The years of 1962 and 1963 were not only the greatest in Pelé’s career but the single greatest period any footballer has ever had. During that time, Pelé played in 11 different tournaments for Santos and Brazil, winning ten. He picked up winner’s medals in the World Cup, two Copa Libertadores, two Intercontinental Cups, two Brazilian Cups, a Paulista state championship and a Rio-São Paulo trophy. The only title he missed out on was the 1963 Paulista, which Santos lost to Palmeiras after being forced to play several games using reserves. Over that period, Pelé played in 79 competitive matches and scored 106 goals. At one point, between August and November 1962, he got his name on the scoresheet in 20 consecutive games. Including friendlies, he scored 172 goals in 124 matches between January 1961 and December 1962. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...upremacy-in-the-era-of-lionel-messi-wcqxtnv75
A couple of links on the same theme. The Sky Sports article includes interesting observations about the so-called friendlies Santos played in Europe. The BBC named their Top 10 footballers of all time and invited visitors to their website to place them in order. The same ten players were in FourFourTwo's Top 10 in 2017. https://www.skysports.com/football/...ing-the-myths-surrounding-the-brazilian-great https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54543144
At some places a generous take. Clubs paid heavy money to play against Pele, and it is not in their interest to kick him out, nor would the other clubs facing Pele in 'Tour' he happy about this. Santos embarked on a few European tours, and of course it was not the plan to be after four games depleted of the stars. On which I base this? The native club and national teams playing against him. I'm not saying they just allowed him to score all those goals, though, and this were fake contests (generally speaking). Of course they wanted to give it a good game and winning against the world champions (in 1963) is always nice.
the quotes below are from one of the articles from peterhrt's links. 'The existing footage reveals some robust treatment for Santos' star man. Most defenders went into these matches with a point to prove. Pele was the target, the man to stop. Everyone wanted to test themselves against the legend. When Santos went to Plymouth in 1973, there were 37,639 packed into Home Park for a game that one Argyle player described as their cup final. Pele was just hoping not to be kicked as much as usual.'
My rankings: 1. Pele 2. Messi 3. Maradona 4. Ronaldo9 5. Cruyff 6. Garrincha 7. Best 8. Ronaldinho 9. Zico 10. Zidane
Lionel Messi 2nd half of 14/15 29 goals+10 assists in 21 league appearances 1.38 goals per game 0.47 assists per game 5 shots avg per match 5.0 dribbles avg per match 2.46 key pass avg per match Whoscored average 9.0 Ronaldinho 05/06+ Robert lewandowski 19/20= He was a phantom Arguably the highest ever level in history @Dearman You underrated his 14/15 CL quite a bit(mentioning Platini 84/85 EC and van basten 88/89 EC but not him which is quite absurd) http://xtrahistory.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-greatest-individual-performer-in.html?m=1 In the KO stages he completed 55 dribbles in 7 KO matches at a rate of 7.8 dribbles per match His KO opponents were Manchester City (Elo rank 10) PSG(Elo rank 8) Bayern Munich (Elo rank 4) Juventus (Elo rank 3) http://elofootball.com/index.php?season=2014-2015#club All champions of their respective domestic leagues that season It seems(I can't think of anything else)that you penalise him for "Only" scoring 2 goals in the KO stages But he made 4 assists and had Some quality pre assists in the SF vs Bayern Munich and final vs Juventus Overall he had a direct involvement in around 10 goals in the KO stages combined with legendary all round play whilst exclusively playing against heavyweights No way guys like platini are near this( let alone van basten ) He was a wing playmaker(his starting position at least)but I do recall him playing in a deeper role than the one he adopted under guardiola (and Villanova) This is reflected in the KO stages with his 20 accurate long balls(2.85 per game) 8 accurate through balls(1.1 per game) 14 key passes(2 per game) https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/9...ns-League-2014-2015-Manchester-City-Barcelona https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/9...eague-2014-2015-Barcelona-Paris-Saint-Germain https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/9...eague-2014-2015-Paris-Saint-Germain-Barcelona https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/9...ions-League-2014-2015-Bayern-Munich-Barcelona https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/9...Champions-League-2014-2015-Juventus-Barcelona Platini 84/85 scored 5 of his 7 EC goals against Ilves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Mestaruussarja Finished 3rd place in the Finnish league Grasshoppers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984–85_Nationalliga_A Finishing 6th place in the Swiss league 1 great assist in the QF vs SK Slavia Praha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984–85_Czechoslovak_First_League 3rd place in the Czech league One super performance in the SF vs Bordeaux(champions of ligue 1) with 2goals+1 assist and great creativity against a reasonably good side 1 penalty in the final vs Liverpool Lionel Messi lays waste against most of these teams(Grasshopper,Ilves,slavia Prague lol) Scoring considerably more goals whilst requiring less penalties It would be a massacre(double digits) Not to mention an insane amount of dribbling runs,Key passes,throughballs How Platini 84/85 EC is a candidate before Even Messi 17/18 CL is a shocker( let alone 14/15) Messis 14/15 CL groupstage performance was also legendary(he played PSG twice in the groupstage scoring twice whilst being awarded with a 8.5 avg rating over those 2 GS encounters) Against the other teams in the groupstage (apoel and Ajax) he scored 7 goals+1 assists in 4 matches I think you try too hard to incorporate older players to give some air of respectability to this list I mean is it inconceivable that between Messi and Ronaldo they have 7 or 8 of the top ten highest rated international club seasons of all time? 75 - Cristiano Ronaldo has been directly involved in 75 goals in 77 Champions League knockout appearances (61 goals, 14 assists). Phenom. pic.twitter.com/NzHcWtj9ex— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) March 12, 2019 Lionel Messi scored 51 champions league goals before he was 25 years old (2011/12) You simply don't achieve this by having only 1 CL season rated higher as van basten or Platini
I think there's an awful lot of truth here. Pele came along at the time when the west was beating itself up over segregation in US etc, & Pele became the darling of the media. Great great player though, of course. Also I find it strange that Brazil, for all the beauty of its game, has such a pristine reputation when Uruguay & Argentina are vilified so. Was Brazil not involved in battle of Berne, even more violent battle of Bordeaux with Czechs in 1938, Holland 1974? It always seems when things not going well for them Brazilian football is perfectly capable of showing a less beautiful side to its game.