More on George
Watching the AC Milan-Barcelona spurred, among other thoughts, an even greater appreciation of the genius of George Best. Ronaldinho is a wonderful player – surely the best in the World at the moment – but even he can’t take on players the way Georgie did. Ronaldinho has some amazing moves – the delightful Eric Cantona “hosted” ads that are everywhere now have some splendid Ronaldinho vignettes – but he just doesn’t compare to Best. Several times late in the game R took runs at the defence – and got bundled off the ball. I noticed two great contrasts with Best – R slows down as he approaches a man and his main technique for beating a man is a ball shift whereas Best – check any of the available videos – was breathtaking for the way he maintained or increased speed as he took players on and employed the fullest variety of ways with which a tackler can be fooled. R is more effective in broken situations where he can use his extreme quickness, ball manipulation skill and extra-sensory awareness to greatest effect to beat quickly one or two defenders who are already somewhat off-balance. Against top-class defenders who have the chance to “set up” something more is needed than ball tricks.

Maradona was the nearest to Best – his famous goal against England in 86 is a classic example of how he could just blow by top defenders in a way that R does not. His technique was a simple “show and go”, combined with sheer speed. This is not to diminish him: the greatest dribbler of all time – Stanley Matthews – had one technique, but it was perfect and unstoppable (he feinted to the inside and then accelerated to the outside – the key was exquisite timing and astounding acceleration). Best was truly astounding; he beat people every way and he did it at speed. He did have a favourite move and it’s his hallmark. With either foot he could drag the ball inside the tackler (inside with respect to the direction in which the tackler would be “leading” – a pro never goes in “square”) without breaking speed. The truly spectacular move that was unique to him was when he would collect the ball on the outside and drag it, in one motion across the tackler’s body, to the inside, often while accelerating . (I have seen others try it occasionally but usually fail – most recently, to his credit, Wayne Rooney). He literally turned great defenders “inside out” with this move. I’ve seen almost comical results with lesser players – they often fell over as George shot by them. If he was in an evil mood he would slow enough to let them lunge after him and drag the ball back the other way, sometimes repeating the procedure until the hapless tackler was stumbling around like a drunk!