In every sport, no matter who you ask, there are always players who get heralded by fans as faces of said sport regardless of whether they’re still playing or not. Basketball has LeBron James and Michael Jordan; American football has Tom Brady and Dan Marino; and soccer has Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and, as of recently, Erling Haaland.
Why do certain players rise above the rest in terms of fame, their names coming up first in conversation? The simple answer is their skill; they’re all exceptionally good at the sport, better than most others in their league. When someone wants to refer to something or someone as “the greatest of all time,” they might refer to something or someone as “The LeBron James of” something. With his state-of-the-art strength and speed paired with his knowledge of the game, LeBron James gets constantly referred to as one of, if not the best, to ever play the sport. Michael Jordan has some of the most consistently high stats in basketball history, winning almost two-thirds of all the games he’s ever played.
Tom Brady singlehandedly turned the Patriots into a dominant force in the NFL; everyone felt the drastic change in the Patriots’ skill when he left. Dan Marino had such a lightning-fast arm; he’s considered by many to be one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the sport.
With soccer it’s a slightly different story since every country has their own famous players nationally; Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi stand out in particular because Portugal and Argentina have some of the consistently strongest soccer teams on the planet. Those two stand out as the faces of those nations’ teams; there would be different players in their positions if different countries had stronger teams. Recently Erling Haaland has come into the spotlight with his promising results in this year’s World Cup; some consider him the most impressive player in the whole cup. One day in the future, if Norway’s soccer team grows to be as strong as Portugal’s or Argentina’s, then Haaland could be as recognized as Ronaldo or Messi.
It’s a matter of who people think is better than the rest. In all of these sports everybody has statistics on who does what the best, and people flock to whoever’s consistently the best at something or whoever makes a big impact on the scene.
