Pele a little precious?

HazDanz

Just saw this article on BBC Sport where Pele discusses how great Pele is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/16661825.stm

Anyone else feel he dismisses Messi's achievements as a footballer as he has yet to achieve the same success he had at International level?

Do you need to prove yourself internationally as well as at club level to be seen as one of the greatest footballers of all time?

dreamers75

HazDanz wrote: »

Do you need to prove yourself internationally as well as at club level to be seen as one of the greatest footballers of all time?

yes but im old so that opinion is changing. Anyone my age mostly remembers the great players at World Cups, last say 3 or 4 and there hasnt been a truly great player one who dominated it.

CL is where the best players play and well Messi has done enough in that to take home the "best player ever" trophy.....but anyone older than say 30 will expect him do it at a WC.

WC is still the ultimate of football but not from a standard point of view.

Corholio

He has got a point IMO. Although I do think Messi will go down as one of the greatest regardless, because he's just so good. But we all know the great players like Pele and Maradona are never going to be unbiased when asked, and especially not when a Brazilian is asked about an Argentinian.

Corholio

dreamers75 wrote: »

yes but im old so that opinion is changing. Anyone my age mostly remembers the great players at World Cups, last say 3 or 4 and there hasnt been a truly great player one who dominated it.

CL is where the best players play and well Messi has done enough in that to take home the "best player ever" trophy.....but anyone older than say 30 will expect him do it at a WC.

WC is still the ultimate of football but not from a standard point of view.

The funny thing about this argument is, if the World Cup is a lesser standard then why hasn't Messi performed? I'm not fully agreeing with either side of the argument, just asking the question.

Jimmy Iovine

People always ask me: 'When is the new Pele going to be born?' Never. My father and mother have closed the factory.

When Messi's scored 1,283 goals like me, when he's won three World Cups, we'll talk about it

Ha ha ha what a hero. I dunno he has never really been the greatest judger of talent himself. To be fair though stats wise he's on a different planet to Messi at the moment. Pelé got 643 official goals in 656 games for Santos. Then again he did play down in Brazil for most of his career, not exactly at the same level as Spain.

If Messi can stay free of injuries and keep his head clear of all the trappings of his wealth and fame (like he has done so far) I can see him passing out Pelé.

He averaged 50 goals in his last two seasons. I'd be delighted with that in a season of Fifa. Scandalous goal scoring from him. If he keeps up that standard for even another 2 or 3 years then I can't see much getting his way of being called the greatest.

I do think he has to show it at a WC though. His record with Argentina in general is quite awful. Clearly he suffers by not having Xavi and Iniesta giving him the ball so perfectly the whole time but he has to step up himself.

Dominate a WC (even if he doesn't win it) and then he will most definitely be called the greatest. He has won everything there is at club level, a few international honours would boost it probably more than another Champions League at this stage imo.

SM01

The 'do it at international level' debate regarding Messi will rage on but personally I think he's there or thereabouts the best player i've ever seen and if he continues in the same vein for another season season it'll be unequivocal. I get the impression there's an element of jealousy on Pele's behalf and he should quit with the self-praise as it waters down his fantastic career (IMO.)

Tox56

Pele played in one of the best teams ever, international or not, for Brazil, and for Santos in the Brazilian league where defending was non-existant.

Sounds a bit up his own.

dreamers75

Corholio wrote: »

The funny thing about this argument is, if the World Cup is a lesser standard then why hasn't Messi performed? I'm not fully agreeing with either side of the argument, just asking the question.

Because Diego Maradonna was his manager and he forgot to bring fullbacks

I think it does have to do with the level of player and style afforded to him at Barca.

HazDanz

dreamers75 wrote: »

CL is where the best players play and well Messi has done enough in that to take home the "best player ever" trophy.....but anyone older than say 30 will expect him do it at a WC.

WC is still the ultimate of football but not from a standard point of view.

You see I view the CL as the best football tournament with the highest standard of football and Messi has proven himself again and again in that tournament. So for me it negates the fact he hasn't achieved at international level as of yet.

I think achieving success on the world cup stage is still note worthy but for me it is not essential in the grand scheme of things if you can prove your quality again and again at club level against the best.

greendom

Tox56 wrote: »

Pele played in one of the best teams ever, international or not, for Brazil, and for Santos in the Brazilian league where defending was non-existant.

Sounds a bit up his own.

Completely deluded and probably senile. Best left ignored

Jimmy Iovine

Corholio wrote: »

The funny thing about this argument is, if the World Cup is a lesser standard then why hasn't Messi performed? I'm not fully agreeing with either side of the argument, just asking the question.

Mascherano is the CM for Argentina and Xavi and Iniesta are there for Barca.

End of a long season where he plays 50-odd games and gets hacked down in every single one of them.

Is expected to do everything for Argentina and can't have an off-day, otherwise they collapse.

Or maybe he just can't cut it at the World Cup :pac:.

CongoPowers

lol, worried.

anyway, the modern game has passed Pelé by and his opinions just get more and more nonsensical. he's not doing any harm though, so whatever.

titan18

Tbh, whilst he's exceptional, to go down as the best ever, or at least be argued for, he needs to do it a WC.

Argentina don't need to win it, Messi just needs to show he can drag the team far into it. People point to Maradona being inept, but Zidane has done it with Domenech. Messi needs to do it no matter who the coach is or the talent around him.

Tox56

greendom wrote: »

Completely deluded and probably senile. Best left ignored

How I would describe Pele's statement.

dreamers75

HazDanz wrote: »

You see I view the CL as the best football tournament with the highest standard of football and Messi has proven himself again and again in that tournament. So for me it negates the fact he hasn't achieved at international level as of yet.

I think achieving success on the world cup stage is still note worthy but for me it is not essential in the grand scheme of things if you can prove your quality again and again at club level against the best.

Again going to the age thing, every WC won pre 1990 was won by a single player. Maradona Rossi kempes Muller/Cruyff etc:

Its grand we will all die soon enough and noone will care about the WC.

Good point re Zidane above.

daithijjj

Im 'ould' but not old enough to have seen Pele, plenty old enough to have seen Maradona. Messi has a fair way to go to get close to Maradona for me. I hold that view from an isolated 1 on 1 situation and not what teams they were in or played for. Messi is a genius, Maradona was a swashbuckling genius (who got the sh1te kicked out of him routinely on the pitch i might add).

CongoPowers

dreamers75 wrote: »

Again going to the age thing, every WC won pre 1990 was won by a single player. Maradona Rossi kempes Muller/Cruyff etc:

dafúck?

that is not true. tournaments have never, or will ever be won by a single player.

the Argentina team of 86 was very well organised, and Bilardo effectively created a new system with that team to accommodate Maradona perfectly. (just an example)

dreamers75

CongoPowers wrote: »

dafúck?

that is not true. tournaments have never, or will ever be won by a single player.

the Argentina team of 86 was very well organised, and Bilardo effectively created a new system with that team to accommodate Maradona perfectly.

Maradona won that tournament? How is that even in doubt without him they wouldnt have got the final he scored half of their goals.

And yes they have numerous times, without X many teams club or country wouldnt win ****. It may be a team game but you need a Messi/Maradona to complete it.

PHB

Maradona won the World Cup and Serie A largely as the best player on his team by quite some distance. Messi plays in a team which has three of the best four players in the world.

Messi to prove that he isn't just amazing because he is with Barca, but because he's just amazing full stop. Argentina, a team which has some incredible talent but is a flawed team, if he can bring them to a World Cup, with just his sheer excellence alone, which is what is required, it'll allow him to go down possibly as the best player ever.

I think the same of true of Ronaldo btw. Whichever one of them can do it, and frankly, Messi has a better international team, will go down as greater. Their club careers have frankly been beyond all realms of what anyone has ever achieved.

willmunny1990

PHB wrote: »

Maradona won the World Cup and Serie A largely as the best player on his team by quite some distance. Messi plays in a team which has three of the best four players in the world.

Messi to prove that he isn't just amazing because he is with Barca, but because he's just amazing full stop. Argentina, a team which has some incredible talent but is a flawed team, if he can bring them to a World Cup, with just his sheer excellence alone, which is what is required, it'll allow him to go down possibly as the best player ever.

I think the same of true of Ronaldo btw. Whichever one of them can do it, and frankly, Messi has a better international team, will go down as greater. Their club careers have frankly been beyond all realms of what anyone has ever achieved.

Messi will go down as a greater player that Ronaldo regardless of what either do on the international stage tbh.

And that's no slight on Ronaldo who is an incredible phenomenon, but Messi is a phenomenon that will always have that extra magic that Ronaldo doesn't have. No amount of international medals is going to change that.

greendom

Tox56 wrote: »

How I would describe Pele's statement.

That's just who I was refferring to ! I've no idea how old you are

d22ontour

SM01 wrote: »

the same vein for another season season

Argentina have been in disarray for many years, manager wise, the Spanish eventually got it right, only took 20+ years with amazing talent year on year....

One more year from Messi isn't enough for any football fan, we all want him at this level until he retires, and then he will go down as the greatest ever, regardless of what clown is the manager of Argentina.

eagle eye

Its impossible to judge great players from different times against each other. All I can say is that Maradona was so far ahead of anybody else in his time at the top.

As said above Messi needs to do it at a World Cup to put himself at that level.

As also said above he is in a team of great, great players at club level.

What separates Maradona for me is that he won Serie A with a pretty average team and won the World Cup with a pretty average team. His individual talent was just outstanding. He is the best player with a ball at his feet that I've ever seen, he is the best free kick taker I've ever seen and he did all this in a time where you got kicked to death with no protection from the referee.

CongoPowers

dreamers75 wrote: »

Maradona won that tournament? How is that even in doubt without him they wouldnt have got the final he scored half of their goals.

And yes they have numerous times, without X many teams club or country wouldnt win ****. It may be a team game but you need a Messi/Maradona to complete it.

exactly.

those were the most influential players on (at least) decent teams. that does not equate to single-handedly winning a tournament, though.

again, Bilardo created his own system for Maradona's benefit. that doesn't cheapen Maradona's achievements in any way, there's nothing to take away from his role as the most influential player in that tournament, but to try to paint an even more impressive picture (no need to do so) is to make less of the amazing things he has done.

Predalien

Love how Pele even gets the number of goals he scored wrong, not to mention that half of them were in exhibition matches against some terrible teams. Pele didn't exactly drag Brasil to World cups, in '58 Garrincha was just as important for them, in '62 Pele got injured early and in '70 he played in one of the best teams of all time, they would have won it even without him.

Pele is one of the greatest but his repeated attempts to cast doubt on the talent of Messi is just bitter nonsense.

d22ontour

eagle eye wrote: »

Its impossible to judge great players from different times against each other. All I can say is that Maradona was so far ahead of anybody else in his time at the top.

As said above Messi needs to do it at a World Cup to put himself at that level.

As also said above he is in a team of great, great players at club level.

What separates Maradona for me is that he won Serie A with a pretty average team and won the World Cup with a pretty average team. His individual talent was just outstanding. He is the best player with a ball at his feet that I've ever seen, he is the best free kick taker I've ever seen and he did all this in a time where you got kicked to death with no protection from the referee.

You make a decent point but the timeline is 3 years of his career of what you posted afaik, that's not enough to judge a player, same with Zidane, nobody heard of him till he was 26 and his Juve move, all time greats did it for their whole careers, from start till end, that is why Ronaldo/Messi are a cut above them imo.

MisterAnarchy

Pele isnt the brightest guy,most of his predictions and ideas over the last 20 years have been nonsense.

International football used to be the pinnacle of soccer but those days are long gone.
The standard of international football nowadays is very low ,its diabolical.

eagle eye

CongoPowers wrote: »

exactly.

those were the most influential players on (at least) decent teams. that does not equate to single-handedly winning a tournament, though.

again, Bilardo created his own system for Maradona's benefit. that doesn't cheapen Maradona's achievements in any way, there's nothing to take away from his role as the most influential player in that tournament, but to try to paint an even more impressive picture (no need to do so) is to make less of the amazing things he has done.

Basically all thats going on here is you being pedantic about it. People understand when somebody says that a player won a match or a tournament that he was outstanding in that tournament and that his team would not have won it without him. Do you go on like this IRL?

eagle eye

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Pele isnt the brightest guy,most of his predictions and ideas over the last 20 years have been nonsense.

International football used to be the pinnacle of soccer but those days are long gone.
The standard of international football nowadays is very low ,its diabolical.

I'm sorry but this is wrong and I'll tell why I believe that. I don't think there are three teams on the planet that would beat the Spanish international team. In fact if you took the Spanish players out of the Barcelona and Real Madrid sides I don't think there is any team that would beat them.

CongoPowers

eagle eye wrote: »

Basically all thats going on here is you being pedantic about it. People understand when somebody says that a player won a match or a tournament that he was outstanding in that tournament and that his team would not have won it without him. Do you go on like this IRL?

I'm not really at all, though.

to claim a player won a tournament single-handedly is nonsense. and many people carry on this way. the only player capable of doing something similar to Maradona at the moment is Messi, and he will need to be playing in a serious Argentina team to do it. obviously.

MisterAnarchy

eagle eye wrote: »

I'm sorry but this is wrong and I'll tell why I believe that. I don't think there are three teams on the planet that would beat the Spanish international team. In fact if you took the Spanish players out of the Barcelona and Real Madrid sides I don't think there is any team that would beat them.

Spain are a law unto themselves,they are vastly superior to any other team.
I'm talking about the standard in general across the board .
Take them out of the equation and the standard is poor.

EdenHazard

he has to do it in the world cup...end of. hes been good in his 2 tounaments but not out of the ordinary, especially when it counts. hes got 2 left i have faith in lil lionel

Predalien

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Spain are a law unto themselves,they are vastly superior to any other team.
I'm talking about the standard in general across the board .
Take them out of the equation and the standard is poor.

Last year Barcelona were vastly superior to any other club team... is football in general just rubbish?

EdenHazard

the international footie bashers need to change their tune. the champions league has declined so much in the past 10 years as well, it needs a strong serie a and thats been awful for much of the past decade. french football has been poor(psg might change that, lyon did well but they were never unreal) bundesliga teams in europe are muck(look at dortmund) Livepool getting to two finals in the space of a few years showed the cl is so overrated, no disrespect but that team was absolutely shocking, for that team to have got to those finals says a lot about the strength of european club football. im hoping tho the knockouts this season will be good, im optimistic.

aidan24326

@edenhazard

You have a point about the CL. Take Barca and Real out of it at the moment and the standard is not great at all.

For me Maradona is still the greatest player, and whether Messi ultimately surpasses him we'll have to wait and see. Imagine Maradona in the current Barcelona team though. Now that would be a footballing wet dream.

I reckon Messi is so spoiled rotten at Barca, having the two best midfielders in the world* feeding him the ball, that it's inevitable he might struggle to produce the same level with Argentina.

*Xavi being one of the best ever imo

carlcon

I can't stand Pele. One of the best goalscorers of all time, yes, but not the best player... but more relevant to now, his opinions are up his own arse. Depending on the day of the week, there's a different "2nd best of all time", with he himself being the best. Unless Maradona is less than 100ft away, in which is claims it's him.

Helix

club football surpassed international football in relevance and level a long time ago IMO. the club game is the top level of the sport now, for better or worse

UnitedIrishman

As a counter argument to the EdenHazard's comment. No one judges how good a player is/was nowadays based on 7 games with an International team. The only reason everyone raved about such players in the 60's/70's/80's was because the lack of information they had at their disposal. If I wanted to watch a game in Brazil right now, I'm pretty sure I could source a stream in 10 mins. La Liga and Serie A are readily available.

Whereas back then the World Cup was the only place you could see all these players from all over the globe every four years. If we were taking into account the WC as the benchmark then Miroslav Klose would be regarded as the best player in the world from 2002 to 2010. Which is, of course, absurd.

Pele is dillusional when it comes to these things. As far as I'm concerned any player that harps on about how good he was is merely trying to stay relevant. At least Maradona was in an pretty shambolic Argentina squad that won a WC, and did it at Napoli and Barcelona. Having seen some of the defending in Brazil these days, one can only imagine how terrible it was in the 60's and 70's.

A benchmark of how brilliant a player is, is how they perform week in, week out over a period of years. For instance, Ronaldinho was the best player in the world for 2-3 years and had he continued his form over the course of a guts of a decade then I've no doubt he'd be in the reckoning for being one of the best ever. Messi, IMO, is the best player I'll ever have the pleasure of seeing and will go down as one of the best ever.

Mind you, all said and done I don't like putting labels on stuff like 'the best ever'. Having read a lot about Cryuff, it's amazing his influence on the game on so many levels that doesn't get as much recognition as some others either.

Son Of A Vidic

HazDanz wrote: »

Do you need to prove yourself internationally as well as at club level to be seen as one of the greatest footballers of all time?

Yes, great players deliver on every stage they play on. Messi didn't do much in the last World Cup and he would really need to move away from Barca to prove himself. At the moment he's just spoilt with a great team around him, so it makes a true assessment of him difficult. Maradona on the other hand, well he just delivered the goods no matter where he played. Pele certainly has a high opinion of himself, but he wouldn't even make it into my top five Brazilian players ever.

EdenHazard

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

As a counter argument to the EdenHazard's comment. No one judges how good a player is/was nowadays based on 7 games with an International team. The only reason everyone raved about such players in the 60's/70's/80's was because the lack of information they had at their disposal. If I wanted to watch a game in Brazil right now, I'm pretty sure I could source a stream in 10 mins. La Liga and Serie A are readily available.

Whereas back then the World Cup was the only place you could see all these players from all over the globe every four years. If we were taking into account the WC as the benchmark then Miroslav Klose would be regarded as the best player in the world from 2002 to 2010. Which is, of course, absurd.

Pele is dillusional when it comes to these things. As far as I'm concerned any player that harps on about how good he was is merely trying to stay relevant. At least Maradona was in an pretty shambolic Argentina squad that won a WC, and did it at Napoli and Barcelona. Having seen some of the defending in Brazil these days, one can only imagine how terrible it was in the 60's and 70's.

A benchmark of how brilliant a player is, is how they perform week in, week out over a period of years. For instance, Ronaldinho was the best player in the world for 2-3 years and had he continued his form over the course of a guts of a decade then I've no doubt he'd be in the reckoning for being one of the best ever. Messi, IMO, is the best player I'll ever have the pleasure of seeing and will go down as one of the best ever.

Mind you, all said and done I don't like putting labels on stuff like 'the best ever'. Having read a lot about Cryuff, it's amazing his influence on the game on so many levels that doesn't get as much recognition as some others either.

I agree, but let's face it the world cup is the big one no matter what, its a thousand times more iconic than the champions league so messi would want to top off a glorious career with an unbelievable world cup. it would just be the icing on the cake, the perfect story.

d22ontour

EdenHazard wrote: »

the international footie bashers need to change their tune. the champions league has declined so much in the past 10 years as well,

That's bollix, the champions league has progressed football moreso than anything FIFA has done in 20/30/40/50 years.
Financially it has already surpassed it and football wise as well imo.To win a CL you have to beat the best 3/4 teams from 3/4 of the best leagues in the world.To win a world cup, you only have to avoid 1 or 2 but the draw 'kindly' takes care of that.
The CL is going to end in a couple of years, let's see who holds the cards then, the clubs first and Uefa in a distant second, Fifa are a non entity regarding club football in a far distant 3rd, the next 'tv' deal should tell us how much footballers value winning the world cup...

EdenHazard

It 1 million per cent has, your feeding into it's hype if you actually think its some unreal tournament. The qualifcation group stage round gets boring after your about 15 and youve other stuff on your mind, terrible matches, terrible games, just boring all round. you say team that wins cl has to beat 3/4 best teams, what are you on? lyon, apoel, basel, cska moscow, zenit, benfica marseille, bayer leverkusen(8 of the last 16 on paper not 1 'world class' side there, all of them are at be) then onto the 'names', chlesea team who are awful, inter the same, napoli outside top 4 in italy, arsenal rubbish, bayern munich ok i like them but their team is basically the german team but not as good. leaves barca and real as the only genuine world class sides in the tournament. city should be there as i think their players are near that quality(not as good obviously)

the depth in quality in champions league is shocking, that list of last 16 competitors is madness, i only realised how much 'poor' sides were in it there. to put it in perspective of the last 16 only apoel basel, milan barca and zenit from the 16 teams are reigning league champions, awful, the tournament is a joke

stovelid

He's a bit like your aul fella droning on about how great the Beatles were when you were trying to listen to current music and you secretly wanting him lo have a heart attack.

greendom

stovelid wrote: »

He's a bit like your aul fella droning on about how great the Beatles were when you were trying to listen to current music and you secretly wanting him lo have a heart attack.

Closer to the truth would be Paul McCartney droning on about how great the Beatles were etc etc ....

EDIT: Unless of course Paul McCartney is your aul fella

The Volt

I think it's a fair argument that Messi hasn't reached similar heights at international level. He didn't score in South Africa but the best way for him to silence his critics is to play like he does for Barca in Brazil 2014.

carlop

I actually thought Messi played very well in South Africa and was quite unlucky. I seem to remember him hitting the woodwork a number of times.

Also, though I rate him as the best ever, the WC argument could easily be reversed about Maradona, who never won the CL, or even got anywhere close to it.

Jimmy Iovine

carlop wrote: »

I actually thought Messi played very well in South Africa and was quite unlucky. I seem to remember him hitting the woodwork a number of times.

Also, though I rate him as the best ever, the WC argument could easily be reversed about Maradona, who never won the CL, or even got anywhere close to it.

The Champions League wasn't around when Maradona was playing.

He did win the UEFA Cup in '89 though. His influence over Napoli and Naples in general is something that Messi could not do I don't think. He doesn't have that same charisma about him.

Messi is blessed to have two of the greatest midfielders of all time playing along with him. I'm almost certain Maradona didn't have the same. For him it was a case of trying to do it all himself and he did.

You could argue then that Messi's greatness will only be secure if he goes to a club team and drags them from mid-table mediocrity to the top of the league for the first time in their history :pac:. He'll never leave Barcelona though so it's a moot point.

PHB

Indeed, he never will leave Barca, who for the next 3-4 years are likely to be the best team in Europe. That's why he has to do it with Argentina, because he's going to be a one club man.

adox

Messi is without doubt the best footballer on the planet at the moment, an absolute privalege to watch. However, he has a long way to go to match what the greatest ever footballer, Maradona achieved.

I've seen the pedantic arguments earlier in this thread about a one man team, and we all know what this means, and Maradona was as close as you will ever get to seeing this both at club and international level.

I haven't seen anyone since that has come close to him. Messi may yet in the coming years but certainly not now.

Also, as much as I love Ronaldo, to try and claim he is or will be the greatest player of all time is way off the mark.

losthorizon

dreamers75 wrote: »

Again going to the age thing, every WC won pre 1990 was won by a single player. Maradona Rossi kempes Muller/Cruyff etc:

Its grand we will all die soon enough and noone will care about the WC.

Good point re Zidane above.

Holland have never won the WC! and played Total football!!!

Rossi and Kempes were excellent strikers in two very very good sides. But Italy and Argentina were excellent teams. I remember that '82 WC and it was an all round performance by Italy there was no man show. With regard to Germany most commentators would rate Beckenbauer as a more influential player.

IMO no one player can win games - its a team sport. The closest I have seen someone come to it was Maradona.

losthorizon

PHB wrote: »

Indeed, he never will leave Barca, who for the next 3-4 years are likely to be the best team ever. That's why he has to do it with Argentina, because he's going to be a one club man.

When you read that you just have to shake your head.

The best team ever? I don't think so.