For me, Pele is the greatest. However, Maradona fans would always downplay Pele's achievements because he played in a Brazilian side with good players. Yet, Messi plays in an international side with great players and many defend his shortcomings and still say he is the all-around better player than C Ronaldo.
Can we please put to bed this idea that Pele somehow had an easy ride? He won the world cup as a 17 year old which is a remarkable achievement.
All the above-mentioned players are great in their own respect but if you say Pele is not the GOAT because of the teams he played in, you have to also downplay Messi's achievements for the same reason.
Therefore we could only discuss Maradona vs C Ronaldo (or possibly Lingard) in the GOAT debate, surely?
It's all very confusing.
Messi vs Pele vs Maradona vs Ronaldo
posted on 24/6/18
What about Lingard?
posted on 24/6/18
Many of you obviously never saw Bebe play
posted on 24/6/18
Lingard.
posted on 24/6/18
Sissoko
posted on 25/6/18
The best player is Best. It's in his name for facks sake.
posted on 25/6/18
Kane > Ronaldo > Pele > Messi
posted on 25/6/18
Kane doesn't have Best in his name. So he can't be the best.
posted on 25/6/18
comment by Stretty - mr mourinho (U3123)
posted 8 hours, 3 minutes ago
Pele is the most overrated player of all time.
Uses friendly goals to pad his stats, played in a garbage league and that Brazil won a world cup without him no bother.
Don't mention him with the other three, its insulting.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeh he really pads up his stats with three world cup winners medals, and scoring goals in world cup finals at 17. Football forums and sensible discussion don't seem the place for you mate.
posted on 25/6/18
I generally make a point of speaking about players I've seen in my lifetime, and prefer to speak about favourites rather than greatest ever.
Maradona is still my lifetime favourite, but I remember growing up how my dad used to pine on about Di Stefano.
Hearing some millennials rubbish Maradona has helped me realise the amount of cr*p we talk when we're young and think we're in possession of an absolute truth. I accept now that I can't pass proper judgement on how good or bad Di Stefano, or Pelé, or Eusebio, or Puskas and co. really were. So out of both humility and respect, I talk about what I've seen.
Some will still argue that watching a few highlights or a couple of games from yesteryear validates their view. It's just because they don't properly understand it's a subjective debate and feel the need to be right at all costs.
posted on 3/7/18
Nice!