Every sport has its biggest names, and in recent years the acronym GOAT (greatest of all time) has been applied to many. Whether it is the debate about Djokovic, Federer and Nadal in tennis or Ronald or Messi in football, debates rage on and on.
Polo enthusiasts might well ask the same question. True, the best players might not quite bask in the sort of adulation Ronaldo received on his return to Manchester United, but connoisseurs of the sport will have some clear views on who the best players are.
One man who certainly stands out as many people’s GOAT is Adolfo Cambiaso. According to a vote a few years ago on the Top Tens website, he was definitely number one in a vote of its readers.
One commented that they had seen him “bouncing his ball on his stick three or four times in full gallop”. Another noted that he still seems hungry to add to his glittering array of trophies in his 40s (like Roger Federer?), while in 2014 he won the Olimpia de Oro award as Argentina’s top sportsman, ahead of a certain Lionel Messi.
Not much seems to have changed since then, including the fact that Cambiasso is still going strong now and at 46 he remains the world’s leading-ranked player.
These assessments are not just based on personal preference or bias, but points, goals and handicaps. A few years ago Polo Plus 10 Magazine included him at the top of the list of those with a +10 handicap, with which Cambiasso plays in the UK, US and Argentina. He achieved the handicap as long ago as 1994.
Others have achieved the +10 handicap – including contemporary players such as brothers Facundo and Gonzales Pieres, not to mention their cousins Pablo Pieres and Pablo McDonough.
Nonetheless, if there is a true GOAT in polo, the man who knocked Lionel Messi off his pedestal must be it.
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