Tired of WC Maradona and Pele fanboys

You are forgetting something... what was Napoli before Maradona? it only took years to win something...

 

All I have to say to Messi and Ronaldo is #noexcuses

They have the teams to win the whole thing, they just need to do their job better. Both Portugal and Argentina have a talent level that can match the biggest of opponents.

 

Some terrible logic being used by the thread starter. Honestly, Pele played in the Brazilian back then which was considered one, if not the strongest league in the world. You have to compare it to the other leagues in that same era and not to where the leagues are today. That's doing a huge discredit to Brazilian league football back then. Pele played a huge amount against the strongest of the European sides from back then and was victorious more often than not. Using the mud pitch argument works both ways, who says Messi or Cristiano would be able to do what they do today if it wasn't for the fact the pitches are perfect and the ball isn't ten times heavier during rain because it's not made of leather anymore.

Same goes for Maradona. What he achieved with the national team and brought to the Argentine people is indisputable.

Football evolves with time and it's extremely hard to judge players across generations. With that said, trying to discredit Pele and Maradona's achievements and their place as two of the greatest of all times is sad, especially considering what they did for the sport and what they won. The World Cup is and will always be the highest pedigree of football and let's not pretend like Messi and Cristiano are George Best and have played in sides which couldn't have won it.

Your arguments are poor, you try to use evidence from today football and apply it to football back then. Cristiano and Messi are both in the discussion of the greatest ever, for what they have achieved at club level and Cristiano has even gone further to add a national title for his national side. That being said, I don't consider him to be a top 5 in history despite his consistency and ridiculous statistics. Finally, who says this up and coming generation is poor? 3 years ago no one had an idea of who Mbappé is. Maybe in a year or two, we'll have 10 players like him appearing from nothing.

 

Pele was the center-piece of Brazilian sides that won two World Cups. If not for injuries, he would have starred for Brazil in at least one other World Cup win and would likely have lead his team to victory in the 1966 World Cup. He did the most mesmerizing things on the pitch, like his dummy against Uruguay's keeper in the 1970 semi-final. I don't think there has ever been a more outrageous piece of skill at the World Cup finals other than Maradona's goal against England. And in Maradona's time, there was no player more dominant. He probably could have won the 1986 World Cup with almost any team he played in. That's how good he was.

 

Is this thread real?

 

Come on man. You can’t actually believe that.

Argentina had no idea who to start as goalkeeper. Portugal has a goalkeeper who only began to break out late in his career. His big career transfer? To Wolverhampton.

Argentina had a right winger playing right back in Salvio, Otamendi who has no brains and relies on his aggression to play defense. Mercado and Rojo don’t start at their clubs and Tagliafico just made his move to Europe this past winter. Portugal has 3 center backs in their mid 30s that play in China, Turkey and Scotland and another CB with 1 cap. Cedric has been killing the Prem with Southampton (sarcasm) and Guerreiro has been injured all season.

Argentina had Masch come out of the grave to try playing a position he hasn’t played competitively in 40 years. Banega is a solid player, but having Enzo Perez and Lucas Biglia says a lot about their depth. Portugal’s midfield consists of a 32 year old Moutinho, William Carvalho who has been “promising” for the past 5 years, Joao Mario who starts for the might West Ham and Bernardo Silva who although is class, could not solidify a spot in the City 11.

Argentina’s attack is absolutely absurd, but as we saw vs. France, if your midfield/defense can’t stop the opposing team, doesn’t matter how many you score. Portugal had Andre Silva who couldn’t break AC Milan’s starting 11, Gelson Martins another 5 year “promising” player, Goncalo Guedes who is starting to break out of his shell and Quaresma who fails unless he plays in Turkey.

To say those are WC competing teams is a joke.

Before bringing Croatia’s team sheet into this, a midfield consisting of 3 Real Madrid/Barcelona players and an Inter Milan starter is good enough to control an entire game. Not to mention, Lovren, Vrsaljko, Mandzukic in the same squad. Yes, they are very much a dark horse, but they had the squad with talent and experience to pull it off.

 

Call him whatever you like, but understand that when Maradona was great, he was simply the greatest player ever. Ever. No doubt. Simply unstoppable. I was there at the Estadio Azteca for the 1986 final. I saw it with my own eyes. Put Maradona 1986 in Messi's place against Croatia, and he would dribble through the Croatian defense and score. Unstoppable.

Messi is a great player within the Barcelona system. However, Maradona didn't need a system. He would simply take on players and beat them over and over again. You could foul him, but often he would keep going. Unstoppable.

 

So your main point about CR7/ Messi being the best all time is mainly their goal ratio and their club trohpies ? And we're supposed to get the national teams out the discussion for... what reason ?
Argentina and Portugal were not enough good teams to count ?
Take a look at the portuguese team Ronaldo played his first tourneys with, not to mention Argentina until 2014 ; those were obviously heavily loaded teams, able to win trophies.

I give Ronaldo credit for Euro 16, but the international career of Messi is an absolute shame.
The guy played 3 copa america finals, all lost, 0 goal scored. Never scored a goal in WC knockout game, and barely had influence on any of them. Greatest of all time, seriously ?

That assumption relises mainly on the number of goals scored in club events.
It's surely impressive, but the vast majority of them were scored in a Liga which has never been weaker in 40 years, appart from the two traditional spain giants.

You say so yourself, clubs which were excelent 10 or 15 years ago can't compare the Barça now (Valencia, 2 CL finals, Villareal, La Coruna). Messi, like C Ronaldo, plays in a superteam, as the guy offered every occasion to shine and score, by midfields who will stay as some of the bests to have played the game. You have to take that into account when judging their performances.

What makes a player great is his ability to make his team win the most important games. Not scoring three goals to Getafe or Levante twice a year.

One more thing, if you want to compare those two with the superstars of the past.
They certainly won more CL than the great players of the 80s and 90s, but at the time there were 10 to 15 clubs who could reasonably hope for a CL victory.
Now it narrows to 4 or maybe 5, depending on the year. You obviously have far more chances of winning when you've played your entire carreer in those clubs.

Moreover at that time, you needed to be national champion to compete for victory in CL.
If that rule still applied, Messi would have won in 2006, as a secondary role who wasn't even on the bench for the final, and in 2011. Barça wouldn't have been there in 2009 or 2015.
That also applies to CR7, who would only have won in 2008 and 2018.

So, yes, Maradona and Pele will clearly stay as more important players. Particularly compared to Messi.

 

You're just embarrassing yourself. But at least you chose the correct nick.
Anyone who knows football knows what Maradona has done and doesn't need it explained to them.

 

It's the same in every sport dude, Wilt Chamberlain wouldn't average 50 ppg today and a 220 pound offensive tackle couldn't compete in today's NFL, but these people still deserve credit for dominating THEN during their own time, they beat who was put in front of them, they still deserve to be called great, no matter what they might or might not do TODAY.

 

Seems like some people think the world started the day they were born and do not appreciate history.

 

As one of these people, American who mainly watches international with a casual understanding of the club landscape clearly every player who won a WC isn't better than a player who didn't, context matters good teams can carry you, bad ones can make winning impossible. One of the major pieces on a stacked team isn't the best because they won a title.

In terms of Messi though, the guy plays with an absolutely stacked club team and he can't win tournaments on the international stage since the Olympics. Now while Messi's teams aren't great, compare them to the team Maradona dragged to the final in 86 nm the 90 team and he should have been able to win. Maradona doing what he did was more impressive. Just look at that 86 team, that team was just bad, Higuain and Agruero both have scored 30 goals in their international career and will probably hit 40, I mean they aren't Suarez and Couthino but they are good and the greatest should be able to win with them. Maradona also scored four goals without his hand in 86 including two where he basically ran through entire teams, that's why he's the greatest. He was also largely a MF so comparing his goal count to a striker is unfair, MF's don't score all too much. Maradona playing for Napoli and getting worse results is to be expected.

Think Messi gets a lot of credit for the footwork and doing certain things other's can't but parking at FC Barcelona where the amount of attention a defense can put on you is going to be limited and racking up club trophy's when you can't do the job with a modest downgrade is not enough to make one the greatest. Legit critique of Messi. His 14 run had an easier trip to the final than England supposedly had, barely beat Nigeria and while that Germany team was great, Messi had set pieces where he could have made stuff happen and he couldn't.

Think Ronaldo's better, his teams are worse and he's shown an ability to carry his teams that Messi hasn't, no matter whose defending him. He had some talent early on but since then hasn't really and the guys gotten a bunch of groups of deaths and tough matchups. He's also won Euro which let's be honest is harder to win than Copa America. Brazil and Uruguay is understandable but Chile's been wracking up Copa titles, come on. He's scored the most goals in international history and he's 33 and if he doesn't retire and decides to play till the next world cup he'll probably hit 100 international goals(though Messi can too).

Honestly think Lukaku has the best chance of being the best ever. Most talented player I've ever seen.

I will agree Pele's overrated. Played on stacked teams and started playing international when he was 17 years old so he was going to be in the best position to put up crazy stats on international. Like was mentioned Brazilian league isn't all that good when you get past the best players so he was in a good position to do the same in Brazil. Also most of the good players don't win world cups because it's hard to do and you need depth which is why WC only fans have such a hard time finding someone else to crown except Maradona and Pele, who is the third best player to ever win a World Cup? Romario, Gordon Banks, no way American fans will ever consider a defender like Beckenbauer the greatest because we hate defense and the entire reason soccer was unpopular in the late 20th century is because scoring was so freaking low? The first Ronaldo will always get confused with Christiano. Not really a wide range of choices here, there's a reason Zidane and David Villa came to mind when OP was talking about greats because most of the great one's didn't win the World Cup, what should matter is how close they came. But yeah there's no real third option yet that will excite people so the argument's always going to be Pele or Maradona. Maybe the kid Mbaqque can be that player but no causal fans are going to be rolling around arguing about the greatness of Oliver Giroud, Paul Pogba and Antoine Greizman.

 

Exactly, and Babe Ruth, Johnny Unitas and Wilt Chamberlain suck too, because the leagues weren't as strong and all the players smoked cigarettes then! LOL.

 

When you're judging the all time great players, it's irrelevant to try to imagine how those players would do today, because A, it can't happen and B it's unfair to diminish them based on when they where born.

 

I dunno, spare me from Messi and Ronaldo fanboys....

I get that it is hard to compare players, in any sport, across history. Talent is certainly concentrating to heretofore unbelievable degrees, as is the accompanying professionalism of even the worst performers at any level. But each player is better conditioned, better fed and has astounding technology to back up their performances. But the desire to label the Greatest of All Time is a natural part of being a fan. So here we are.

The real question that is being asked is is a World Cup title a prerequisite for being considered as GOAT? Or to reframe it a bit: Have Messi and Ronaldo accomplished enough for their clubs to be in the conversation? And that's a valid question.

In the late 70s I subscribed to two English soccer mags -- Shoot/Goal, aimed at the kid market, and 4-4-2 a new mag for adults. Both ran lists of the greatest soccer players of all time. Pele was the acknowledged king and the big discussion seemed to be the race for second and that was between Beckenbauer and Cruyff. Normally I would ascribe two recent players so high on the list to recency bias, except that I think that players further back in our memories actually have the advantage. Pele exists as a warm memory for the bulk of people on this planet and we all know his accomplishments. Leo Messi? We all remember his PK miss vs Iceland. Those of us who've seen Messi play can list his failures while, for the most part, all we can talk about is the happy ghosts of Pele.

Sometime in the mid to late 80s, probably after Argentina's 86 World Cup win, Maradona got elevated to his current lofty status as either 1 or 1A in the rankings of greatest ever. That was roughly a decade after Beckenbauer/Cruyff were the 2 and 3. It's been thirty years, 3 decades, since we've had someone else challenge Pele/Maradona. What's it going to take for someone else, if not Messi or Ronaldo, to be considered GOAT? Messi and Ronaldo have been playing at peak levels for a very looong time, longer than either Zidane or the original Ronaldo.

 

You're ridiculous, they still deserve to be the greatest based on what they did in their own time. Pele destroyed who he had to play, and you can't know for sure what would have happened if Pele had been born in 1985, he might still have beaten Messi and Renaldo.

 

Why is it that you want to argue against players from older times? If it wasn't for them, the young guys might not have wanted to start playing?

 

Pele's place is at the top, based on what he did world wide at the highest levels for many years, and in all honesty, you can't be sure that if you could make him 25 years old today, he wouldn't dominate today. You can speculate that YOU think that, but you can't prove it.

 

You're equating the old UEFA Cup to today's Europa League.
True, the Europa League used to be called the UEFA Cup, but you need to read up on the history of the old UEFA Cup (pre-1998 Champions League era) to gain a better understanding and appreciation of how quality a tournament the UEFA Cup was when Maradona's Napoli won that tournament.
Ask yourself this: How did Napoli qualify for that 1988-89 UEFA Cup?
In the quarterfinals of that tournament they knocked out Juventus, then knocked out Bayern Munich in the semis. Look up how those two clubs qualified for the UEFA Cup?
Hint: The positions they finished in their domestic leagues in 1988 would qualify them for today's Champions League.
It can be argued that the old UEFA Cup was a slightly weaker version of today's Champions League... or you could turn it around and say today's Champions League is a slightly stronger version of the old UEFA Cup.
Either way, I think many of us veteran fans probably took the old UEFA Cup for granted. It was a very quality competition. A sort of Champions League-Lite. Nothing like today's watered down Europa League.

No doubt, athletes of today are bigger/faster/stronger... we hear it all the time.
But while you take the players from yesteryear and belittle them using today's standards, I go the other way:
• How would today's players perform in stadiums and on pitches that weren't as well maintained as today's multi-million dollar facilities are with their lavish locker rooms fitted with the latest in technology and weight training?
• Or were not pampered with the luxury of chartered flights and five-star hotels when playing away from home?
• Or smoked three packs a day because no one told them of the dangers cigarette smoking could cause and affect their performance?
• How dedicated would they be if they had to rely on a second income away from football because they were not making millions of dollars to play the sport they loved?
• How agile would they be if they had to wear uncomfortable kits made of wool and had to kick footballs that soaked up water on pitches that didn't having drainage systems?
Would today's players have survived such conditions?
Of course they would. You know why? Because players adapt to the cards they are dealt. They can handle situations where everyone is on equal footing.
In the end, talent would win out. Great players would be able to perform in any era as long as everyone receives equal access to the standards that are available at any given time.
It's unfair to judge players from the past using today's standards just as it's unfair to judge today's players on how well they would perform in the past under the conditions of yesteryear.
For this reason, it's almost impossible to compare players from different eras. The best we can do is compare how well players performed against their peers when the playing field was level for everyone at the time.
Don't hate. Appreciate!