[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.

[iainmerrick]

I think I shouldn’t have written that second paragraph above, it just obscured the main point I wanted to make: direct comparison is literally impossible because the rules of the game are different now. Not just the equipment or the strategy, but the rule book.

[bag_boy]

Messi would but Ronaldo not so much.

[ergocoder]

The reality is they didn't receive the same training. CR7 and Messi have received 10x training.

In the real world, we don't evaluate people relative to how better training they have received. So, better training is not an evaluation criteria.

[philippejara]

>In the real world, we don't evaluate people relative to how better training they have received.

In the real world people mostly still hold pelé and maradona as the best football players to ever get on field so i'm not sure that's accurate.

[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.