Edson Arantes to Nascimento, where to start? OK, let me start with something new. OK, yes, I've heard the inferior opposition argument. But not to the point where you get to say "Pelé never played against many of his teammates". Brazil had state leagues. This did not mean there were no interstate games, it meant there was a crowded schedule. Pelé regularly played close to or over 100 games a year between São Paulo state league, Rio-São Paulo Cup, the Brazilian championship (which did exist back then, just in a different format) and Libertadores. hmmm... Could it be diving was not as widespread back then as it is now... maybe it started say... after Pelé started getting hacked out of every game? He would have been fine in 66 if he went down ever time someone hit him instead of trying to stay on his feet. BTW, substitutions were not allowed for any reason until 1970 What bluedaddy said. Five, none of which are black. I find that funny just because of the original article that generated this thread. Pelé was not just skill and flair, he was not just an athlete, he was a brilliant soccer mind. He was arguably the most intelligent soccer player ever. Exhibit A being his play in the 1970 World Cup - his mind is miles ahead of anyone else. Granted, Pelé's greatness is arguable, but why do people insist on saying players today are better? Player's today are raised and trained in different environments. You can't take Pelé and put him in today's game, you'd have to kidnap him at birth, raise him in Brazil today and train him with the best methods today (he lifted weights back then before many other players started to) and then you could determine whether he'd make it in today's game or not. Frankly, considering how intelligent a player he was, I have no doubt he'd be great today too. Thanks to Dan Loney for his post, much more eloquent and concise than mine. I will correct one thing though: Pelé was also hacked out of WC 1962, playing only one or two games before being replaced by Amarildo due to injury. Santos regularly beat European teams when they faced them and remember, the times it counted (home and away series for the intercontinental cup) Santos came back with the trophy. It's easy to say, Pelé's stats were inflated due to the era he played in and where he played (but then again, who come close???) It's much harder to argue that Pelé was not the greatest player ever.
Brazil didn't stink that much, simple as that. Pele was amazing in the '59 WC, scoring six goals against Wales, France and Sweden. In '62 he played only two games, and scored once against Mexico. In '66 he played two games, scoring once against Bulgaria and Brazil was out after the first round. In '70 he was back to his magic and scored four goals Czechoslovakia, Romania and Italy. It's fair to say that out of the four World Cups he participated in he had an impact in only two of them. I'm not disputing his international career, which was pretty damn good but let's be honest. If he played his club ball in Europe his numbers would be different. You can't compare the Brazilian league against the major European leagues.
Theres alot of crap in that article to tell you the truth. The bottom line is that Pele was a good player who had lots of flair and ability but never showed it in a top league, except in the WC where he had 11 other team mates who were considered the best in their position. Ill be willing to be anything that a "good" player could have accomplished what Pele did on those WC teams with that much talent around him. That still doesnt mean that Pele didnt contribute but that he may not have dont what he did by himself. Maradona on the other hand(no pun intented) did alot of his magic with only average to above average players next to him(at least on Arg). He couldnt rely on them too much as Pele could just sit back and watch others get the ball to him easily. Maradona also played in a more defensive time were being an offensive player was much harder. He carried more of a load on his team and still came out with the same result and made a heck of alot more amazing plays. If it wasnt for his drug abuse and off the field problems he probably couldve won 3 WC just like Pele except without the othe 10 superstars.
If I'm not mistaken he played all 3 games in 66 scoring in two. Today? No. Back then? Why not? Botafogo and Santos could challenge Real Madrid for best club in the world and the best players in Brazil, played in Brazil.
No, he only played against Bulgaria and Portugal. He was rested again Hungary. He scored against Bulgaria. Botafogo and Santos and that's about it from Brazil. There were a lot more top teams in Europe at the time.
Fair enough, I was under the impression Hungary played an integral part in hacking Pelé out of the Cup. If you want to nit-pick (top teams? not at the level of Real Madrid), Brazil also had good to excellent teams in Flamengo, Fluminense, Corinthians and others and a brilliant team in Cruzeiro which would begin to challenge Santos' supremacy in the early 70s and later win the Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup. Europe had Real Madrid and then several other good-excellent clubs, same in Brazil, Santos (and Botafogo, though they peaked late 50s) and lots of other good-excellent clubs. The idea Brazil had a weak league is nonsense.
Sure, there were more top teams in Europe, a continent, than in Brazil, a country. If we accept the theory that Euro teams are as a rule better than their South American equivalents, then Pele would have had better teammates on his European squad, so the point should be equally moot. So Real Madrid in 1960 would have had trouble stopping him, fine - but whoever finished eighteenth in La Liga that year would have been cut to as many pieces as any Brazilian squad. (EDIT - Ombak knocked this out of the park already, and corrected my statement about his performance in the 1962 Cup. Oh, okay, so Pele only had two magnificent World Cups...twelve years apart. Yeah, that happens all the time. Pele sucks.) (ANOTHER EDIT - anyway, great Euro teams only play each other in Champions League/European Cup tournaments, so it isn't like anyone plays Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Juventus and Barry Town in one league, week in and week out. If Euros get credit for being in Europe, then Pele gets credit for Copa Libertadores.) As for international numbers - Pele didn't have the benefit today's European players do, of all those qualifiers against post-Cold War dog and pony shows. San Marino? Andorra? And Luxembourg was playing international ball since the 1920's or earlier, so don't say that Euros of the past didn't have cake games. Those of us who are in love with modern *ahem* "nutrition" and "training methods" - go ahead and imagine Pele on performance enhancing drugs. He'd have scored 300 international goals and won eight World Cups. Maradona had to cheat to stay great (I have no idea how clean he was in 1986, but his record afterwards speaks for itself). Rio Ferdinand has to cheat (allegedly) in order to be a passable defender in the Premiership.
Re: Re: Rush: "Pele Overrated Because He's Black" Who grew you? You ARE a different species. This thread started off as satire, turned foul, and has become an utter disgrace, in particular due to comments, the essence of ignorance, like these. You might...MIGHT...be able to argue that Pele was not the greatest player everto play the game; you might... But to submit that he was, in fact, not as good as everyone remembers is to (strains to hold back from leaping into cyberspace and ripping Ian's freaking head off his mutant other-species neck)...strain credibility. There; I said it nicely without abandoning my pact of giving up at least physical non-violence. The violence of my language; well, that, I'm still working on...its stupidity in the world such as this that makes one want to turn to the Dark Side...
great? hmmmm.... okay then... could you excuse me? (shouting) hey nobody ask ben reilly for his baseball opinion!
You're just parading your ingorance on this subject. It's a pity. Oh, well. Dom was arguably the greatest fielding CF in the history of the game. The numbers and eyewitnesses back this up. Lifetime range 2.92* (way above his great fielder brother(s), who also agreed that Dom was the greatest CF in the history of the game); league range during those years: 2.29. Tack that on to his .298 lifetime batting average, will you? Offesne: -6 times scored over 110 runs -7 times in the top ten in Runs, Hits, and SBs -3 times in the top ten in BA and OBP Unfortunately, he lost three key seasons to WW2, but even so definitely belongs in the HOF. See: http://z.lee28.tripod.com/sbnsforgottenintime/id11.html _________________ edit: (in case nobody goes to that site): __________________ * 9 * (A + PO)/ Inn
Re: Re: Re: Rush: "Pele Overrated Because He's Black" That's exactly what I am arguing, that he was not the greatest player ever. That's what overrated means. Top 10 player, probably. Greatest ever, no. I might even argue that he's not the greatest Brazilian of all-time.
NEWSFLASH: he would not even be in the top 5 RIGHT NOW among defensive CF's in an 11 year career (which basically amounts to 10 full seasons: he had more errors (89) than home runs (87) hit .298 averaged about 62 RBI, 44 extra base hits and 75 walks per season was an outstanding baserunner, but only a mediocre base stealer (62%) to his credit, he did average over 100 runs scored per season NOW does this guy belong in the hall of fame... NO! - go water down use of the word 'great' some more...
You're again parading your extreme ignorance. It's an ugly thing to see for anyone who understands the game. Errors (his fielding % was not below avg.) are nowhere near as important as range. He's without any doubt in the top 5 greatest fielding CFers of all time.
Ben, Ben, Ben. Everyone knows that Say Hey Willie Mays not only belted 660 HRs, he also covered the full 455 feet of the massive Polo Grounds centerfield like no other outfielder before or since. If you're a Boston homer I'll cut you some slack. Dom was a good ballplayer, certainly not as good as Joe (hasn't made the HOF yet. maybe he deserves it) but he shouldn't even be permitted to sniff Willie's farts. Let's get real. http://www.baseballhistorian.com/html/willie_mays_-_legends.htm
Dom was as good a fielder as Mays, a better fielder than JoeD (who was great fielder himself), but obviously not nearly as great a HITTER as Mays or Joe. However, Dom basically was the usual leadoff hitter for the AL in the All-Star game. If that isn't great, then you're coming up with a new definition. The only knock against Dom is that he didn't have power. Leadoff hitters aren't expected to. He scored a ton of runs and saved a ton of hits. Any team would kill for him. The bottom line is that either you blame Dom for World War 2 or you put him in the HOF.
i am a CARDINALS fan which automatically means i know the game you have jumped to a conclusion - i did not assign a value judgement to his errors - i merely pointed out that he had more errors than home runs which can be taken however you wish and errors don't matter at all huh? tell that to the pitcher... i realize these things are subjective, but IMO he wasn't any better than willie mays, tris speaker, kirby puckett, devon white or curt flood and as for today's CF's... jim edmonds, ken griffey, bernie williams, carlos beltran, torii hunter, ichiro suzuki and andruw jones bill james lists dom as the 24th best CF of all time, between amos otis and brett butler... hardly HOF territory maybe you should accuse the baseball writers of parading their ignorance by never giving DD more than 11.3% of their HOF vote - seems like you are the one barking up the tree pal
Limbaugh sell you some of his stash, Hunter? Try not to confuse today's gap between the top Euroleagues and the rest of the world with the more evenly balanced era of Pele's career. Bear in mind that the gap exists today because UEFA money buys talent from all over the world. The European leagues back then pretty much had only European players- the same players the Selecao was bitchslapping at those World Cups. Try to imagine Brasil's clubs with all those players from Brasil who now ply their trade in Europe, and imagine Europe without them or any other non-European players, and you'll have a clearer idea of the talent breakdown at that time.
That's because he didn't play as many games. Again, if you want to keep him out of the HOF, then you may as well blame WW2 on him.