NasirTimothy
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I think you really need to research his career properly. First of all, Pele was universally acknowledged as the best player in the 1970 World Cup, even though he was past his prime (he was only 29 but had already played over 1000 matches). He demonstrated a great variety of attacking skills and produced iconic moments that are replayed over and over again. Watch the full games, they’re all available.Pele played on teams that were far ahead of their peers, especially with Brazil on the NT stage. This was a guy who would be benched and his team still winning world cups. Now yes, I haven’t seen as many pele matches as Messi or Ronaldo matches for sure, but pele was playing on the equivalent of the dream team compared to the other NT of the time. And at no point was he the best player of those world cups. And I’d argue the pressure of the world cups only grew more in stature after pele hence why maradona pipes him on GOAT lists despite pele having more world cups
It turned out to be a great team but no one thought so before the tournament. Pele was deemed to be too old and a lot of the Brazilian journalists thought they’d be humiliated like in 66. If they were a ‘dream team’ and so ‘far ahead of everyone else’, then why was there this widespread belief? Because they weren’t actually a ‘dream team’ at all, it’s their performance at the tournament that made them iconic, not your retrospective notion that they were ‘far ahead of everyone else’. There were many other great teams around like England (the defending champions), West Germany (featuring Beckenbauer, Muller and Vogts) and Italy (featuring the great Riva and Facchetti).
In 1958, Pele was the best young player in the tournament, similar to Mbappe in 2018, but even younger and better. He scored 6 goals as a 17 year old, including perhaps the greatest ever individual goal scored in a World Cup final. Plus that team remains the only South American side to win a WC hosted in Europe.
Brazil did not win the WC before Pele came into the team and they did not win it again for 24 years after he retired. Yes, they won it in 62 when Pele got injured, but that was in South America and they had the confidence of already being champions. Also, he played exceptionally well before he got injured, scoring one of his best ever WC goals against Mexico.