What makes a great?

When Hugo Rodallega scored his second goal with a sublime finish on Saturday I turned to my mate and said, “He’s a great player”. I was confronted by a red faced West Countryman fuelled with rage: “Great? He’s no great! Ryan Giggs is a great, he’s won 11 titles and made more than 500 appearances in the Premier League”.

That made me think… He’s right, the word ‘great’ is thrown around all too generously nowadays. So what does make a great player? The first thing we think of is medals: has he won any World Cups? Premierships? European Cups?

And yes, while you will find plenty of ‘greats’ who have lifted those trophies – no-one really considers the players who don’t have a chance to get their hands on one.

Shouldn’t we look at how many goals, clean sheets, assists, a player has before considering using the term “Footballing Great”?

Who are the greatest strikers of all time? Pele, Maradona, Ronaldo, Romario, Clough… Hang on, Brian Clough? He is considered one of the greatest managers of all time, not just for his achievements, but also for his approach to the game. However, no-one ever considers him to be one of the great players, even though his scoring record was out of this world – 251 goals in 274 appearances.

Wow, surely that’s enough to class him as one of the best strikers ever, right? Well, no-one will ever answer that question with the name Brian Clough to that question – but the other four roll off the tongue.

It’s the same with players such as Matt Le Tissier, one of the most technically gifted players football has ever seen. But he is never mentioned in the same breath as Zidane, Cruyff or Dalglish. Go anywhere but the South Coast and you won’t hear Le Tiss being referred to as one of the greats – probably because he stayed at Southampton for his entire career and didn’t win anything.

If Hoddle had seen sense and taken him to the World Cup or if he had been lured by Sir Alex’s siren calls then we may have been mentioning his name with the above trio – because he would undoubtedly have boasted a bulging medal cabinet.

Most grass roots teams in the country that run out on a Saturday or Sunday have a never say die stalwart who puts his heart, soul and tough boot into every challenge. Often they will be wearing the captains armband, even more often they will be dragging a beer belly around with them, but they are the true lions of the game. All winds, all weathers – nothing defies them. My own humble Westcountry team has a couple of these guys and to me they have a “greatness” all of their own.

The professional game has a few of these too (Dean Windass) – but not enough in my opinion.

So it’s true – we tend to promote accolade winning players to the Pantheon of the Gods, trophy winners get to be called the greats – but I would make a plea for us to include those hard working, never-miss-a-game, put-in-the-tackle stalwarts who provide the rock solid foundation for every team on the planet.

Harry Hesp