The Greatest

TigerBlog was in an all-day meeting yesterday, which meant he missed what went on in the World Cup.

Apparently Diego Maradona had an interesting day. From what TB read, Maradona danced with and later gave the finger to Nigerian fans before collapsing and needing medical attention. Oh, and he fell asleep at one point?

If he slept or was out of it, then he missed a great game. For all of the issues that Argentina has had in this World Cup, it is through to the knockout round, courtesy of a late goal in a 2-1 win over Nigeria, a team that approximately 100 percent of the people who aren't Argentinian were rooting for, TB supposes.

TigerBlog read a story about Maradona, and it said something along the lines that he is considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time. TigerBlog remembers him as an all-time great, though he didn't realize that he was a co-winner of FIFA's Player of the Century award along with Pele.

To be called the greatest is obviously subjective. As TB wrote yesterday about all-time great Princeton coaches, there is no one right answer. No, you can't make a compelling case for too many, but "who is the greatest" is a staple of sports talk radio, among other venues.

TigerBlog would say that Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete he's ever seen. You can counter with a handful of people and make a strong case.

All of this brings TB to a question from loyal reader John Mack, who is not the greatest athlete TigerBlog has seen at Princeton, though he was a 10-time Heptagonal track and field champion and the 2000 winner of the Roper Trophy.

John's question was actually several months ago, but TigerBlog still hasn't come up with the right answer. What, John wanted to know, is the best team TigerBlog has ever seen at Princeton, in any sport.

Actually, TB thinks he actually asked what the best college team he ever saw was. Or maybe it was just Princeton. Either way, this one is a tough one.

Let's just keep it to Princeton.

Since TigerBlog has been around, Princeton has won 305 Ivy League championships and 37 national team championships. That's a lot of great teams to pick from, no?

Again, the problem is how you compare greatness in one sport to greatness in another? Does a team have to have won a national championship to be considered? There are many Princeton teams who could achieve great things and not come close to the national title, like the 2016-17 men's basketball team that went 16-0 in the Ivy League, including the first tournament.

Forgetting Princeton, if you extend it out to include any college sport, then it's possible that the greatest teams that TigerBlog has ever seen are the Trinity men's squash teams that were unbeatable for so long (like 13 straight national titles worth, before Princeton knocked off the Bantams for the 2012 championship, Bob Callahan's last as Tiger head coach). This requires considering simply how teams did within their sport, not how their sport figures into the national sporting conscience.

For that matter, the Princeton-Trinity national championship match in 2012, a 5-4 Princeton win to end that 13-year run, would be considered among the greatest sporting events of all time if squash was football or basketball. But hey, that's another question for another day.

In the meantime, there's more World Cup to be played. Today is a huge day, with four more games. By the end of the day, both Brazil and Germany can be knocked out before the knockout rounds, though much like Argentina, TB is pretty sure they'll both advance.

The group stage will end tomorrow. Then it'll be down to 16 teams.

This isn't like the NCAA basketball tournament, which TB thinks gets less exciting as it goes along. Still, the group stage is pretty special and has been great to watch.

And back at John Mack's question, TigerBlog can't even imagine where to start on this. He's been thinking about this one for months and still hasn't come up with his answer.

TB is going to have to give this one some more thought and make an actual list. Hey, he has all summer to do so.

It's a really good question though.

Anyone have any suggestions?