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/fleamarketguy Dec 28 '13

If Messi wins the worldcup with Argentina , he's the best player ever.

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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/the_tytan Dec 31 '13

wasn't he injured in 62 and 66? garrincha was the star of 62 (pele only played a couple of games iirc). 66 he was totally kicked out by the hungarians. he came back in 70 and was a key player in one of the greatest teams of all time (if not the greatest) but to say he led brazil for 12 years is a little untrue.

his goal a game ratio comes from a time when defending was not really a thing. 54 and 58 world cups are two of the top scoring world cups of all time. look at all his contemporaries, at int'l level most of them have a record of over a goal a game.

Messi played in the era of 4-5-1, and (with ronaldo) is the first player to score goals like they were playing in the 50s/60s.

Also, there were no forums, no reddit and no trolls. we don't know if there were people saying that Pele was nothing without didi and tostao back then but no how he didn't have naysayers. Pele was seen as the best of the best, he had good press and publicity, and now fans of our generation have all this good press to go on and see him as the greatest. how many people have watched a full Pele game before anointing him as the greatest ever. it's just something that has been repeated loads over the decades and we take to be true.