Cristiano Ronaldo should go down as top 5-6 players of all time

[NasirTimothy]

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

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.

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.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

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

There's so much wrong with this post that it's probably best to just ignore it - but the bit in bold stands out.

Brazil weren't anywhere near the equivalent of the Dream Team. Just one example: check out the '70 group stage match between Brazil and the defending champions, England. That's a prime example of a match where an extremely good side were beaten by another extremely good side * that a) had the margins on their side and b) had that little bit of magic when it mattered the most.

Brazil’s tireless number nine Tostao burst into the England penalty area, bustling through and nutmegging Moore, before cutting back and dropping an inch-perfect cross at the feet of Pele, who transformed the game with two simple, but crucial, touches.

He controlled the cross instantly with his first touch, before weighting a perfect pass to Jairzinho, who controlled with one touch before smashing an unstoppable effort past the helpless Banks and into the top corner.

Spoiler: Pelé setting up Jairzinho

* So much so, in fact, that it's considered one of the best WC matches ever.

 

[Daysleeper]

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.

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.

I appreciate your thoughts and I’ll definitely look into more full pele matches. I do think the competition is much harder in the last 25 years than it was in his era but I appreciate your thoughts

 

[Chesterlestreet]

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.

They also had Garrincha, it has to be said.

But, as I've said before, to use the overall strength and diversity of the team against Pelé (as some do) is just beyond idiotic. Pelé's legacy is hardly diminished by the fact that Garrincha was immense - the "logic" on display there is baffling.

 

[NasirTimothy]

And yet you rate Di Stefano higher than Ronaldo? I swear you can't make this up.

Spain under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, sought to impose his idea of a homogenous Spanish state on the people. In the fall out of the Spanish civil war, all signs of regional nationalism, including language, flag and other signs of separatism were banned throughout Spain. Regions such as the Catalonia and the Basque country were oppressed by Franco's Madrid-domiciled forces. As a bastion of Catalan culture, Barcelona represented the opposite of what Franco wished to achieve. The Catalan flag was banned and clubs were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. This forced Barcelona to change its name from Futbol Club Barcelona to Club de Fútbol Barcelona, and to remove the Catalan flag from its crest.

Being the capital club, Real Madrid obviously benefitted from preferential treatment from the Spanish government. Given Franco's ideology, if there was to be a dominant force in Spanish football, you can be sure as hell Franco would want it to be Castilian royal rather than Catalan separatist. During the 1950s, under the direction of Santiago Bernabeu, who himself has close ties to Franco, Real were essentially bankrolled by the Spanish government while embarking on a strategy of signing world class players from abroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galácticos#Origins


You have the cheek to say that Ronaldo benefitted from playing at a 'super club', when before the era of European oligarchs, Middle Eastern state-funded oil money, and Chinese tycoons, Di Stefano enjoyed playing with a star-studded side stacked with talents who were personally handpicked by a man with an obsession for assembling a super team? During the years when Di Stefano was in his prime, Real benefitted from an uneven playing field with a luxury of riches that was unprecedented. Playing field are a lot more even and far less lopsided in the modern era. Real no longer monopolise the biggest talents in world football, due to the likes of PSG, City, Barca, United, Chelsea, and etc. who could rival them in terms of financial muscle with regards to transfer fees and wages.

When Di Stefano won the Ballon d'Or in 1959, out of top 10 players, 4 of them were for playing at Real!

1 Alfredo Di Stéfano Real Madrid Spain 80
2 Raymond Kopa Real Madrid/Reims France 42
3 John Charles Juventus Wales 24
4 Luis Suárez Barcelona Spain 22
5 Agne Simonsson Örgryte IS Sweden 20
6 Lajos Tichy Budapest Honvéd Hungary 18
7 Ferenc Puskás Real Madrid Hungary 16
8 Francisco Gento Real Madrid Spain 12
9 Helmut Rahn 1. FC Köln West Germany 11
10 Horst Szymaniak Karlsruher SC West Germany 8

*Kopa had just returned to Reims in the summer of 1959, however he was nominated for his performances for Real in the 1958-59 season.

The Real Madrid team that Di Stefano played in was literally the very definition of a superb club. The likes of Bale, Benzema, Marcelo, Ramos, Modric, Kroos, Alonso were/are great players who were world class in their primes. However, none of them were as highly rated as the likes of Kopa, Puskas and Gento were all regarded as some of the all-time greats. Kopa won the Ballon d'Or in 1958; finished runner-up in 1959, and third in 1956 and 1957. He is frequently cited as the third best French footballer of all-time after Platini and Zidane. And because I know you love to bring up the World Cup, Kopa was voted in the 1958 World Cup team of the tournament. Puskas scored over 800 official senior goals in his career, and is one of the best and most prolific forwards of all time. He was Ballon d'Or runner-up in 1960, and also won the Golden Ball for best performer in the 1954 World Cup. Gento had an amazingly successful career that span nearly two decades with tons of trophies at the highest level - 12 La Liga titles and 6 European Cups - whilst being an integral key member in most of them.

When Kopa returned to Reims in 1959, guess who Real bought as his replacement? Didi. The same freaking Didi who won the 1958 World Cup Golden Ball ahead of the likes of Pele, Garrincha and record-holder of most goals in a single World Cup tournament; Fontaine with 13 Let's not forget the likes of Hector Rial and Santamaria too.

This post is very long, but I understand because I often used to post messages that were far too long as well. But I’ll address the general points:

Firstly, the chief reason for rating DiStefano above Ronaldo is the fact that he was much more involved in the overall play than CR is. He was total football before the phrase was coined (actually so were 50s Hungary, 40s Austria etc etc but that’s another matter). Check out the 1960 final, which Fergie was always gushing over, it’s freely available online and a terrific watch. He plays all over the pitch. For a player to operate that way and still score so many goals is mind boggling.

Moreover, there is truth in what you say re Franco obviously, but ADS’s career doesn’t just hinge on Madrid (though that’s the clear crown jewel), there’s also success with River Plate, Argentina and Millonarios, not to mention a great scoring record with Spain.

Re the superteams, you’re missing the point. Yes Real Madrid went all out for the best players in a kind of early ‘Galacticos’ policy, but it was restricted because you didn’t have the post-Bosman free movement that you have now.

So you had to play with mostly Spanish players. For example, in Madrid’s first European Cup win, every single player was Spanish apart from DiStefano, and many of them were born in Madrid and the surrounding areas.

Now you can have a team with 11 extremely expensive and brilliant foreigners if you so desire, it’s a different ball game altogether.

 

[NasirTimothy]

I appreciate your thoughts and I’ll definitely look into more full pele matches. I do think the competition is much harder in the last 25 years than it was in his era but I appreciate your thoughts

I respect your open-mindedness. It’s all just opinions after all but I think you’d enjoy watching a lot of those games

 

[Daysleeper]

I respect your open-mindedness. It’s all just opinions after all but I think you’d enjoy watching a lot of those games

I respect how civil you’ve been which is such a change from the Ronaldo vs Messi threads haha

but you’ve obviously done your research and I will go down a rabbit hole of full matches. Cheers!

 

[Krakenzero]

It's been a great discussion so far, and a lot of points that I wanted to make were already brought by some other posters. I just wanted to add an analysis of some players and their stats in the biggest tournaments:

WORLD CUP
Pelé: 4 appearances, 3 wins (all time record). 14 matches played, 12 goals. 2 finals played, 3 goals.
Ronaldo: 3 appearances, 1 win (we won't count 1994 as he didn't play any game). 19 matches, 15 goals. 2 finals, 2 goals.
Müller: 2 apps, 1 win. 13 matches, 14 goals. 1 final, 1 goal.
Romario: 2 apps, 1 win. 8 matches, 5 goals. 1 final, no goals.
Kempes: 3 apps, 1 win. 18 matches, 6 goals. 1 final, 2 goals.
Batistuta: 3 apps, 0 wins. 12 matches, 10 goals. No finals.
Messi: 4 apps, 0 wins. 19 matches, 6 goals. 1 final, no goals.
Eusebio: 1 app, 0 wins. 6 matches, 9 goals. No finals.
C.Ronaldo: 4 apps, 0 wins. 17 matches, 7 goals. No finals.

EURO / COPA AMERICA
Pelé: 1 app, 0 wins. 6 matches, 8 goals.
Ronaldo: 2 apps, 2 wins. 12 matches, 10 goals.
Müller: 1 app, 1 win. 2 matches, 4 goals.
Romario: 3 apps, 2 wins. 14 matches, 7 goals.
Kempes: 1 app, 0 wins. 4 matches, 3 goals.
Batistuta: 3 apps, 2 wins. 16 goals, 13 matches.
Messi: 5 apps, 0 wins. 27 matches, 9 goals.
Eusebio: 0 apps.
C.Ronaldo: 4 apps, 1 win. 21 matches, 9 goals.

CHAMPIONS / LIBERTADORES
Pelé: 3 apps, 2 wins. 15 matches, 17 goals.
Ronaldo: 9 apps, 0 wins. 60 matches, 22 goals.
Müller: 10 apps, 3 wins. 35 matches, 34 goals.
Messi: 17 apps, 4 wins. 149 matches, 120 goals.
C.Ronaldo: 19 apps, 5 wins. 180 matches, 135 goals.

 

[VanKenny]

Some serious underrating of CR7 on this thread. Reading this thread one would think he was a portuguese Muller.

People are actually separating his career and saying things like "from 2008-2013 he was a top 5 player but after that he became just an elite poacher". Who other player besides Messi has the luxury to have his career divided into 3 five-year periods and all of them being a contender for a top 10 player?

He may not have Cruyff's left footed extremely accurate passes or Maradona's ability to leave 3 defenders on their asses with one touch, but those two could never dream of scoring the type of goals that CR7 scored against elite oposition in an era where the difference between the bad players and the great ones is much slimmer due to all the advances in football.


CR7 may not be the creator that other players are, but at his prime, he was a hybryd version of a tricky skillfull extremely pacey winger and an elite scorer. Think R10 and Muller combined. Maybe he couldnt control the game from the midfield like other greats, but those other greats couldnt finish or kill the games the way CR7 can at his opponent's area.

CR7 most definitely has the ability to create his own goal scoring opportunities as well. Late 2010's CR7 wasnt just standing next to the keeper waiting for crosses, he could and would often beat a defender to get himself a shooting chance. Thats worth its weight in gold in today's game.

And most importantly, when talking about the greatest of all time standards, longevity is just as important as peak ability. CR7 may not get close to some ridiculous seasons that players like Messi or Maradona had, but he's not that far off. But most imporantly, Maradona couldnt dream of being as impactful in the game of football as CR7 has been for almost 15 years in a row now, at the absolute best level of football.


I dont like talking about arbitrary stuff like the teams they played for, the defenders they played against, the trophies available at the time they played etc because then it just becomes a huge snowball of very long arguments and discussions around things that actually shouldnt matter that much. They all played for the best teams and they all played against the best teams. Individual performances rated according to the standards of football of their current times matter much more IMO.

 

[calodo2003]

Guy’s going to have all the accolades he currently has & will be the leader in NT goals scored in short order.

Safe to say he is top 6.

 

[PSV]

The fact he's even caught up to Pele in official goals playing in an era averaging up to a goal less per match is crazy on its own.

I don't think it's fair to put as much emphasis, as a lot of the other posters have, on the international cups. In the end it's 5/6-game cups where your birth nationality decides your chance of doing well.

I would put Messi and Ronaldo a head above the rest. I have doubts whether we'll witness something like this ever again. Enjoy the closing years, and don't worry too much about which one of the two is/has been the best, we'll be discussing that for decades following their retirements.

 

[mshnsh]

Pele was a second striker, he didn't need to be a playmaker or dribbler like Messi. He just needed to get it don't and he did at every level in dominant fashion from a productivity standpoint. The most accomplished player ever easily.

Btw Pele was double footed which Messi is not, he was a much better athlete than Messi, he could actually head the ball and the likes.

I'm sure you did not actually watch Pele play. If you did, than it is such a long time ago that I'm sure your memory magnifies his greatness.

I personally did not watch Pele play so ordinarily I wouldn't compare him to anyone. However, going by how you describe him, I'd take Messi over Pele easily. A player who is one of the very best play makers, goalscorers, and dribbles in history all rolled into one over a player who is an athlete first and foremost.

 

[VanKenny]

I'm sure you did not actually watch Pele play. If you did, than it is such a long time ago that I'm sure your memory magnifies his greatness.

I personally did not watch Pele play so ordinarily I wouldn't compare him to anyone. However, going by how you describe him, I'd take Messi over Pele easily. A player who is one of the very best play makers, goalscorers, and dribbles in history all rolled into one over a player who is an athlete first and foremost.

Yeah, his take is a bit ridiculous.

An even better Messi playing on the 50's and 60's... can you imagine that type of player?

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I'm sure you did not actually watch Pele play. If you did, than it is such a long time ago that I'm sure your memory magnifies his greatness.

I personally did not watch Pele play so ordinarily I wouldn't compare him to anyone. However, going by how you describe him, I'd take Messi over Pele easily. A player who is one of the very best play makers, goalscorers, and dribbles in history all rolled into one over a player who is an athlete first and foremost.

Brandishing Pele as an athlete first and foremost is so wide off the mark.

 

[RooneyLegend]

I'm sure you did not actually watch Pele play. If you did, than it is such a long time ago that I'm sure your memory magnifies his greatness.

I personally did not watch Pele play so ordinarily I wouldn't compare him to anyone. However, going by how you describe him, I'd take Messi over Pele easily. A player who is one of the very best play makers, goalscorers, and dribbles in history all rolled into one over a player who is an athlete first and foremost.

Pele was double footed, could hit them from 30 yards with either foot, he could dribble, had impossible vision, the likes never ever seen on a football pitch again, was a fantastic athlete to boot. The 70 final is amazing, his marker basically marked him out of the game with a combination of ridiculous fouling and good defending, he managed to get a goal and 2 assists. Shouldve had a couple more goals really, the ref blew the whistle for half time as he scored.

There's alot of his world cup games available, just have a watch. Who you prefer is up to anyone, my point was they are different players with different qualities. There are things Pele could do that Messi couldn't and vice versa. It's to me a question of what a team needs as opposed to who's better. Just case Messi could pass better (from a technical standpoint cause Pele had better vision than him imo) dribble better it doesn't make him a better player.

 

[Calidad]

Don't really care about who the GOAT is, but I wish people would stop calling Ronaldo 'Fat Ronaldo'. A little bit of me dies inside every time I see it.

Don't @ me

I have to agree.

 

[mshnsh]

Pele was double footed, could hit them from 30 yards with either foot, he could dribble, had impossible vision, the likes never ever seen on a football pitch again, was a fantastic athlete to boot. The 70 final is amazing, his marker basically marked him out of the game with a combination of ridiculous fouling and good defending, he managed to get a goal and 2 assists. Shouldve had a couple more goals really, the ref blew the whistle for half time as he scored.

There's alot of his world cup games available, just have a watch. Who you prefer is up to anyone, my point was they are different players with different qualities. There are things Pele could do that Messi couldn't and vice versa. It's to me a question of what a team needs as opposed to who's better. Just case Messi could pass better (from a technical standpoint cause Pele had better vision than him imo) dribble better it doesn't make him a better player.

Let's agree to disagree. Comparisons across eras is difficult. Worse pitches vs smooth carpets. Professional, well trained, athletic opponents vs part timers and poorly trained opponents.