I will never forget how I and my friends were running like crazy for those football stamps (philately) that were so popular back then, at least in Romania.

I was 13 years old when I've watched live on tv Platini (alongside Giresse,Fernandez and Tigana) and the France semi-final against Germany; at that time they were my favorite.

And what a team they were!

Two years later the Platini-powered french national team went onto the semi-finals with Portugal. And that was in my opinion one of the best matches in European Championship, perhaps the entire games, history.



This French team won the European Championship in 1984 and Platini was superb throughout, scoring nine goals, including two hat-tricks, in five matches.

As a side note, did any of you know that even at the height of his playing career,he was an enthusiastic smoker, like Boniek, who would regularly join him for a quick puff behind the stand at training, away from Trapattoni, at that time the Juventus manager?

Platini was never the actual, modern kind of athletic sportler to training, in short, he was the classic "bon vivant". Good wine and food have always been a priority for him.

Platini after his time in Italy: 'A Frenchman would drive 200km for a good vineyard; an Italian would drive 200km for a good game of football.'

'Indeed, Platini won the award three times. It is easy to forget how good he was, how dominant a playmaker, a dynamic yet artful competitor in a French midfield that dripped with class through the Eighties.'

At Juventus, they used to called Platini 'le Roi', the king. He was among the 10 best footballers of the 20th century...

I had the entire Euro '84 and WC '86 sticker sets lol.

Portugal game was insane in that Euro. But to me, the best game in that era for France was France-Brazil in '86 for obvious reasons as a frenchman lol.

But in that era, there were so many great games. You have the entire second round pool play in the '82 wc... where the round robin was Italy, Argentina and Brazil with one team making it thru (Italy). Those were the three best teams i thought... and Brazil was just insane in '82 (Zico, Socrates, Falcao, etc.). Brazil should have won it if Rossi wasn't on fire.

Immaculate_Mole wrote:I never really watched him live, but my dad has lot's of tapes of him from many different games for France, Juventus etc etc and i can honestly say i feel today that he is underrated and almost forgetten by people how good he was.

Deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Zidane and Laudrup imo.

I have many old tapes from his Juventus days as well...

there is no question about his brillinace... there is also no question that he is forgotten among the best to ever play the game.

He is certainly better than Laudrup. Platini is a 3 time balon dor winner, and dominated the game during his time... a time when the likes of Rijkaard, Gullit, Boniek, Van Basten were coming into world football.

Its hard to judge but Platini is surely a forgotten legend

The ultimate forgotten legend is Gianni Rivera. Doubt that half these forums ever heard his name.

Lord Hispano wrote:Don't get me started on Giresse and Rivera

Also Sandro Mazzola.

Easy question, better... much better than Zidane.

Waiting on the inevitable "the defense was weaker back then" argument.

He was one of the best ever, he really was.

Never ever seen someone control a game like him. That's why it's so utterly hilarious to see people here and on goal.com claim Zidane was the best ever, when the truth is Zidane wasn't even the best player to come out of France/Algeria, let alone the world.

He also played in the era when the WC was actually an unbelievable spectacle (pre 1990). The excitement was unparalleled! Now the WC is a borderline snooze fest, back then you were LITERALLY COUNTING THE DAYS for the next WC a mere 2 months after the last tournament was over. Literally!

Yeah... 1982 and 1986 world cups were just unbelievable. Attacking football everywhere. Brazil, France, Argentina, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, England, etc. all went at you with full force offensive football. Only the Italians were somewhat boring lol. No offense to the Italian fans, but the style with which you guys won the world cups and played Serie A ruined the game. Other teams decided to emulate it and we suddenly shifted to crappy defensive tactical games.

I agree that Platini was much better than Zidane and i am a fanboy of both. Platini controlled the entire game like i've never, ever seen. The crazy thing is, despite being the best passer and field general in the world, he led Serie A in goals three years in a row!

Btw, he has 41 goals in 72 appearances. The only player in France's history with more is Thierry Henry who has 51 in 124 appearances... just think about that.

As far as most underrated players out there: Jean Tigana. He was the second best player on France back then and was amazing too.