Pele vs. Messi

With Messi being crowned "The Best Player in the World" for the third year straight, I was waiting for Pele to steal the spotlight. No one EVER asks this guy for his opinion except no-name brazilian magazines that nobody cares about. His recent comments are the following:


"I like Messi a lot, he's a great player," when asked who his favorite current player is. "Technically, we are at the same level."


Yes, you heard it right, Pele said that he and Messi right now, are at the same technical level of football.

Pele also believes that he has more natural ability than Messi by saying:


 "No one knew which foot I was going to shoot with, I was two-footed. I also scored a lot of goals with my head."


Let me discount this with a fable I created~


A man walks into a boxing gym for the first time. A boxer approaches him and says, "I will train you if you can block one of my punches. I will either punch you with my right, with my left, or I might head butt you." The man gets punched hard with a right hook. A second boxer approaches him and says, "I will train you if you can block one of my punches. I am going to punch you with my left hand." The man gets punched with a hard left hook. He leaves the gym hurting, and when asked which of the two boxers he would rather have as a coach, he chose the latter explaining, "I knew where his punch was coming from, yet still could do nothing about it. Even without the element of surprise he got me."

Draw your own conclusions.


Pele's next argument is:


 "When Messi has scored 1,283 goals like me, when he's won 3 World Cups, we'll talk about it."


So Pele hangs all the qualifications of "Greatest Player Ever" on these 2 stats alone- # of goals/ # of World Cup titles. So let's first take a closer look how Pele scored so many goals with his club F.C. Santos, and then later see why he was so successful for "A Selecao."

SANTOS F.C.

Pele played for Santos for 18 years back in the 50's, 60's and 70's.


1.) The world's best club teams were not in Brasil, they were in Europe. Pele never left his home nation to go play with the big names in Europe. Goals were easier to come by in a second-tier league. Would Pele have as much success playing in the Premiership or La Liga? I doubt it. He taught Neymar how to hide out where his skill couldn't be rivaled.
2.) Having never left his homeland, Pele was the beloved "national treasure" of the Brasilian league and was respected by his opponents. Messi, as we saw in this week's Copa del Rey vs RM, is obviously not. Goals are harder to come by when the other team tries to murder you weekly. Even the opposing team's fans would get upset at their own defenders for fouling Pele because they knew they needed him for the WC.
3.) Santos has a rivalry with Corinthians. Is Corinthians anything like Real Madrid? No. Easier goals.

CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores 1960's vs. UEFA Champions League 2000's

-Pele won the Copa Libertadores 2 times in 18 years with Santos ('62 & '63).

-Messi has won the UEFA Champions League 3 times in 7 years with Barcelona ('06, '09, '11).

 (He scored in 2 of them, the game winner in 2011.)

-Messi is also the top scorer in the past 3 UEFA Champions League Tournaments.

-Where are better club teams found at any time, CONMEBOL or UEFA?

-With Santos Pele scored 589 goals in 18 years. 589/18 = 32.7 goals a year.

-With Barcelona, Messi has averaged 46 goals in the past 3 years.

-Let's say he plays 18 years at Barca, like Pele did at Santos.

                                 46*11(more years) = 506 + 213 (from the first 7 years) = 719 total goals

                                                 719 - 589 = 130 more goals than Pele.

-Messi has also completely stumped Jose Mourinho, arguable the greatest manager the world has ever seen. I am pretty sure RM brought him in solely to solve the "Messi problem" and yet RM hasn't beaten Barcelona in under 90 mins. for years.

So head-to-head at the club level, Pele better watch out....

A Seleção

-Pele scored 77 goals in 92 appearances.
-That means there was a 91.7% chance he would score in every international game. Simply incredible.
-He won 3 World Cups in years '58, '62, '70.
-12 goals in 4 different WCs.

For me, this is where Pele has been much more successful than Messi, but here is why.


I compared the rosters for the World Cup team and the Copa Libertadores team in '58, '62, '70.  In the first 2 years, the rosters are virtually the same. 

1958- Santos F.C. won the World Cup
1962- Santos F.C. won the World Cup

1970- Pele was older and around a younger group of players. He did well then and I give him credit, he even scored 4 goals. 

BUT- in 1962 he only played in the 1st game, and was benched in the 2nd due to injury, so his team lifted the Jules Rimet while he rode the pine.

12 Santos players won the World Cup during his time!

Compare this to current day Barcelona, would you agree that Barcelona pretty much won the World Cup in 2010? (Pique, Puyol, Busquets, Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro, Villa, etc.) So my point is, if Pele was born in let's say, Germany, but still played for Santos in Brasil, would he still have won so many World Cups? This is the same predicament that Messi is in, having been born in Argentina. It was Santos, with the help of Pele, who won the World Cups, not the other way around.

Now all of these arguments are stacked around the numbers. I don't like to look solely on numbers when asked to quantify the "Greatest Player of All Time" but they were Pele's weapon of choice so that's why I broke 'em down. If numbers were the only thing we ever looked at then we would only be looking at strikers. In my opinion there shouldn't be a "Best of All Time" but rather a "Best in that Era" or "No one was better than him while he played" but those are long-winded. Plus I've only attacked Pele, and not praised Messi enough.

Point being, it's almost impossible to cross-examine someone who played in the '50's to someone who played today. They were both better than everyone else at the time. The game of Football changes so much, if Messi went back in time to 1958 then of course he would annihilate Pele. For now, let's just count ourselves lucky to be around this golden age. We get to see Messi!

Post Script Soapbox:

Dear Pele,


Please shut your old mouth. You are 71 years old and with each dying breath you are ruining your legacy. You just said that "Neymar is much better than Messi." You are making a fool out of yourself. Your self-indulging-brasilian-prid---.....err, I mean your patriotism, is blinding your judgement. We all know you can't help but stick your leathery face into the spotlight when you are feeling jealous, but please don't overshadow your own amazing legacy with your late-life antics. 

Stop criticizing anyone not from Brasil,

-Jacob

  (Another debate, for another date)