In June, Lionel Messi and his Barcelona team won their fourth Champions League (European Soccer Club Cup) final together. Messi was the deciding factor in the game against the Italian side, Juventus and immediately comparisons were made to the all time greats, Pele and Maradona. Many fans and pundits alike began to ask, is Messi the best of all time? Despite Messi’s unquestionable ability that title can go to only one player, Diego Armado Maradona.
The usual candidates for the best player all time are the Brazilian Pele, the Argentine Maradona and his compatriot Messi. All three players were dominant in their respective leagues and time periods. All of them have an uncountable amount of trophies and goals. However, at the end of the day Maradona wins out for the best ever.
In terms of goals scored, Maradona lags behind Messi and Pele. Pele scored an incomprehensible one thousand goals in his career. Likewise, Messi has scored an astonishing four hundred goals so far. When compared to these two legends, Maradona’s mere hundred goals seems poor.
However, one must take into account the players’ different positions. Pele was a striker and his chief objective was to score goals. Likewise, Messi plays as a false nine, a form of striker, and is also expected to score goals. In contrast, Maradona played as an attacking midfielder and as such had other responsibilities than scoring goals. His main role was to set up his teammates and apply pressure on the opposition’s defenders with his speed and dribbling.
One must also take into account the league and era in which each player played. In his prime in the 1960s, Pele played in the Brazilian league for Santos. At that time, and still today, the Brazilian managers put a greater emphasis on attacking than defending. As a result games were often high scoring, which inflates Pele’s stats. Messi plays in the Spanish league in which the games are balanced between attack and defense, as managers often put their emphasis on the midfield. In contrast, Maradona played for the Italian team Napoli during his prime in the mid to late 1980s. At that time the Italian league was considered to be the most competitive league in the world, and managers put their priority in defense. This lead to low scoring games and deflates Maradona’s stats.
Finally, one must look at the trophies that the players have won. The most important trophy is the World Cup, of which Pele won two, Maradona one, and Messi none. By this logic Pele would be considered the best player, but further analysis is required. Pele won the World Cup with Brazil in 1958 and 1970. Both teams are widely considered among the best teams ever, and included many other legends. For example, Brazil’s second striker Rivelino scored more goals than Pele in the 1970 World Cup. By contrast, Maradona almost singlehandedly won the World Cup for Argentina in 1986. There were no other household names on his team and he was the sole driving force behind their victory, scoring five goals and winning the player of the tournament award. Steven Pye of the Guardian said, “ It may be a little simplistic to state that the man single-handedly won the World Cup for his country, but that is what it felt like at the time. Think of Mexico 86 and Maradona always springs to mind.”
While Messi and Pele are both wildly good players, Maradona takes the title of the best player of all time. In the 1986 World Cup he was unstoppable for Argentina and he dominated the Italian league throughout the 1980s. Despite being a cocaine addict, cheat, and tax evader Maradona has survived to the age of fifty. Even today his name evokes emotions in soccer fans all over the world. Steven Pye said, “I may have detested the little genius at the time and wasted Blu-Tack on him, but if I’m ever asked who I think is the greatest footballer ever I always answer Diego Maradona.”
