Brazil and Portugal aren’t really equal though are they? Such a flawed argument.
He was really magnificent in world Cup 1962, wasn't he?
Played one game, which was still enough time for him to get MOTM an assist and score one of the all time great world cup goals:
Yep. This is why it is best to have a pool of GOAT and agree on players who are part of this pool. From there on, it is personal preference/biases.
Then Gotze is also the GOAT.
The world cup is just part of a player's career (a very small part).
Those defenders look absolutely rubbish and the guy running along side him is lazy af.
Hmmm. Barca won La Liga fairly easily and almost went undefeated for the season. Messi was top scorer and tied for most assists. That's what you call a mare?
A very small part? Importance > Duration...
True, but Pele has so many other achievements besides the world cup.
Its 3 weeks every 4 years. The true foundation of football is at the club level, where the likes of Ronaldo and Messi have dominated more than anyone before them.
He's definitely one of the all time greats for sure.
They also have a stronger foundation (consistent club and NT money, training facilities, nutrition, medical science, data analysis) than any players previous.
You could also easily invert that and say Messi and Ronaldo would've run circles around the defenders of the past since all the factors you cited (facilities, nutrition, data analysis etc) weren't available then. Unfortunately these are all just thought experiments. All we can go by is what the various players have actually done during their careers. The only variable that has changed is the level of competition from then to now since the football talent pool has been fully internationalized, whereas it was more regional in those days. More players from disparate backgrounds today makes the competition much more difficult than in the past.
The problem is, this is not logical. If Player X is GOAT, then Player X should be able to dominate in any setting, bar having absolutely horrid teammates. Ronaldo Lima dominated in every team he played in, whether in Spain, Italy or for his country.
There's also a difference in culture.
Defenders of the past were given far more liberty in regards to rough defending. Neither Messi nor Ronaldo ever faced a high pressure tournament game with someone like Gentile on them getting away with all sorts of dark arts the entire match that would get called in favor of the offensive player in today's world.
Brazilian Ronaldo was good for very short periods that were interrupted by injury and each time he returned he wasn't quite as good. CR7 and Messi were very good for a protracted period of time that is unmatched by any other player. They have been turning in goals such as what Ronaldo did for one year at Barca in the mid 90s, for an entire decade.
That's undeniable. We kind of understand why CR7 hasn't won the World Cup because Portugal are garbage, but why isn't Messi banging in the goals for Argentina against Bosnia or Iran?
True and I wouldn't penalize Maradona for not going to bigger clubs. His play however wasn't at a high level for long enough compared with what the present two have done since the mid 2000s.
That's definitely a knock on Messi. He has been surrounded by a lot of world class talent during his time with Argentina and yet they have generally flattered to deceive. Ronaldo's Portugal have done just as well at the international level during his time there, which is surprising given the stature disparity between Argentina and Portugal.
Modern sports science, training and recovery methods, more protection from referees, etc., have all contributed to prolonging the careers of players. If you recall Ronaldo Lima's era, defenders would as a default hack at your legs or go for dangerous slide tackles with reckless abandon. If either CR7 or Messi had started playing 10 years earlier, I doubt their careers would have been so long. This is why I don't really like to look at longevity of careers given how much football has changed since 2000.
I prefer looking at individual stats (mainly goals scored) than how many trophies they have, since the latter is more of a team accomplishment. Both of them have averaged 47 goals since 2006 which is absolutely mindboggling given that its very rare for a player in any of the big leagues to score that many in a single year much less average that many over 13 seasons.
Well its not exactly unmatched.
My only issue is the players of the distant past played during an era when football was distinctly homogenous and regional, whereas over the past decade it has become truly international with a talent pool in the big European leagues that reflects every corner of the planet, which results in a much higher level of competition. Its a bit like differentiating modern Tennis with the pre-Open era. The quality of the participants has steadily improved over time to where its very difficult to compare players from the past with the present.
The flip side to that is that the current system concentrates so much talent in so few clubs it doesn't offer the competition that 1980-90s Serie A offered (which is what differentiates it from an individualistic sport like tennis in your example).
Im not convinced it was really like this culturally across the top leagues and it comes off a bit as a blanket statement but maybe you can educate me. What major examples can you give of big talents signing for and elevating non champions or less fancied clubs in the 80s? At the top of my head I guess Maradona could be an obvious choice because of his Napoli move (and Barcelona weren't champions when he signed for them). Platini joined Juventus as champions and Gullit and Marco Van Basten joined Milan as champs. Lineker joined Barcelona as champions as well. Just a few examples
I should take that back and re-phrase because of the foreigner limit for instance 3 per club in Serie A.
nope lol. he wasn't 17 when he scored in the final vs argentina in brazil 2014 world cup.
International football is a very poor argument when voting for who is the greatest. There has been brilliant players with shit teams that never stand a chance of winning it (Ronaldo and Messi come to mind).
no its not a poor argument even if they had shit teams.like I said before the world cup is held every 4 years.
Maradona in 86?
But you can't reliably do it, you need to be in a special kind of form to drag a bad team to greatness. There is a lot of revisionism regarding Euro 2016, Portugal were far from great but still played like a team, they were resilient and Nani was their best player. Argentina are a tire fire, they were generally bad in 2014 and Messi was the main reason they reached the final, even though he wasn't great himself.
