best footballer you've seen play in the flesh (ie NOT on TV)

He was ... 35 by then, I guess.

If the former, Teddy Sheringham; if the latter Jurgen Klinsmann or Ryan Giggs.

(NB. almost all my in-the-flesh football-watching is mid-90s Tottenham)

Biggest waste of talent in footballing history. A shame. I saw him during his brief return to Palermo around... 97? 98? He was about 37 at the time, but he still had that final touch. If he'd have kept his drug problems under control, and been a little more careful as to whom he associated with, I'm sure we'd be talking about him as one of the best footballers of the 90s.

hes coming back to palace too

I'd pimp for Chris Waddle at Sheffield Wednesday in 1993. He was properly wonderful.

Watford v Newcastle (87)
Arsenal v OXford (87)
Tottenham v Oxford (88)
QPR v Oxford (88)
England v Sweden (88)
QPR v Sheff Wed (93)
Chelsea v Sheff Wed (94)
Watford v Stoke (94)
England v Nigeria (94)
Tottenham v Chelsea (02)
England v Liechtenstein (03)
Athletic Bilbao v Real Valladolid (04)

not many at all i know. but on the basis of this i think the best player by rep i have seen is Beckham or Shearer in the England games - or Zola against Spurs, and the best individual 'on the day' performance i have witnessed is MICHAEL MEAKER for QPR against Wednesday. Oh dear.

Gazza.

Rivaldo (I saw his first match for Barca *drool*).

I've always wanted to see Alvaro Recoba play and made it to the San Siro a couple of years back. He had a stinker.

Against Chelsea : Gascoigne, Henry, Klinsmann, Le Tissier

Other : Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles for Preston V Grimsby in about 1973.

bobby mimms

Oh and we had George Weah at City for a season, and he occasionally treated us to some mesmerising stuff. Only occasionally, mind.

Performance - Chris Wreh, Arsenal 1-0 Wimbledon, Selhurst Park, 1998-ish I think. Their double season anyhow.

But fuck. I'm going to turn my flat upside down now.

Best (also NASL, but for Manchester United in the season they were relegated 73-74, I was pretty young).

Loads more, but I've since lost all my United Reviews, and anyway, most of my Old Trafford attendance (£2.50 at the turnstiles for the Stretford End!) was in the '80s when the Reds didn't exactly have a star-studded roster (Bryan Robson being the only consistent exception).

The only time I actually saw Jimmy Johnstone play, he was about 50 - it was one of these daft kickabout things they serve up for entertainment, it was when they were about to bulldoze the Jungle at Parkhead, and they had the knocking-on-a-bit Lisbon Lions vs the Man U team of 68 (similarly ancient). Johnstone was a joy to watch and scored an absolute belter of a goal. I wish I'd seen him in his prime.

There was also USA 94: a Batistuta hat trick (Maradona scored, too), and Roberto Baggio in that Ireland win over Italy.

Galatasaray stuffed the Metrostars in a friendly, and Hagi played in that one (I think he scored off a free kick, and the Turkish supporters had the most enormous portrait of Ataturk that they unveiled as some sort of coup de grace). Stoitchkov spent the last few years of his career playing for Chicago and DC in MLS, and while he was past his best form, he still had that thumping left foot, and he was still nuts. Matthaeus played for the Metros in 2000, but he really didn't give a rat's ass about anything but his fancy Trump Tower-dwelliing lifestyle, and his piss-poor attitude saw him benched halfway through the season. He's still despised by Metro fans.

And I saw that Adu game the other day. Didn't even realize it was he who got the goal unti I watched MLS Wrap that night. Nice, opportunistic goal, and I'm sure he's got a good future, but far more significant is that the METROS WON THE GAME and DC can go to hell as we're on top of the table. Evidently the only folks who congratulated little Freddy after the goal were Metro players. If his team resents him for outearning them all, so much the better for the rest of the league.

I have a good "played against" story that I think I already mentioned in ILE: on a lark some friends of mine put a side together for a tournament celebrating the United Nations' fiftieth birthday. We were drawn against "Paraguay," who we reckoned would be a bunch of fat. beer-league klutzes (like us). HA. They were real frigging footballers, led by Julio Cesar Romero, "Romerito," who not only scored in the 1986 World Cup, who not only was South American player of the year in 1985 with Fluminense, but who had actually played in France 98 just a year and change before he played us. We got thumped 8-0, a miraculous result for us. Our great moment was winning a corner kick late in the match.

Recoba played against us for Uruguay a few days later in a World Cup qualifier, he hit this enormous lob from halfway that looped upwards and then dropped like a missile. Schwarzer only just grabbed as it was going to cross the goal line, everyone sitting where I was thought it had crossed actually.