Pele is a twatbag

Messi is the stand out player in possibly the best team to ever play club football.

 

I love it when people sit there and say oh Maradona is the best ever, no Pele's the best ever blah blah blah, when their careers ended years before they were born. Hilarious.

I'm not even going to sit and pretend that I really know much about Pele or Maradona beyond seeing a bunch of their goals, I'll stick my hands up and admit that I'm not remotely qualified to make lofty judgements like the above.

I can, however, say my piece on players whose careers I've grown up alongside and watched them live constantly. Zidane and the real Ronaldo are the best in my lifetime and Messi is definitely right up there with them. Ronaldinho in his Barcelona pomp really was something truly special too. C.Ronaldo, while a brilliant player, is a level below these IMO.

 

This, they have a saying in Brazil; "Pele was the best [sarcasm] but Garrincha was better"

 

But we arent discussing longevity here, we are dicussing the best player ever. For me that means on pure footballing ability alone. At the peakof their game put up against one another who would emerge on top. When we factor in longevity that seems to me to be a different question, who was the most consistent player ever.

 

Many who saw him play, reckon one of the greatest footballers ever died in the Munich air crash. Duncan Edwards. My late father said he was comfortably the most gifted all round footballer he'd ever seen. He hated Man U aswell.

You could also include our very own Paul Gascoigne. Although his peak was shortlived, he was as good as anyone there was at the time.

 

What absolute bollocks.

 

Aye but like I say you could put in the likes of Duncan Edwards. Even Bobby Charlton said he felt inferior when he watched Edwards, that's some compliment! Maybe like you say they are two different questions. Who was the greatest player ability wise? Who was the greatest player over a prolonged period?

 

I have heard that about edwards, but then again how many youngsters get touted as the next best thing. He may well have reached greatness but GOAT greatness is another thing entirely

 

No it was mainly due to injury and partly due to his partying lifestyle.

Fast cars and women? whats that got to do with anything? - most professional footballers have that 'problem' today and it doesn't seem to be affecting them

And drugs? WTF?! he never took drugs!

 

[video=youtube;od7eaa5p4Xk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od7eaa5p4Xk[/video]

watch and enjoy

 

I think he was already established to be honest. He'd already made about 150 appearances for the Mancs by the time of his death and played 18 times for England. Seems bizarre because he died aged 21. Growing up my old man would always talk about him and said he was like an old hand by the time he was 19 such was his understanding of the game. He said he was a freak of nature like Maradona. 18 caps by 21, its frightening to think how many he might have got!

 

The first one What a legend .

 

The fast cars, fast women was just a turn of phrase to describe his lifestyle. Why do you think he got injured so much? Because he didn't look after himself. Professional sport is littered with people who chose not to live the life and enjoy themselves. Funnily enough they tend to have had all kinds of problems with injuries. Ask Paul gascoigne or Ricky Hatton. Are you for real? He was the life and soul of the Madrid party scene. he was well known for it. The rumours of drug taking antics would not go away and given what we know about footballers, its a fair bet he did. You don't honestly think footballers don't take drugs? It has been quite common up until more recent developments in drug testing. I have friends who saw Craig Bellamy and Kieron Dyer doing lines in Malmaison with their own eyes! Maradona, Caniggia, its gone on for a long long time in football.

 

His injuries later on in his career were down to Hypothyroidism which affected him a great deal from, fatigue, muscle craps, joint pain and the obvious weight gain. Unfortunately he couldn't treat his condition because the drug is illegal in football.

And i know all about his partying lifestyle at Madrid but you don't know he took drugs and i cannot tell you that he definitely didn't take drugs. It probably something we'll never know.

 

I wouldn't start blaming his massive knee tendon rupture while at Internacionale on drugs and women. I think the consultant who treated him said something along the lines of his skills were too much for his legs to handle. His trademark lightening quick flick of the ball to bamboozle opponents was what he attributed as a big contributing factor in his knee problems.

 

This. In his prime nobody before or since, has gone harder or faster on the football pitch than him.

 

What a massive bellend Pele is. Probably the single most overrated sportsman in the world ever.

Also why has no one mentioned Beardsley and Cruyff?

 

I also wouldn't put Pele in my top 5 players of all time.

Obviously, I'm restricted to watching videos as I couldn't see him playing in the flesh, but the majority of people I've spoken to who DID see him at the time believe that Di Steffano and Garrincha were superior players.

In my lifetime, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho in his prime and now Messi are the best players I've ever seen. Messi is better than Pele already imo, I'd love it if "the battle for the world's best player" was more interesting and open, but he is simply streets ahead, and no one is close to him!

(The "indie" view to take now appears to be that Xavi or Iniesta are the best players in the world, which shows the straws people grasp at to make the debate of the world's best player more interesting!)

 

When Pele played for Santos, most of the top Brazilian teams would have made mincemeat of the English 1st Division clubs.

 

Strangely enough, my Dad used to say pretty much the same thing about Edwards, despite his youth, and we both despised Man U (I still do).