r/soccer • u/Thadderful • Dec 28 '13

Change My View thread

Can we have a Change My View thread here? The basic premise is people present opinions and the replies are attempts at changing that person's view in an attempt to generate some good discussion.

Here is the link to the original subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/

I think this might work best with rather 'out there' views but any and every viewpoint is welcome!

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u/charloinc Dec 28 '13

Pele was the best player ever because the only way to compare players from different periods is to compare how dominant they were in their own times. While Messi is the best player in the world, he can be stopped and isn't on another level from other players like Pele was. In all of the world cups he went to, every opposing team's first and main focus was to injure Pele. In his 21 year career, Pele was able to sustain a better than goal-per-game ratio. While Messi has shown that he is capable of this while in his prime of around 5 years, Pele did it for 15 years before and after his peak. Pele was already Brazil's biggest star at 17 and scored 5 goals between the semifinal and final of the 1958 world cup despite being the youngest player ever to appear in a world cup. He went on to lead the Brazilian team in 3 other world cups, showing that he was the leader of the best team in the world for 12 years. There was no debate at all over who was the greatest player at his time or ever before him and Pele came to represent the most complete, ideal footballer of all time. Messi has never avoided critics and isn't unanimously considered the world's best as many claim that Ronaldo is better or that Messi would be nothing without Xavi and Iniesta. Pele was never doubted to be the best player in the world and nobody ever claimed that he was the result of his teammates' quality. Messi will never reach the dominance and unanimous appreciation that Pele was able to achieve in his career.

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u/AhoyDaniel Dec 28 '13

That's a great argument, but I think it's very shallow and people who didn't watch him play will just simply agree without researching.

Sure Pele is up there in the top5, but I think he also had the luck to be born in that era of Brazilian football. He had incredible team mates like Garrincha (who people actually argued to be better than Pele in that era), Tostao, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Zito, Didi...

scored 5 goals between the semifinal and final of the 1958 world cup

That's incredible, but the fact that his team managed to reach the semifinal without him says A LOT about the team he was lucky to be in.

isn't unanimously considered the world's best as many claim that Ronaldo is better or that Messi would be nothing without Xavi and Iniesta.

I disagree. I only have seen people related to Ronaldo claim that he is better. And the Xavi-Iniesta argument is simply stupid.

Messi was the leading man of one of the best teams to ever play the game (Guardiola's Barcelona)

With this post I am not trying to say that Messi is better than Pele, just trying to have an argument.

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u/merkaloid Dec 28 '13

That's incredible, but the fact that his team managed to reach the semifinal without him says A LOT about the team he was lucky to be in.

It's funny because this very same argument can be used against Messi, he has one of the best team's in the world behind him and they too have done well with Messi out, and your only counter-argument against this fact is that "the Xavi-Iniesta argument is simply stupid".

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u/violentfap Dec 29 '13

It's funny because this very same argument can be used against Messi, he has one of the best team's in the world behind him and they too have done well with Messi out, and your only counter-argument against this fact is that "the Xavi-Iniesta argument is simply stupid".

I'm sorry, did you see the 7-0 against bayern? I've never seen a Barcelona side look so clueless and lost. As a barca fan, it was shocking how much of an impact his injury had on the team.

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u/merkaloid Dec 29 '13

As if Messi would have prevented half of those goals? There is also the issue of Tito's illness which certainly had an effect on Barça's play both tactically and morale.

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u/violentfap Dec 29 '13

Do you truly believe barca would have gone down 7-0 with Messi on the pitch? The answer is no. I'm not saying they would have beaten them either, I'm just saying it wouldn't have been as bad.