Football is a team sport. Individual players don’t win trophies, teams do. Going back to Zidane, the great French footballer won a WC trophy, but no serious observer of the game would argue that Zidane (or Bobby Moore or Paul Pogba, both of whose teams won WC trophies) was a superior footballer to Lionel Messi.
Nobody argued Zidane was a greater player than Messi. His contribution to France winning the World Cup in 98 is not as important as Maradona and Pele's contributions to their teams winning it. Zidane simply scored 2 headers in the final and missed several crucial games due to a red card.
What we are arguing instead is that Pele and Maradona are greater players than Messi.
But what’s not debatable is that from the age of 30 on in their respective careers, Messi blows Pele away. We can still to this day confidently say that Messi at 33 is the greatest footballer on the planet (some might say Ronaldo, to be fair) and going very strong but when Pele hit 31 he had easily been eclipsed by Muller, Cruyff and Beckenbauer and was a no longer a factor at the highest level of football.
What they did after the age of 30 is irrelevant. Pele had 12 years at the top, that's more than enough.
From what I understand, your whole argument as to why you consider Messi has surpassed Pele is cause he has maintained his form after the age of 30 and Pele hasn't. This means you completely neglect the fact that Pele has had immense success both at club and at international level, while Messi hasn't.
As I've already mentioned, Messi and other modern players can have a longer career simply cause of modern benefits, such as better training, nutrition and "juices", and the fact that this isn't such a rough era in terms of defense.
It's not like Pele's skill declined after the age of 30, it's just about his body not being the same. Plus he wasn't washed up or something, he still played a a good level. And if you look at this season, Messi has declined himself.
Messi has elevated those around him for years. He has done this with Barcelona so frequently that its almost a cliche. The fact his Argentinian side hasnt been great at a WC shouldnt be held against him. So many view the Champions league as where the worlds best football is played, Fergie being one of them so I cant see how his National team not competing there being significant given his Champions league records. Messi has absolutely helped elevate his Barcelona team, there are countless times he was the difference.
That Barcelona team would have won most of its trophies even without Messi.
From 2008 to 2012, Spain won 2 Euros and a World Cup. No national team has ever had such a successful period. And that Spain team was build mostly on the backbone of Barcelona players.
Messi has 4 Champions League trophies to his CV. Out of those 4:
- one was won in 2006, when Ronaldinho was the main man and Messi had little contribution.
- two were in 2009 and 2011 (unfortunately against us), with Xavi and Iniesta. orchestrating the midfield.
- one in 2015, with Iniesta, Messi and Neymar.
Without them, Messi hasn't been able to do anything. On the other hand, the likes of Pele and Maradona put small teams on the map, and they didn't need superstars around them to do that. For example, Napoli barely escaped relegation before Maradona came along.
Yes, those players have national tournaments that their team's effort resulted in a trophy, but not all of those you listed had great performances, and only a few of them had "iconic" performances.
Those "few" are the ones we are comparing Messi with.
Messi has had some good/great performances as well, but simply his team hasnt won the trophy so he doesnt make it to that list.
Please list those "great performances", cause I don't know any with Argentina.
Lets not forget he won the golden ball in 2014, but im sure you wont "accept" that as a deserved trophy because it doesnt fit in your narrative.
A trophy which he did not deserve, it was more of a consolation prize.
....Winning a world cup cant ever be decided by a single player.....
Tell that to Pele, Garrincha, Maradona, Romario, Ronaldo.
And by the way, those players you listed, while having more success with their national teams, none of them even have 1/4 of the success Messi has had with club football, none of them have close to his individual records, individual trophies, etc. So in the end, it more than evens out. Except for Pele maybe, but thats a whole different argument.
Pele has had success both at club and at international level.
Maradona too. Even CR7 has had a better career than Messi.
Messi's inability to be a difference maker in a final with Argentina does weight pretty heavily against him, considering he played four
We can big up CL all we want but the WC still remains by far the biggest and most prestigious tournament in the sport. The biggest stage of all. And Messi just doesn't have the record to stand up against Pelé or Maradona. We can talk consistency all we want, but if you had to win one game with your life on the line and you had the choice of one of Messi, Pelé or Maradona to be on your team, you wouldn't pick Messi
Well said.
I thought we went over this already, this is a terrible argument because it's not backed by anything other than a "because I said so". If that's the best you can come up with to prove that modern players would be injured most of the time if they played back in the day then maybe you shouldn't bring it up in the first place, let alone bring it back up after it's already been proven to be absurd.
Proven to be absurd by whoom, you ? It's just your opinion.
That you preface it by saying that the guy from that era who was of almost identical height and weight to Messi and was probably tackled more than most "had great longevity" isn't doing your argument much good either.
(and no Pele and the rest didn't learn to cope with those tackles in some magical way so that they could prevent impact injures like no modern player could ever do either)
Pele was 2-3 inches taller and more well built as well.
DM came to Barca, was not able to win a title there but still won some cups and had to deal with the culture shock, disease and a horribly broken ankle.
It's also worth mentioning that Maradona never played an entire season (due to hepatitis and that ankle you mentioned), that's why he couldn't win a title
I can pretty easily. Cristiano Ronaldo has not scored a goal or registered an assist in the knockout rounds of the World Cup, despite playing in four tournaments. That doesn’t sound like the greatest player of all time to me......Piers Morgan is wrong, as usual
Messi also hasn't scored a goal in the KO stage. Neither of them can top Pele and Maradona.
