[lucis]

Pelé is not seen as a great person in Brazil, from my perspective. People cherish him as the best soccer player in the world, but his personal life is mostly associated with bad stories.

He has two cases of not recognizing biological daughters, with one of those having died of cancer in 2006 [1]

1 - https://www.sportscasting.com/soccer-star-pele-refused-to-ac...

[philippejara]

As a brazillian, as I assume you also are, can't help but disagree. The ratio of good to bad is at most 9-1 in my experience, and I say this with no exaggeration. The only time I can remember people really talking shit about his personal was in the ~2013 protests when he called for protesters to watch the cup(?) or something instead of protest, his illegitimate daughter is mostly a footnote when talking about his personal life for better or for worse, the man's affair with xuxa is far more of a topic of discussion.

[wyclif]

Pelé certainly has a much better reputation than, say, Maradona.

[emondi]

Maradona was anti-establishment. Compare Pelé with Sócrates for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B3crates

[chucke]

Maradona was left-wing friendly, same as Sócrates, which is somehow seen more positively by the crowds. And while Sócrates gets credit for participating at rallies and protests and actually walking the walk, I've never seen Maradona rallying with the people, just benefitting from Cuban public health service.

Despite having been a politician, Pelé rarely discussed preferences, as he was aware of repercussions to his image. In that regard, he can be compared with Michael "republicans also buy sneakers too" Jordan.

[thanatropism]

s/the crowds/sports journos/

[baby]

If he was Brazilian he would have said football not soccer

[grardb]

This isn't necessarily true. I recently met someone from Brazil who used the word "soccer" when speaking English. As an American living in Europe who's met people from all over the world, I've noticed that it's actually quite common for people to do that if the English they've been exposed to most is American English, especially if that was the dialect they were formally taught. In the case of Brazil, I'm pretty sure that American English is what would be taught in most schools.

[wirrbel]

As a German the game is Fußball (literally: football), but I just regularly say soccer in english because I cannot be bothered into finding out what the people I converse with think that football is and soccer is understood by everyone to be association football, i.e. the sport where the only hand that can be used is t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶a̶d̶o̶n̶a̶ the hand of god.

[irrational]

I’m American and I say football instead of soccer (I use American Football for the other sport).

[zxexz]

Don’t you find that leads to unnecessary confusion? I use football if I’m out of the US, but in the US I’ve only heard people say soccer unless they’re being pretentious or recently moved here/on holiday.

[philippejara]

I myself end up using soccer at times due to reflex, a mixture of learning american english and never reading/talking about american football hence barely seeing the word football being used, given the vast majority of english speaking media is US-based. It's not as uncommon as it may initially seem.

[CyanBird]

Pleas don't pollute hackernews with useless comments

Thank you

[EL_Loco]

As a brazilian, I agree with you. Pretty much everybody I know likes Pelé.

[cca778]

> Pelé is not seen as a great person in Brazil, from my perspective

Your perspective is not the same of lots of sportswomen/men, public figures, traditional/web media outlets and a crowd of anonymous people praising him right now.

I wish brazilians would be less demanding with our idols.

[HeavyStorm]

Brazilian here. Disagree. The only recurrent joke about him is that he was a ad boy for Viagra.

[coliveira]

This is not even close to be true. Pele was not without his flaws, but every Brazilian appreciates his greatness in Football. It is even difficult to find a Brazilian who doesn't consider him the greatest player ever.

[ergocoder]

> People cherish him as the best soccer player in the world

Compared to R7 and Messi, Pele's records are mediocre.

[riffraff]

he won 3 world cups, and scored way more league goals compared to Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo scored more overall because they played a crapton of international games, which were not a thing before the Champions League had group stages.

Pelé's goal ratio is almost one per match, for 20 freaking years.

[ergocoder]

Playing for Santos... which was at best the 6th tier league.

Meanwhile Messi and Ronaldo are playing at the peak of football in tier-1 leagues where everyone involved spend millions of dollars (if not billions) on science and strategy competing with each other.

Are you implying football hasn't progressed at all since Pele stopped playing?

Football has progressed a lot in terms of science and strategy. Modern football is of course better than older football. Therefore, modern players are better than old players.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

That is not accurate.

Santos was an above-average team before he arrived. Same as napoli with Maradona. They took average teams to new heights.

In contrast, Messi arrived to a top team, and CR7 the same, with Real Madrid.

Besides, South America before the 80's was a soccer powerhouse. Premiership didn't even exist, and the league was a backwater for fishermen journeymen and player-coaches. It took a lot of time for the color TV (and TV broadcasting in general) to get going and tilt the balance for Europe.

If you played exhibition games you played against south american teams, and usually in south america, to make any money and to see any quality.

Penarol, Estudiantes La Plata, and a few others, massaccred regularly all of the big names of today.

It was only when super south american players started migrating to europe because TV money arrived, that things changed.

[candybar]

> Santos was an above-average team before he arrived. Same as napoli with Maradona. They took average teams to new heights.

Santos won Campeonato Paulista in 1955, the season before Pele's debut and also in 1956, when Pele debuted towards the end the season. Santos finished second in 1957 when Pele became a regular. They were a dominant team but being a consistently dominant team takes more than one all-time player.

This isn't like Napoli with Maradona, who were a mid-table team when Maradona joined that had never won the top-flight league.

[soneca]

Brazil won 3 of 4 world cups during Pele time. All Brazilian players played on Brazilian teams. Brazilian league at the time had the best players in the world. Everytime Santos played European teams they crushed them.

Pele was playing in the strongest league in the world at the time.

Check this thread for some data:

https://twitter.com/avisualgame/status/1608551387176259585?s...

[coliveira]

That completely misses the point and is even racist. Santos was the best team in Brazil during his time, and Brazil had the best Football in the world during that era. So much so that when Pele was playing in the Brazilian national team people in other teams didn't have a clue of how to match him.

It is easy to say this nowadays because European teams brought lots of, not only Brazilians, but other south Americans to play in Europe, and now Football is much more leveled between these two regions.

[alvah]

How can you possibly extract racism from the parent post? Even if you're actively looking for it? Throwing that word around like confetti makes it less useful where it is deserved.

[coliveira]

I will spell it out for you. Black guy playing in a brown country: bad. White guys playing in European countries: best of the world. DONE

[iainmerrick]

But don’t forget also that football is literally a different game now. The rules around offside, back-passing to the goalie and handball have all been tweaked over the years, and modern strategies have evolved partly in response to that. Fouls are policed much more strictly now than in the past (in the high-profile leagues, at least).

I’ll grant you that modern players are likely much fitter, and players from past eras would struggle if thrown into today’s fast-paced game. But today’s players would similarly struggle if forced to play with old heavy shoes, irregular balls, bumpy pitch, etc.

[ergocoder]

That's fair, though I still think R7 and Messi would have faired much better given superior training (physical, mental, and strategy) and nutrition they have had over their careers.

[bilbo0s]

Point is, that they would not have gotten that.

You give all three the exact same training, messed up pitch, and rules, CR7 and Messi don't touch him.

[chucke]

That statement does not make justice to the time Pelé played in.

Pelé came of age at a time where the best brazilian players played in Brazil. Some of those legends he played alongside in the selecção, from Garrincha, Amarildo, Vavá, Djalma Santos, all the way to Rivelino, Tostão, Jairzinho, were playing for rival teams in Brazil. Tier-1 league in the 60s. He rose above them all internally.

Pelé scored his 1000th goal at 28. As prolific as Messi and Ronaldo were, they're not a match. Compare goal-by-games differential.

Football has progressed a lot in terms of science and strategy. But it also regressed. For instance, compare the competitiveness of the champions league circa 2000, and during the heyday of Messi-Ronaldo. Back then, there were absolute CL classics in the group stages. Later on, thanks to Platini's election as UEFA president, there was a flood of low market eastern european teams in the group stages, which contributed to goals-per-edition being broken several times by Ronaldo and Messi. Consider as well that both broke goalscoring records in Spain where, not counting Atletico Madrid, every other team just played in a "separate lower division". Those would probably never happen had they played in the Premier league. Bottom line, they're all-time greats, but throwing the competitiveness argument to the table is disingenuous at best.

Put Pelé in real perspective. Back then, careers didn't last long, nor had a lot of impact. Besides playing in Brazil, his Santos team played all around the world in highly competitive "friendlies" 58-62, as everybody wanted a piece of Pelé. Think about the impact of such games when it comes to selling the game worldwide. He was 17-21 years old. He's the single 3-time WC winner there is. And he won them all against all-time greats. He beat Gre-no-li in 58. Beckenbauer. Mueller. Eusébio. Bobby Charlton. Lev Yashin. Rivera. He was the face of the WC 70, the first color-televised WC, and the one credited with spreading football worldwide. And then Pelé played well into his late 30s in the USA, credited for introducing the sport to the american audience. When he was gone, football was the only true world sport, and a profit machine in the making. Today it's a multi-million dollar industry. Current players sell their brands using football. Pelé is football.

[rurp]

What's the point of comparing players from different eras if you don't control for the environment? Obviously soccer players today are better trained and conditioned than they were 50 years ago. Same for football players, and baseball players, etc. If that's the standard, then the GOAT will almost always be whoever the best modern player is, which isn't a very interesting discussion.

[doktrin]

You are approaching this discussion as a rational human being. Classic rookie mistake.

[thatcat]

Lebron James is averaging same points per game as Wilt Chamberlain. Even though modern players are "better" their opponents are better too and it seems to kind of average out.

[anonymousDan]

Things were very different in those days in terms of relative league strength. Santos one the world club championship a couple of times back then for example.

[candybar]

> scored way more league goals compared to Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The Brazilian league being third-rate, like some others have mentioned, isn't accurate, but it's also not comparable to today's La Liga and EPL, which draw from a global talent pool, not mostly limited to a single country. Scoring was generally higher back then as well.

> he won 3 world cups

Winning the World Cup is far more about luck and circumstances than individual brilliance. The main thing you can say about this is that Pele's longevity allowed him to be part of two dominant Brazil teams 12 years apart, but then again Messi had a longer peak.

[shbooms]

not GP but I do agree to a point that the records of Messi/CR7 at the club level are more impressive than Pele's.

Pele played all his club games in Brazil (18 seasons with Santos) and the US (2 seasons with the Cosmos) where the level of competition was far lower than the likes of the Spanish/English/French leagues (plus the Champions League) that Messi/CR7 play in.

I don't think it's as simple as that though since Messi/CR7 also play with much more talented teammates than Pele did so that factors into things as well.

> Pelé's goal ratio is almost one per match, for 20 freaking years.

Just looking at goal ratio, Messi is pretty comprable here. According to Wikipedia Pele's goal ratio is .93/match over 20 seasons while Messi's is .87/match over 17.5 seasons.

[coliveira]

You don't know what was Brazilian club football in the 60s. I guarantee you that was not second rate as you imply.

[kamaal]

>>Compared to R7 and Messi, Pele's records are mediocre.

Not a football fan, but is it even fair to compare these people from two different eras?

I'm an Indian, and cricket is very big here. The game of cricket has fundamentally changed due to insane physical fitness and coaching standards today. There is still a lot of way to go compared to others sports, but compared to only a generation back, the fitness standards are just bonkers today. I guess the kind of fitness national level team players had, is something any body today can have in a good gym in any major Indian city. Players like Andre Russel, Joe Root and even Virat Kohli just feel several notches high up in performance compared to any player merely a generation before them.

Its just what it is, Comparing the whole package available to players back then and now its completely unfair in my opinion.

[ergocoder]

If it's not fair, then it's also not fair to say one is the best in world.

[EL_Loco]

You don't compare athletes from different eras directly against one another. You compare how dominant and ahead of their peers they were during their respective eras.

[chirau]

Please provide such records.

Please note that there was no Balon d'Or during Pele's years.

[ergocoder]

If there was Ballon d'or, he wouldn't have won because he played for Santos, which was a low tier league.

Even Emilio Martinez (a world cup winner) who defended that South America's football was competitive (in response to Mbappe's recent comment) chooses to play for Aston Villa.

By a south america player's standard, even Aston Villa is still better than the whole South America's leagues. Think about it.

[igsomething]

There was Ballon d'or but it was exclusively awarded to European players. South American football was on par with European football during Pele era. By 1970 CONMEBOL had won more world cups than UEFA (5 vs 4) and more Intercontinental Cups (6 vs 5). South American players did not have any need to play in European football at the time. This scenario started to change in the early 80s, and then Bosman law killed not only South American football but also lower European leagues.

[coliveira]

You are comparing football leagues in the 60s with current teams. That's a big mistake. Brazilian clubs were among the best in the world during that time. And, moreover, European leagues were not as good as they are today (there was much less money at the time). So your mistake as with many others is to think that playing in Santos was worse than playing for Barcelona or PSG. That's not the case, Santos was as good or better than any team in Europe.

[kitd]

No. Thats because the Premier league's pay is off the scale compared to South American leagues. Even lower PL teams have World Cup winners playing for them.

[askesum]

Santos was regarded as the world best club in the sixties