Pele is a twatbag

I personally don't agree with this, he performed miracles at Napoli and with Argentina

 

lol was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but the more I think about it

 

Pele isn't the greatest of all time. Never proved himself at the highest level of competition he played in Brazil and the US ffs. A very very very good player but not the greatest. Messi is only 23 as well and hes won everything apart from the world cup.

 

He didn't score 1000 goals professionally. His goals record is manipulated to include semi-professional goals etc..

Brazilians of the time don't consider Pele the best ever, they consider Garrincha a better player. He was the one who almost single handedly won 2 world cups for Brazil while Pele sat out injured, Pele only completed 1 full tournament

 

In the 50s the Brazilian league was as good as Europe, if not better. It's only since the 70s that it really began to decline - about the time Pele retired, coincidentally.

 

Dislike Pele immensely, always have done because like Platini, and to be fair a lot of great players, he has a very high opinion of himself. Messi is certainly a threat. Of course there are those who look at what you've won as a sign of your standing. So his comments will carry weight with an awful lot of people. I view it differently. Players like Best or Puskas had little hope of winning tournaments, but few would dispute their greatness. Pele didn't win them on his own, he was part of great teams. That is not to suggest that Pele is not an all time great mind, because he is.

He is carrying a few issues around remember, his member doesn't stand to attention!! Haha. I have to say I think there has already been a better footballer than Pele in Maradona. And I'd put Beckenbauer and Baresi up there with any. Defenders never get the credit yet they play just as important a role as evidenced by Messi's national teammates. Mind they could sort out a fair bit of that by picking Colo!

 

That is not a valid arguement to use. Messi would have tore those defences a new one. Defenses now are more athletic, better organisaed, positionally and tactically aware etc. and keepers better coached, more athletic and generally harder to beat

 

Pele performed miracles with Santos and Brazil. In fact, his achievement with Santos was greater as Santos were a tiny club back then, Napoli were fairly big by that point.

 

It is a valid argument. The game is very different from what it was. Now, football is barely a contact sport (especially in Spain!) whereas Pele regularly got the **** kicked out of him!

 

He did and the pitches are certainly an aid to modern players, but to be honest its more than counteracted by fitness levels and the fact that the level overall is a lot higher now. A great player then had it easy than a great player now. the game was still fairly amateur in some respects. Now with all the modern training, coaching methods, etc etc I think it is harder to stand out from the crowd.

 

Although I wasn't old enough to see him play it's pretty common knowledge that Maradona played in a poor Argentina side, and basically won the World Cup in 1986 on his own. He also went to Napoli and won 2 Serie A titles, the first time they ever done this in their history, and also the UEFA Cup.

The one thing you cannot throw at Maradona is he was only good because he played in fantastic teams. That is simply not true.

 

Never said that about Maradona. I originally said that he is probably the best footballer ever just ahead of Pele. I think he was amazing from what I have seen.

 

Sorry mate, I just saw that comment you made and thought thats what you were implying.

The whole best player ever argument is purely subjective, and also generational. My Grandad says Pele's the greatest ever, my dad say's Maradona, whereas Zidane+Messi are the best i've seen with my own two eyes.

Im sure Maradona did get voted the FIFA player of the century in a fans vote back in 2000 though. Atleast I think he did

 

Firstly, Messi is 24, not 23. He has won the Ballon D'Or 3 times... in a row.

Pele scored 760 official goals. Not over 1000. If we're counting friendlies as he does, then **** i'm catching Pele up. Yeah he was a great player, one of the greatest. But for me, he is in no way the best. Our 2 little Argentinians are both ahead of him in my opinion, possibly others too.

 

Completely agree. When you consider the amount of times you and I have watched Messi for a full 90 mins you are obviously going to say he is the best because he is the one that we have been brought up watching.

 

"In December 2000, Pelé and Maradona shared the prize of FIFA Player of the Century by FIFA. The award was originally intended to be based upon votes in a web poll, but after it became apparent that it favoured Diego Maradona, many observers complained that the Internet nature of the poll would have meant a skewed demographic of younger fans who would have seen Maradona play, but not Pelé"

Biggest load of ****e i've ever read.

 

haha good old FIFA. At least fixing results to their liking is not just a new thing.

 

I'm not sure that goalscoring records and trophies are the be all and end all in this argument to be honest. For instance, how many trophies did george best win compared to, say, dimitar berbatov? and how does their goalscoring record compare?
I don't think you'll find a fan who'd rather have berbatov than best.

 

That argument works both ways the defenders were not as athletic, but neither were the strikers. Also I would like to see messi take some of the tackles back in those days.

 

Never seen Pele play due to being too young, but in my life Lionel Messi is by far the greatest player I've seen.