when I started to learn about Pele's career and greatness many people told me that "if Pele was playing today he could not have been better than RObingo, at most he could have been Robinho and if Ronaldo was playing in 60s he could have scored 5000+ goals" and e.t.c ignorant people who dont know anything about the history of football and who refuses to learn makes such arguements. in fact, such people are not worthy to have a dialogue with, let alone discussing about football. but if we ignore them they will remain illititerate, so we have to teach them so that they can be illuminated. if Pele was playing under the conditions which CR7, Messi or even Maradona under, he could have scored 2000+. first of all, all of them played in better pitches than the pitch Pele played on, they wore better boots than Pele's, the'r prime were under more protection than Pele's prime. imagine, till 1970 there was no yellow card but even though Pele played under worse protections, Pele did better dribles than all the others. the ball used at the time of Pele was heavier and harder and more difficult. by the way, when Pele was playing offside rule was stricter. so, at his time if there was current offside rule he might have scored 1500+, possible. I very doubt there exists a fool who thinks Messi can drible Pepe, Ramos and e.t.c if there was no booking. wish you the best.
Pele played as fully professional player in half amateur era. That's the biggest edge you can possibly have. Also majority of his goals were scored in regional leagues. Now imagine Messi playing as fully professional, against half amateurs in a Catalonian league plus, lets say Valencia? Pele would say good bye to his career goal record in a heartbeat. What tomorrow? How Pele was actually a great passer?
A lot of those factors are irrelevant though. For e.g., sure Pele's boots might have been less than perfect, but the same was true about the boots of the defenders he was playing against. Maybe the conditions were more difficult, but since the same was true for everyone that Pele was playing with and against, it all cancels-out.
source please?! you mean, let us assume there were 10 teams in the league/tournament Pele played, 5 of them were amateur teams?! it is like arguing "Messi and CR7 are playing as fuly professional player in majority amateur league" if Pele was playing with the barcelona of 08-12 with the conditions Messi have against current laliga teams, he would have scored 5000+ Messi played in a team which was able to beat his nearest opponent with 2-6, 5-0, more than that he played in a better pitch with a lighter ball under a good protection against the conditions of Pele. if Messi played in an era which had no booking I very doubt he would be able to drible somebody if people go on to trying to underrate him by ignoring how great passer he was and ignoring the history of football, I will do that with great pleasure in order to illuminate ignorant people. his vision and playmaking ability was so good. Messi or Maradona can compete him in one area ONLY: "who scored more goals with hand, who used his hand better?!" this is the only area Messi and/or Maradona can be better than Pele.
debatable but Pele also played with hard fouls. I have watched many videos of it, but during that era Argentina and Uruguay football was so hard that Brazil and european teams rejected to play them. I do not use it for Pele, what I want to mean is: do not think Pele played in a league which was so friendly and defenders did not use violence. 20 Fouls vs Pelé Pelé - The most violently fouled player in football history ele - They tried to stop him skip to 1:45 and then you will see how hard fouls he faced. I do not know brazilian league of that era but in international stage Pele faced more brutal foulings.
How is Pele underated? He is generally regarded as the greatest player of all time. As for comparing how many goals he may have scored in todays in todays game this is impossible. All I can say is that if you played in the defensive, brutal, tough Serie A of the 80's you would certainly have a lower total than today (top scorer in 80s Serie A twice had 15 and twice had 16 goals...) but to to prove the amount they would score today is impossible, there is no magic co-efficent. Also in his goals total he includes exhibition matches and club friendlies, no other player seems to that but that conveniently takes him over the 100 mark and makes him the highest of all time.
While that is true, I assume it was easier for a "destroyer" (defender of old) to play with less sophisticated boots than it was for a finesse player like Pelé. I would think finesse forwards of old were more disadvantaged having to play with very simple boots (and balls) than defenders were disadvantaged by this. But the point Sir_Arthur was trying to make (I assume) was that Pelé played in more difficult conditions in comparison to later all-time players (esp. compared to current legends like Messi) hence no cancelling-out.
Yeah but when we compare players across eras, what we are essentially doing is comparing what one older player did against players of his older generation versus what another later-time player did against players of his more recent generation. Its not really a direct head-to-head comparison.
Maradona faced the same or worse fouling that Pele did at the WCs. The difference is that Pele left WCs 62 and 66, while Maradona hanged on in WC82 and took Argentina to the final of WC90. Maradona did much better while receiving the same type of punishment.
1980s and early 90s Serie A was arguably the most defensive but not necessarily the most brutal or physically tough. At least, that's the impression you get from reading articles of that time. In fact, many saw that league at mid-80s as downright 'slow', which doesn't completely match with the picture of 'tough'. English 1st Division was probably physically more demanding (also because they played so many more games compared with other leagues, incl. cup replays and such - and apart from Liverpool there were many 'equal' teams, which placed maximum physical stress on the individual) and Spanish Primera Division (until late 80s) probably more brutal at worse pitch conditions. Ofc, the conditions weren't as uniform and standardized across Europe anyway. Just saying. In any event, I think it would have been interesting to see Pelé playing in the English 1st Division of that time.
If Pelé had played his peak years in the English first Division of that time (1958 to 1965) I would think he would still have scored a very high number of goals because during those years the English First Division was much more high-scoring than in later decades. Jimmy Greaves once scored 41 goals in 40 league games. If Greaves managed that, I wouldn't have been surprised to see a peak-Pelé score around 50 goals in one season in English top flight football. In Serie A in the same time frame, Angelillo once scored 33 goals in 33 matches. If Angelillo managed 33 goals, it wouldn't be too outrageous to suggest a peak Pelé being able to score around 40 goals in Serie A at that time. A different scenario is of course 1970s/80s Serie A or Primera Division. Pelé of course wouldn't have in all likeliness scored as many goals if he had to play there in those years. But the same can be said of Messi or Ronaldo. I would actually love to see Messi play in Primera Division or Serie A during the 70s and 80s. His goal tallies would probably be about a third of what he had in his peak years today. Primera Division in the 70s and 80s most likely was the most brutal thing ever in European top flight football but I would not underestimate Serie A regards brutality in the same time frame. Our picture of Primera Division's brutality on those years is coming from eye witness accounts of foreing players who reported about that. We don't have such eye witness accounts for Serie A in the 1970s from foreign players because there were no foreign players in Serie A at that time (except for some ageing players from the 1950s and 60s like Altafini, Haller, Nené or Schnellinger). But when Italian teams played vs. international opposition in the European Cup, often the opposing teams complained about the brutality of the Italian players.
http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11096/8172709/brits-abroad-ian-rush Mentions that the attitude was more defensive and less about chasing the ball. On the other hand he also said training was 20 years ahead of its time. Anecdotal accounts can be problematic though. For example Ozzie ardilles and Alejandro sabella gave contrasting accounts about moving from Argentina to England.
Agree with that. It's like in the champions league when a top team travels to an opponents stadium and complains about the pitch. People say, oh but it's the same for both teams. Except that totally misses the point, it disadvantages the superior team who would use a good pitch better much more. As for boots and balls, it sure would be interesting to see studies on it. I remember seeing one that concluded, all the participants felt hampered when they played with boots that weren't their ideal choice, but there was little recorded difference between their performance with and without their favourite boots. It's interesting that they'd all felt their performance was being hampered.
They need to finally have a game using only balls and boots from the 60's, with 80's physicality and of course the no pass back to the keeper rule still in effect. That's how the next Clasico should be played
no they need to change (for fun) and see how Messi and CR7 will play with their bare feet (instead on Nike Air or Adidas gold) vs a grape fruit (instead of ball) in a corner of a ghetto with grind rocks and half paved (instead of grass)? I bet only maradona could catch up with Pele in that game. CR7 might call in sick while Messi excuses with a stress convulsion LOL Rumor said Maradona playing with an orange (with Adidas shoes) but that was close enough!
yes this is a troll thread anyway .. since not many here knew Pele to say the least ! especially some youngsters like you, and worse Badabing (with such a clueless comment : half amateurs DF) If any room is mentioning about Pele, that should be mine LOL ..
This is the original source, which I see it totally different from what's presented in the website you mentioned. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1440244013000832 Besides, I tend to believe that the authors of the article are not very knowledgeable in football as some figures correlate to the rules changed in 90's but they didn't mention to that (according to my quick read). And, the conclusions are not convincing as they used linear correlation to present the data. If I am a reviewer, I would give this paper a major revision not acceptance.
it;s not up to you to decide such ... you have no voice in this thread and should just sit back and enjoy the ride