One isn't the same as the other 3. C Ronaldo is in a tier below with Zidane, Brazillian Ronaldo, Cruyff, Platini, Ronaldinho, Van Basten , Beckenbauer.
Rank Maradona, Messi, Pele and C.Ronaldo
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Pele number 1, don't really care about the others.
Ronaldo is a great goal scorer, the most goals. What I find even more great is Messi is something like 30-40 goals behind him having played around 150 less games, having much more assists, playing much deeper on the pitch, adding much more to the team and never playing as a striker. Never mind the records of 73 goals in 1 season and 93 in a calendar year.
When you sit back watch gameplay of Messi from 2008 to 2020 and analyse his stats. There really is no one better. Anyone without bias knows Messi is the greatest ever.
I meant of his time, I think Maradona was a better dribbler, Garrincha possibly, maybe Best. But I can't think of anyone better in dribbling the past 15 years. And Messi is better at other aspects of the game than others who might be very slightly better at dribbling.
True about fitness but isn’t a huge part of that the support and new science?
In terms of pitches, the quality of pitches today versus even 30 years ago are miles apart. So again, I think overall modern footballers have so many advantages over players of eras gone by, particularly attacking players.
In 1970s, messi would be mostly playing on mud pitches , would get kicked/punched/pushed off the ball very easy (watch footage of Maradonna in 1982 World Cup), he wouldn’t have access to all the modern equipment, diet,science.
I always wonder if the likes of Best, Maradonna and Gazza (genius players) had of gotten more support personally or there was more support available, if their lives might have been different. Addiction issues should never be held against a person and to be honest there’s no guarantee it would make a difference. I do agree that part of the brilliance of these players with demons, was how explosive and unique they were.
I personally don’t like the white washed professionals of today. It’s like models, projecting an image that’s false. Give me a Maradonna everyday over a PR led player that we don’t really know anything authentic about.
The game is more forgiving for athletes then footballers , players who follow instructions for tactics then those with natural talent. Thats an observation, not a criticism but I think it means we get less diverse characters.!
Mickey Quinn, Wimbledon , Matt Le Tissier, does a top manager take a risk on a very erratic Eric cantona ? Imagine the abuse a cantona would get today for what he did, he be hounded out of England. Any players from the drinking culture don’t stand a chance either.
Again, I think it’s great in many ways how the sport has gone , but I miss a lot of the drama and characters. I miss spurs not getting a goal that crossed the line by 10 yards, even if the wrongly dissalowed scholes goal against Porto effectively helped setup Jose’s career.
The sport is becoming sanitized too much and it’s boring. Switch on a championship match and it’s more enjoyable. Same at lower levels, where you will probably find more charismatic Footballers. Rant over… for now
1. C.Ronaldo
2. Messi
3. Pele
4. Maradona
2. Messi
3. Pele
4. Maradona
Ronaldo couldn't play like Messi did in the 2022 World Cup and pick the ball up from deep centrally and decide games with his passing and dribbling. Whereas Messi could do what Ronaldo does and score a shitload of goals - 50 goals in one La Liga season may never be beaten in our lifetimes. Think that's the difference between them. Another thing is some of Messi's best ever games are ones he didn't score. All of Ronaldo's best games are ones he scored and the goals were the main point of the performance. Ronaldo wasn't capable past about the age of 25 in being the best player on the pitch without goals.
Ronaldo against Maradona is more interesting argument because Maradona's goalscoring wasn't exceptional and he didn't have the same longevity or had off-seasons/cocaine problems. Maradona v Ronaldo is like aesthetic vs stats, peak performance vs consistency, artistry vs efficiency. People have tried to make Messi v Ronaldo the same debate but Messi's stats are too good. Messi is all of those things.- better to watch, better stats, better peak performance, equally consistent, more artistic while also efficient.
Ronaldo is not even a top-3 goalscorer ever. I don't know what you mean by "not even being a striker", but, he is widely knows as a typical poacher at least in the last 6-7 years.
Pele, Messi and Gerd Muller are so clear of him in terms of goalscoring. You don't become the greatest goalscorer of all time by scoring 0 goals in WC knockouts and a total of 3 goals in 21 knockout games in 5 WCs + 6 Euros. All these three names have shined in every single tournament they played in as superstars. Gerd Muller's legendary WC 70 campaign with a hat-trick against Italy in the semis (he scored 10 in WC 70, scored at every stage) in a game named as "Game of the Century" alone destroys Ronaldo's whole NT career, not to mention he brought Germany the Euros in 1972 scoring a brace twice both in the semis & finals. The guy also scored the only goal for Germany in the semis in WC 74 taking them to the finals and scores the winning goal against Cruyff's Netherlands in the WC 74 final. Statpadding against the likes of Andorra, Faroe, Liechtenstein flexing your muscles and then ghosting in every single edition of WC and Euros despite playing in 11 editions (more than anyone - 8 more than Gerd Muller) already disqualifies him from the conversation.
As for the goalscoring comparisons with Messi, Messi has the most Golden Shoes in the history, most league top goalscorer awards, way better NT career and tons of unbreakable records like most goals in a calendar year, most goals in a season, most goals in a top-5 league (in a season as well). He even has a better goal per game ratio than Ronaldo in the UCL and has become 6-times top-scorer in the UCL, just one below Ronaldo.
Not to mention, Messi and Pele are not even tap-in merchant camping in the penalty box unlike Ronaldo's last 6-7 years, they are both GOAT level playmakers and dribblers while Ronaldo is none of these.
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They do not really have a great point when comes to such a simplistic sort of conclusion.
They have a point when it comes to describing the brutality of some of the fouls in the 90's (that BTW was less than in the 80's, 60's or the massacres of the 30's).
Just to name examples, not to pontificate or put any period above another: there are other aspects that had become a lot more improved like more stamina and kms.. ran, the consequent way less time on the ball, proper defensive movement as a team, running behind the line of the ball (atletico Madrid in such aspect it's impossible to bear with), tactical fouling it's as present as ever and harsh fouls still exist, specially agaisnt players like Mesis that had lots of proper vintage matches agaisnt him even recently.
Let's also remmeber that in the 90's Bierhoff was a goalscorer, that Batistuta couldn't dribble a cone and was a huge star, that Almyeda once was Guerrin D'Or, that Simeone won on almost every team he went and was a big figure in all of them, that freaking Piojo Lopez was a star and he is not even precisly close to a player of the calibre of Aguero or Tevez...what I mean it's that not everything was R9, Maldini and Diego before, nor because of brutal fouls the defensive approach was way better or harder in those days (nowadays even defending with the ball had become pretty harsh to deal with, some proper vintage defenders like Vidic faced such scenarios with Barca in 2011).
Also I really don't get why people nowadays does not realize that even in recent years (dealing clearly with a generational transition) talented players like Vini, couldn't break these late years goalsocring records with even a more dominating Madrid with a suppose less powerfull La Liga, in some way we went back to Pizzi's days being goalscorer in Spain too.
So at the end of the day in the 90's there were lots of things that were trully tough, many legendary players too, but every period compensates itself one way or another, that it's whe we should respect every player in their own era and leave this kind of Cantona silly simplifications aside, players tend to be quite daft regarding analyzing other players or eras.
Assists weren't being recorded regularly for most of football history. Those "all-time" assists are better seen as most assists of the past 20-25 years, or thereabouts.
C.Ronaldo
Maradona
Messi
Pele
Maradona
Messi
Pele
Messi is number 1 all time. If there was more footage of pele I might change my mind. Messi, Maradona, pele. Ronaldo just makes the top 10.
GOAT debates encompass far more than just stats. It must also take into account the iconic moments of magic, especially at highest stage; the romance and the stories that surrounds those moments; the influence on the game and its effect throughout the world; the consistency throughout the years; even the personality and character play a part.
Focusing on the point of iconic moments, which in addition to winning championships, are the key things that top athletes live for since they’ve been dreaming about it as kids. And it’s the type of stuff that the fans around the world will have in their memories of the game. It’s why we can have nearly perfect photographic memory of that Macheda goal and that Owen goal without me having to name the match they occurred in. Stats just don’t do that.
In that department Messi and Maradona are ahead of Ronaldo. With Messi, the many times he’s stepped up and delivered in all those El Classicos, in the CL Finals against us, in the 2022 World Cup, and other high profile CL knockout matches.
With Maradona, the obvious ones are The Hand of God and the Goal of the Century, which wasn’t only famous for the technique, but also within the context of politics between Argentina and England. Then add in that he helped bring the first ever Scudetto to Napoli where he is still like a god in those parts. I’m sure there are more but just those first two alone carry plenty of weight.
With Ronaldo, I only seem to recall that majority of his iconic moments of magic came while he was at United. He did have that beautiful goal against Juventus in the CL Final and scored the extra time winner in a Copa del Rey final against Barcelona though. Otherwise I can’t recall much else.
I haven’t watched enough of Pelé highlights to cite any particular examples, but I did see the video where he was doing all the different football tricks and techniques before the other legendary players did it. So he’s probably among the top in his influence on the game.
For all the other points except for personality, where neither Messi nor Ronaldo can hold a candle to Pelé and Maradona, perhaps it’s a more even debate.
Focusing on the point of iconic moments, which in addition to winning championships, are the key things that top athletes live for since they’ve been dreaming about it as kids. And it’s the type of stuff that the fans around the world will have in their memories of the game. It’s why we can have nearly perfect photographic memory of that Macheda goal and that Owen goal without me having to name the match they occurred in. Stats just don’t do that.
In that department Messi and Maradona are ahead of Ronaldo. With Messi, the many times he’s stepped up and delivered in all those El Classicos, in the CL Finals against us, in the 2022 World Cup, and other high profile CL knockout matches.
With Maradona, the obvious ones are The Hand of God and the Goal of the Century, which wasn’t only famous for the technique, but also within the context of politics between Argentina and England. Then add in that he helped bring the first ever Scudetto to Napoli where he is still like a god in those parts. I’m sure there are more but just those first two alone carry plenty of weight.
With Ronaldo, I only seem to recall that majority of his iconic moments of magic came while he was at United. He did have that beautiful goal against Juventus in the CL Final and scored the extra time winner in a Copa del Rey final against Barcelona though. Otherwise I can’t recall much else.
I haven’t watched enough of Pelé highlights to cite any particular examples, but I did see the video where he was doing all the different football tricks and techniques before the other legendary players did it. So he’s probably among the top in his influence on the game.
For all the other points except for personality, where neither Messi nor Ronaldo can hold a candle to Pelé and Maradona, perhaps it’s a more even debate.
Not sure about this.
Maradona doing it with Napoli, whilst intoxicated, is better than Messi being teed up via Xavi and Iniesta.
Pele practically made the World Cup. Cruyff changed how we think of football (for the better).
I still think Messi effortlessly playing so many brilliant through passes in a season where he was almost entirely iconic for breaking the world record for most goals scored in a calendar year(2012) simply beggars belief how on one hand you can create so many big chances, dribble so many opponents and at the same time break all scoring records.
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Pele was like Yamal at the Euros on steroids, scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup quarter-final at 17 and two in a World Cup final, one with flicking the ball over a defender and volleying into a net. That's as iconic as you get. Imagine Yamal's career now, except he gets even better and maintains that level for 15 years and you get Pele. The 1970 World Cup alone for Pele as well was the definition of iconic - shot from the halfway line, the famous dummy, Gordon Banks save and Bobby Moore interactions, header in the final and layoff for Carlos Alberto. All these things happened more than 20 years before I was born but I grew up knowing about these moments. I guess people didn't consume football in the same way I did.
These are good points when it comes to examples of past legends. Difficult to judge when not being around to watch them day in and day out, but their influence absolutely has to be considered. I know Messi had world class players around him but he still had to step up to succeed in those clutch moments. I still maintain that the criteria should be a strong consideration, which I don’t think you’re disagreeing with here.
Appreciate that context. Even though I failed to mention these moments due to recency bias and just not being aware of them, it still goes to show how much of a role those iconic moments play in this debate. Perhaps there’s a good documentary out there about Pelé that I should watch.
I saw Pele playing for Brazil in 1966. I was only a young lad but he was the player we all wanted to see. Unfortunately, we didn't see his best as he was brutally treated by the Bulgarians and the Portuguese defenders. I saw Maradona play for Argentina in a friendly at Wembley in 1980. England won 3-1 but you could tell he was something special. He made some incredible mazy runs at the England defence from midfield. If memory serves, I think it was Phil Thompson who was marking him and he had a hell of time. It's a shame our own George Best never played in a World Cup finals because his name would be up there with those two.
Where is real Ronaldo? This list doesn't make any sense.
Messi vs Maradona vs Pele i could understand but with naming Cristiano on this list you opened another tier with Cruyf, Ronaldo, Garincha, Kaiser Franz etc.....
And for all of you who listed Cristiano above any of those 3;
Messi vs Maradona vs Pele i could understand but with naming Cristiano on this list you opened another tier with Cruyf, Ronaldo, Garincha, Kaiser Franz etc.....
And for all of you who listed Cristiano above any of those 3;
It's incredible the ammount of bad finisihing in that vid.
Barca is certainly a CLUB that shoot themselves more often than not, it's actually kind of sad that for many reasons, mostly bad management (and even some of them not their fault), at some point as silly as it might sound they never could actually got the MOST out of Messi, not to mention Maradona, Romario, Figo, R9, Laudrup and cia...
That's so cool man, what a priviledge
Feck, no.
Ronaldo is better than all of those, not close tbh.
Not to mention they where dribbling past players on a mud bath with a pig skin ball that when it got wet was very heavy. (the ball was more Pele era that Maradona)
1. Maradona
2. Messinaldo7
3. Pele
2. Messinaldo7
3. Pele
I tried to explain this, as a few have, but he somewhat ironically ignored it all and called me a zealot!
CR7, Messi
Maradona, Pele
Maradona, Pele
Agree with all this apart from 2nd sentence. I happen to know you were 37 at the time.
66 was a special time. Saw 2x games at OT and went to Lymm to watch Brazil training. Watched Eusebio and Portugal training at City’s training ground in Cheadle, most days of the week. The great man gave me a special momento that i still have to this day. George had just starred in the 1-5 drubbing we gave the previously undefeated Benfica in Lisbon on my birthday. Probably the game that brought world fame to him. A ridiculous talent, certainly in the top 5.
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I don't know what's more of a crime; putting CR7 first, a guy with 3 goals and 2 assists in 21 World Cup and Euros knockout games, or putting Pele last, a guy who bested that tally purely on goals (6) in the knockout rounds of a single World Cup at age 17. If you haven't done the research on Pele, just leave him out.
Ronaldo did things for about 6-8 years i never seen anyone compare to.
1. Ronaldo
2. Messi
3. Maradona
Im not old enough to seen Full games on Pele.
1. Ronaldo
2. Messi
3. Maradona
Im not old enough to seen Full games on Pele.
There are more to football than WC. They actually play most games for clubs. And on top of that, WC also has something to do with the nation you are from. No doubt Ronaldo has not been good enough in WC. But if you base Ronaldos whole career on 21 games. I think you are the one that needs some research.
Ronaldo has done things no other player has done. At club. And national.
What are those things he's done that no one else have? His total all time goal tally and cl all time topscorer. Apart from a main contender for the best aerial threat of all time, i don't really see what he can do better on a pitch than the others. He's definitely scored some impressive screamers and rockets of a freekick goals when he was good at them but he's not as such ahead.
Any discussion on this topic ends with the bolded part. Winning the World Cup is the primary dream of every boy who has ever kicked a ball, including CR7. He has not only not won it, he has not managed to score a single goal, or register a single assist in the KO rounds of the tournament, and he's had 5 goes at it. His countryman Eusebio played in one tournament and has a better WC record, so it's nothing to do with playing for Portugal.
Also, there is nothing (unless you get ridiculously specific) CR has done that no other player has done, that's just hyperbole. You can get specific with any top player and claim they've done things that no one else has done.
He scored with his dick once at Man Utd
That video is just ridiculous.
The horrendous 1st touch and finishing from so many of his team mates shows why despite having the all time record in assists don't really paint a fair picture of his ability to set up his team mates.
the fact that it's only one season in the clip is what makes it ridiculous. that's career highlights for any other good attacking midfielder ffs.
I'd be interested to know what he thinks CR has done that no other player has done. The overall goal record is modern revisionism; Pele, Bican and others have scored hundreds more goals than CR, and even if you go by this 'official' nonsense of recent times, those guys have better goal ratios.
The Champions League record, well that's great, but the Champions League has existed in this format for only 30 years. You used to have to win your domestic league to even enter.
The main point is though, you can get specific with any great player and claim they've done things that no one else has done. For example, Neymar is the only player to win both the Champions League and the Copa Libertadores, and score in both finals. Zidane is the only player to have won both the Euros and the World Cup, and be named the best player in both tournaments. Iniesta is the only player to be Man of the Match in a WC final, a Euros final and a CL final. Gerd Muller is the only player to score in the World Cup final, the European Cup final and the Euros final. Etc, etc.
It doesn't mean anything.
Since we're talking about the WC, let's remember that Pelé played 4 and won 3 of them. 2 while being player of the tournament (the two that he didn't win he was kicked out of the tournament). He played 14 matches and scored 12 goals. Of course, Brazil haven't won any World Cup before him and will have to wait 24 years for the next one after him.
But apparently some people consider club football more important. Well, regarding his club career, in his beginnings there wasn't a unified competition in Brazil. But once there was, Pelé dominated it. Santos won 5 titles in a row with Pelé as the Brasileirao's goalscorer 3 times. Thanks to that they qualified to Copa de Campeones de América often, where despite Pelé playing in only 3 editions they managed to win 2 and have Pelé as the tournament's goalscorer in the third one.
After winning the Copa de Campeones they were able to face the winners of the European Champions Cup in the Intercontinental Cup. Here Santos only player two editions, but won both to Eusebio's Benfica and Trappatoni, Rivera and Altafini's Milan. Pelé played 3 games scoring 7 goals to those teams. So yes, I'd say his club career is also something to tell people about.
But apparently some people consider club football more important. Well, regarding his club career, in his beginnings there wasn't a unified competition in Brazil. But once there was, Pelé dominated it. Santos won 5 titles in a row with Pelé as the Brasileirao's goalscorer 3 times. Thanks to that they qualified to Copa de Campeones de América often, where despite Pelé playing in only 3 editions they managed to win 2 and have Pelé as the tournament's goalscorer in the third one.
After winning the Copa de Campeones they were able to face the winners of the European Champions Cup in the Intercontinental Cup. Here Santos only player two editions, but won both to Eusebio's Benfica and Trappatoni, Rivera and Altafini's Milan. Pelé played 3 games scoring 7 goals to those teams. So yes, I'd say his club career is also something to tell people about.