Where does Jimmy Johnstone Rank Among The Worlds Greatest Players?

Right. That's what it was...

 

Of course it was, I mean Johnstone was good, but he wasn't a patch on the likes of Willie Henderson, Charlie Cooke, Willie Morgan , Peter Lorimer and Jimmy Smith, all of whom were competing with him for a Scotland place.

 

True though, football "experts" would know him but the average fan may not.

Similar to how players like Fransisco Gento, Josef Masopust, Dragan Dzajic, Elias Figueroa, Gunnar Nordahl, Sandor Kocsis, Josef Bican, Florian Albert, Oleh Blokhin, Zbigniew Boniek etc arent talked about as much as other great players, probably because their countries never won Tournaments even though they'd be up there among other greats.

 

I would take the word of the experts over fans any day, especially top players who were around at the time.

It takes a special talent to not only be invited to play Di Stefanos' testamonial but then to steal the show.

 

You'll get a better idea of how he is viewed in terms of World's Greatest Players by looking at great player lists around the internet, rather than asking how good he is on a Celtic forum.

I found him only on one at #72.

I'm not having a dig at Johnstone but the OP asked "On the world stage though? Where does the wee man rank?". I didn't think he'd rank very highly and it seems he doesn't.

 

just my opinion.

 

im selth loathing apparently for saying he isn't top 50 players of all time.

 

A lot of fans of bigger Leagues though tend to have a higher opinion of themselves than other countries. So they think players that played in their bigger Leagues were better.

Like in Scotland Johnstone, Dalglish, Baxter and McGrain are probably all seen as better players than Denis Law but the English seem to rate Law as better because he played there.

Can imagine too that the English probably say Cantona was better than Papin cause he played there, yet the French would say Papin was better.

Could say the same of others like Ginola is really highly thought of in the UK but is he that highly regarded in France or abroad, probably no.

Similar in Scotland Tommy Gemmell was probably regarded as the best left-back from the UK atleast until Ashley Cole anyway but in England they'd probably not even know much about him, despite him playing in 2 European Cup finals and twice being nominated for European POTY.

 

That was mine too.

 

Jinky is the most gifted player to come out of scotland..

In his day and era he was a phenomenon, unplayable, a master, fans paid to que up and players tried every means possible to stop him..

For anyone questioning jinkys standing, just take the time to watch the man inaction at no other than the bernabeau, where the great di stefano picked us, the best team in europe at the time, to play..
What was supposed to be a match.to celebrate one of there greats, turned in to a master showing from jinky that had the sell out home crowd going wild at the little mans showing ..

He's right up there or should be..

 

Billy bremner exactly same position as Jinky except for leeds of course. I think the other reason why players like these are not given recognition is because of the English media. To put it simply they were "Scottish".

 

I'd put him as the greatest British player of all time. The fact that he isn't more widely recognised is I think due mostly to English bias. A couple of years ago 5 live did a programme trying to find the all time best British XI. Pat Nevin was making the case for Jinky, and the presenter asked 'if he was so great, why did he never play for a big European club?' Shows the bias and ignorance among many in the English media.

 

He finished 3rd in the Balon D'Or in 1967, the highest ever place for a player playing in Scotland. Also the only player playing in Scotland to have ranked 3 times.

3rd Jimmy Johnstone
4th Gordon Strachan
6th Tommy Gemmell
12th Henrik Larsson
14th Henrik Larsson
17th Pat Bonner
18th Paul McStay
18th John Greig
21st Ally McCoist
23rd Jimmy Johnstone
23rd Jimmy Johnstone (two times)
24th Tommy Gemmell
28th Brian Laudrup

Shunsuke Nakamura was nominated before(in the top 50) but never got any votes.

To show how hard it is for players in Scotland to get voted for, Kenny Dalglish played 6 full seasons at Celtic and was a great player, probably the best player in Scotland in those 6 seasons and Celtic done fairly well in Europe reaching the semis twice and he never got voted for once but as soon as he joined Liverpool he was in the top 25 in 5 of his first 6 seasons.

 

Did bourc not make the top 50 In 2006 r 7

 

you have sort of proved his point ...when you are talking about the true true greats , they have won multiple european cups, multiple ballon d'ors , world cups and european championships aswell.

 

aye youre right.bertie voghts was better!

 

Jpr21
In Jimmy Johnstone time the great players didn't always run around the top clubs for fame and fortune . The English team that managed to win the World Cup had players playing for all kinds of clubs all over England . Nowadays they show no loyalty to clubs and move upwards and out wards for money and medals . A bit of loyalty to the clubs who set them on the road to greatness would help everyone .

 

Jinky will always be under rated in world lists because he played in Scotland.

I have no idea where he rates of all time players.

My dad tells me he was better than George Best and whenever the worlds greatest players are talked about his name seems to always pop up.

 

right up there with the best of them !!!

 

He was no Filip Sebo.