1. Lionel Messi
2. Diego Armando Maradona
3. Pele
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4. Ronaldo De Lima
5. Zinedine Zidane
6. Cristiano Ronaldo
2. Diego Armando Maradona
3. Pele
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4. Ronaldo De Lima
5. Zinedine Zidane
6. Cristiano Ronaldo
Lionel Messi is OFFICIALLY the Greatest Player of all Time (CONFIRMED OFFICIAL)
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Ashwin @AR87 are here to discuss two "on-paper" not great results for United over the last week, but are there positive signs of progress despite what the ex-United pundits are saying?
They also preview the big game Europa League game against Lyon.
Yeah, i think people need to realize how far Argentina has fallen as a country since the 80s so they ended up looking for a national hero for decades, and found that hero in Diego Maradona.
In the 30s,40s,50s, and 60s Argentina had the quality of life and GDP of France and Netherlands, and now in those 2 items they are barely ahead of their southamerican neighbors, which are poor countries with underwhelming quality of life.
Their currency (argentinian peso) is super devaluated, and the worst part is that the country isn't precisely cheap, at least in countries like Croatia,Hungary,Slovakia,Poland, where the wages aren't high, the prices of essential stuff is kinda cheap so you can access to a decent quality of life despite not making much money.
My grandpa (RIP) visited Argentina in the 40s and 50s, did it again in the early 2000s, and basically recognized how the country regressed in almost every aspect you can ever imagine : from finances to security and infrastructure.
Maradona appeared in a perfect moment as the national hero Argentina needed, to give them a bit of national pride that was being hampered by the country's shortcomings.
You have to compare to what it was available back then.
Ronaldo and Messi should be sent to past to play in crap pitches, with referees allowing anything, without modern nutrition, and without modern PEDs and sports science.
Messi in the past probably wouldn't be a footballer, cause his HGH treatment wasn't available yet in Pele times.
There is no point comparing old players with modern players, while forgetting all the tools modern players have in their favor that were not available 50 years ago.
I can't say i'm stronger than Achilles just because i can shot him with a modern shotgun that wasn't available in his times.
And your example of modern generals is non-sense, modern generals would piss their pants if they had to be present at a war fighting with swords and horses, rather than be on a safe room just giving orders and shooting enemies with a drone or home missile.
This is a great post, especially last paragraph. In 60's Pele was GOAT and will be forever best player of that era. And Garrincha was the best dribbler at that time. But comparing them to current era is just not fair. Tactics changed, medicine advancements, nutrition, cryotherapy and so on. Compare ball of 50's and now. Compare boots players have now to 50's. Quality of pitch and so on.
Whether it’s crap pitches or medicine or what else, the truth is that’s how things are. It’s not a question of who had it easier, it’s a question of who’s the better player.
Messi has definitely a better fitness than Pele/Maradona. At Messi’s age, Pele was playing in the US (where the league was even worse), and Maradona was retired.
He is fitter than they ever were, has a faster acceleration, is better technically, is better tactically. If we compare players of different eras, the modern ones are so much better it is not even funny.
And still you can't take out the context of modern medicine, modern nutrition, PEDS, perfect pitches, and referees that give everything to talented players to run the show for spectacle.
Sorry, but you just can forget that as if it doesn't mean much in the outcome.
If we compare who is better, than no, there is no need for context. Whoever is better, is better. If we compare who is greater, then sure, it is quite likely that Pele in modern era would have been better than Ronaldo, and Maradona in modern era would have been (near) as good as Messi.
I do not see how a player can be better than Messi until humans get genetically modified. Maybe a Messi with more leadership/charisma (which he has recently developed but didn’t have at his peak), but that’s it. He is as good as a Homo sapiens can be at football IMO.
Messi probably wouldn't be a footballer in Pele era cause HGH treatment was still undeveloped.
Pele with modern nutrition, modern medicine could both easily play until their mid 30s.
I don’t disagree with any of this. I disagree with people saying that Pele was better than Messi. It is a total nonsense to say so.
Was he greater? I don’t know, probably roughly the same level for 1a and 1b, put them in whatever order.
And it's a definite that this culture of lists and metrics was an import from your cousins across the pond...
Imagine how good Maradona could have been if he was pumped full of growth hormones at an early age.
Yeah he'd struggle to break the likes of QPR, let alone play in the PL.
Nope. As you said, Messi is better. He is better because he was born in 1987. In 30 years time the best player in the world of 2052 is virtually guaranteed to be better than Messi, for the same reasons Messi is better than Pelé and Maradona
got beat by Saudi Arabia. Name me the players you would want in our United starting line up
Just because we are always under the notion that as time progresses everything improves, doesn't mean that it is correct.
Is Messi better than Maradona was from 35 years ago, yes in my opinion, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is true just because it was over 30 years ago and football has improved.
Is Michael Jordan greater than LeBron James, the answer is yes. Was Michael Jordan better than LeBron James, the answer is also yes even though Jordan's peak ended in 1998 and LeBron is still playing 25 years later.
Time doesn't always equal improvement and therefore players of today are always better than the past. It doesn't work like that.
Is Messi better than Maradona was from 35 years ago, yes in my opinion, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is true just because it was over 30 years ago and football has improved.
Is Michael Jordan greater than LeBron James, the answer is yes. Was Michael Jordan better than LeBron James, the answer is also yes even though Jordan's peak ended in 1998 and LeBron is still playing 25 years later.
Time doesn't always equal improvement and therefore players of today are always better than the past. It doesn't work like that.
I thought it was pretty obvious that both Pele and Maradona were more athletic than Messi. Maradona had more natural power in his quads and posterior chain, while Pele was a supreme all-round athlete where any of the measures - his top speed, his acceleration, his leap, his agility - would stand out even today.
I'm not clear what you mean by 'fitness', but if it's his cardiovascular capacity, then it's an irrelevant point as he spends the vast majority of every game barely breaking into a jog. That's not a criticism, just the statistical reality of the last 12 years of his career. And I'm afraid it does undermine the whole "players from olden days couldn't cut it in the modern game because they aren't fit enough" argument.
If it's his longevity, then yes he beats both. Again with the cross-generational comparisons, we aren't comparing like for like. If both Pele and Maradona were effectively kicked out of the game in their 20s, it's no surprise they weren't able to sustain that level through their 30s. And obviously in Maradona's case his off-the-field issues compounded that further. But the treatment of players has shifted hugely over the decades and is exactly why we can't just make a straight longevity comparison by adding up the years they were at 'the top level' for.
no chance
Wouldn't mind the entire team bar Otamendi and the fullbacks
“Your” cousins? You don’t actually know where I’m from, bud
I'm sure you have relations across a pond somewhere
I'm sure you have relations across a pond somewhere
It’s none of your business where I have relations you pervert!
Messi just won the WC with players from Brighton, Sevilla, Lyon, Aston Villa etc. They played with their hearts on their sleeves and left everything on the pitch. Against a France side who have tons of youth and talent. One of the most impressive WC wins of all time. And Messi just, I have no words. I still can't believe this is real. Like a dream. And also a camera team has followed him during the WC, its gonna be unreal.
Why not? It's practically guaranteed in sports that someone will come later who will either match or exceed those who have come before. It always happens.
I think the improvement in quality gets lower with any generation. There are physical limits after all.
For example, I think the main difference in top players now vs 10-15 years ago is that players now are more tactically astute. The sports science and medicine will improve a bit, but not as much as from Pele to Messi, for example. Top players already eat like monks, never smoke or drink alcohol, train twice per day with specialized regimes after training. While we might expect some tiny improvements there, I do not think it is going to be significant.
The changes in trainings and tactics have been already done. The main difference is that now everyone is comfortable with the ball while just 15 years ago the defenders thought that ball is a bomb. So I expect the main change to be that the bottom level of players to improve, but the top ones probably not.
Or maybe I am wrong, and 30 years from now will say that Messi is better despite that there will be clearly better players than him.
NB: what I am saying holds only if players do not get genetically modified and PEDs continue being banned.
I don't think this is a good comparison at all. The gap between training, nutrition, and medicine in the NBA from the 1990s to the 2010s is much smaller than the gap between the 1960s and the 2010s in football. The basketball and court are the same from the 90s to 2010s unlike the advances in the ball and boots and field conditions in football from the 60s to today. And the NBA league structure with drafts is exactly the same which is very different from the league structure in the 80s when Maradona played to today post-Bosman and with the Champions league and clubs with excessive amounts of money to build superteams. Rules in the NBA from 90s to 10s are also basically the same unlike the major changes in physical challenges allowed in football from Pelé -Maradona eras to today.
So the Jordan-James comparison isn't the same as comparing Messi to Pelé. A more accurate comparison would be to look at the structural advantages that Tom Brady has compared to NFL quarterbacks of the 1960s-70s where you also have major training, nutrition and medical advances from the 60s to 10s, the helmet, field, and ball have greatly improved, the rules have changed to protect quarterbacks much more in Brady's era than in the 60s. Tom Brady never would have come close to playing into his 40s had he played in the 1960s and it's very likely the best 1960s quarterbacks would have drastically improved careers, statistics and longevity-wise, had they played in the 2010s.
Really good post.
The only thing I would add, that while I will always be ‘Jordan is the greatest’, it is very unclear if he was better than James. James is bigger and stronger, he is a better playmaker, passes far better, and shoots better, especially from behind the ark. Jordan was a better iso scorer though.
Statistically, LeBron beats Jordan in pretty much everything except points per match. More points (both in regular and playoffs), more rebounds and assists (both in regular and playoffs, both in total and averaged per game). He has the longevity factor, and he would have won as many rings if it wasn’t for KD teaming up with the Warriors. I know that it is an if, but honestly you cannot blame him for losing against a team that had the second and third best player in the league, in addition to two other all stars. And he lost one cause the second and third best players in his team got injured, leaving fecking Dellavadova as his second option.
I know a few ifs. Jordan is the greatest though, no doubt there. But LeBron might have been better. And as you well said, the difference in time there was much smaller than between Pele and Messi, the pitches and the ball were the same, and the Americans were always ahead in sports science, easily a decade before Europeans.
ALvarez is a City benchwarmer. Looked super slow when he came on. MacAliister has been in England for ages. Which of their players would come in and replace which United players from their positions? I'm asking because we are barely a top 4 side ourselves
Well, isn't that what reasonable people are doing?
Nobody presumably claims that Messi has no business being in the GOAT discussion (but Pelé and Maradona does).
I have been of the opinion for years that there is a small number of players that - based on various factors - stand out as the very greatest in the game. Not one, but a small group.
And that opinion is indeed based on the fact that comparing directly across the eras is very difficult (not least if people start to bring sheer numbers into it - which is absurd to begin with).
That sounds reasonable enough to me.
For me the answer will be Messi, but I'm not gonna laugh if anyone says that Maradona is as great. I'll laugh at the suggestion of C. Ronaldo, though.
You're confusing achievements with greatness - and you can't achieve what's not available on your era. For example Pele didn't get to play in the Champions League (or European Cup) because the Brazilian government passed legislation to stop him moving abroad. Maradona played in an era when you had to win the league to be in it, not just finish in the top four. Also neither player benefited from playing in super clubs - (the Madrid or Barcelona or PSG) where their teams have 40 - 50x the budget of their competitors. Maradona was playing for a relatively average Napoli side competing against the rich teams in the north like Inter, Juve and Milan who were stacked with talent. Ronaldo had a 15 year career playing for a $1Bn squad where he'd realistically compete against Barcelona for the title and maybe 3-4 other teams in Europe for the CL. Or played in Serie A with no domestic competition and could save himself for 3-4 meaningful knockout games in the CL.
Regardless, the World Cup is the pinnacle and your boy has not done anything meaningful to be considered the GOAT.
Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed that.
See above
I think comparing across eras is extremely but if one had to do it, given people can't stop themselves, you have to compare keeping the context of the times in mind. If Messi/ next Messi is better merely because of better sports science, superclubs, sports psychology, tactics, favorable refs etc then that has no actual merit. If you're bothering to compare then it has to he done relative to the era the respective players existed in.
So no guarantee the next great player will be better than those that came before them just like Messi isn't better on account of that. My take anyway.
They're not. The hand-check rule is one of the catalyst for the league being dominated by guards and small forwards today, as opposed to traditional big men. One of the main talking points in that comparison is how Jordan would have averaged 50 ppg with no hand-checks.
On the other hand, Jordan played with the illegal defence rule, which means the type of defences opponents could throw at him was more limited and encouraged iso plays. Jordan never had to attack a zone defence for example
I'll concede that he's undoubtably the best ever player, regardless of how much more favorable press and officiating he's received over the years. All those tongues up his backside for years couldn't have hurt either.
Threads like this should be a automatically removed, its clearly a wind up and gonna cause lots of arguments as its impossible to say.
Also when Jordan played (and until the early 2000s) referees still called travels. The NBA changed drastically after Spurs & Pistons slugged out games ending with scores like 68-71.