If Messi can torch 5 or 6 defenders and he's not a "system player", then how come he can't do that with Argentina and win them trophies ?!?
I never said R9 had Messi's longevity, I was just comparing them prime vs prime.
Pele also won the World Cup and performed brilliantly in 58, especially when you consider the fact that he was just 17 at the time.
First of all, the fact that Muller scored more goals does not make him the better player.
And second of all, Pele was still the best player on that Brazil squad.
Pele was also the best player in his era by a considerable distance, so I don't see the point you are trying to make.
That may be so, but in many ways football was harder back then. The rules did not protect offensive players, there weren't even yellow and red cards up until the 1970 World Cup. The pitches and equipment was also a lot worse, the training and nutrition not as good etc.
Did you ever consider the fact that rough and muddy pitches, with heavier balls and boots made it a lot harder to control the ball and play at such a fast pace ?!
I respect your perspective, but since we can't really prove any of these points one way or the other I'll just give you my opinion, which is based solely on my observation. To be fair, I should reveal my bias: I am old enough to have watched Pele live and revere him as I revere Muhammad Ali as a boxer and Kareem Abdul Jabbar as a basketball player -- and both, all three actually -- as men who transcended sport. Again just my opinion, but whereas we can honor Messi as a football genius (and rank him highly, wherever that may be), Pele eclipses Messi off the pitch and every other footballer I can think who has ever lived.
With that, here are my responses to each of your points.
I dismiss as absurd the claim that Messi is a player.
R9 prime v Messi prime? I'd still give the edge to Messi but will concede that it's close.
Pele was brilliant at the 58 World Cup. Messi was 19 when he made his WC debut in 2006 and made a notably positive, but limited, impact. The Argentina NT coach at the time was heavily criticized for not using Messi , who by that age was already astonishing in his brilliance.
No, Muller was not a better player than Pele in 1970, but he was the better player in the 1970 World Cup. And after 1970 (Muller was born 5 years after Pele), Muller blew Pele away for the next 5 seasons. As for the Brazil national team, which I watched with my dad (we're from Mexico), all the talk was about whether Pele would get a third WC trophy, but I can tell with first hand knowledge it was Jairzinho that everyone was talking about. By 1970, Pele had taken on iconic status but as brilliant as he was, Jairzinho had become Brazil's most feared player. But if you were to ask me who was the leader of the 1970 Brazil team, it was clearly Pele.
What do you mean "by his era"? The entire span of years 1958 and 1970? Then of course Pele. By near the end of that era, Jairzinho. And at the beginning of that era, Garrincha. And at the end of his era, 1970, Muller had eclipsed Pele as a goal scorer, but it is true that scoring goals isn't everything.
Football "harder" in the 1960s than in the 2010s? The pitches were muddier, the ball was heavier, defenders were more brutish, training and nutritional regimens aren't what they are today, and of course players themselves are paid vastly more today and live in greater comfort. But todays opponents run on the same pitch as Messi, use the same ball and everything that Messi gets to enjoy his opponents get to enjoy as well. Well, Messi's opponents don't earn what he earn, but at some point it doesn't matter how much more you take home. So it's true we can't know how Pele might have performed in 2015 any more than can know how Messi might have performed in 1970. Football is pretty hard today. The scouting and tactical preparation opponents have in their quiver vastly exceeds that of the 1960s. Opposing defenders are vastly better athletes and are much better on the ball than they were in that era, except for a few like Beckenbauer. Messi went up against Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic in their prime and destroyed them. I'd like to know the names of defenders in the 1960s whom Messi would be unable to cope with.
Don't get me wrong. Pele is beyond all debate one of the greatest professional athletes of all time in any sport. He, along with Ali and Jabbar, are humanitarians of the highest order, the Abraham Lincolns of sport in terms of what they accomplished in sport and in life for the people. When Maradona recently died I knew we lost a legend of the game, but when Pele passes away I will be sick to my stomach with grief that i know won't be the case when Messi goes (I doubt I will see that day), but if the question is who between Pele and Messi was the greater footballer, 5 or 6 years I would have said Pele, but now it simply is Messi.