Rank Maradona, Messi, Pele and C.Ronaldo

Kwabs said:
Also wrong
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Well i am just going by wiki now which lists Barcelonas total official trophy count as 99. Barcelona won 35 while Messi was there. So it seems the number i went by in the 1st place seems more correct, another site gave a different number which is why i changed it to 37% but i trust wiki on this. Care to tell me what's the correct number then?

"
They are the most successful football club in Spain, having won a total of 77 domestic titles: 27 La Liga, a record 31 Copa del Rey, a record 14 Supercopa de España, a record three Copa Eva Duarte[note 1] and a record two Copa de la Liga.

The club is also one of the most successful clubs in international club football, having won 22 official trophies in total, 14 of which are UEFA competitions and 8 recognised by FIFA. Barcelona has won five UEFA Champions League titles, a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cup titles, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cup titles (non-UEFA), a shared record of two Latin Cup titles, a shared record of five UEFA Super Cup titles and three FIFA Club World Cup titles. They are also second to Real Madrid in terms of overall official titles, with 99."
 
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Korwas said:
Goal Contribution "Peak" in 10 Years
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This graphic from big soccer (another forum) user Trachta10 is really awesome and fit in this thread.
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Looking at these stats, Maradone looks the worst out of everyone.
 
tenpoless said:
Looking at these stats, Maradone looks the worst out of everyone.
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Well considering the era and teams he played in his stats are pretty good. He was also closer to being a pure nr. 10 than anyone but Zico.
 
Passitlikescholes said:
Messi won most of his accolades with Barcelona, a star studded Barcelona vs Real Madrid in a two horse La Liga.

Maradona won his titles with Napoli, against a star studded AC Milan, Inter and Juve (with many other teams in Serie A having "just as good" a team as Napoli)

And to throw this tid bit in as well, Messi never won a Champion League without Xavi or Iniesta in the side.
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Messi also won leagues against Real Madrid when they were the best team in Europe and Barca had Paulinho in midfield. None of those star studded Italian teams won 3 CLs in a row.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Messi also won leagues against Real Madrid when they were the best team in Europe and Barca had Paulinho in midfield. None of those star studded Italian teams won 3 CLs in a row.
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if that Madrid team was playing under 80s rules of European Cup qualification, they would have won (at most) one of those 3 CLs.

The 80s in Italy was a tougher league to win than 21st century La Liga. Surely that cannot be debated.
 
Gehrman said:
Well i am just going by wiki now which lists Barcelonas total official trophy count as 99. Barcelona won 35 while Messi was there. So it seems the number i went by in the 1st place seems more correct, another site gave a different number which is why i changed it to 37% but i trust wiki on this. Care to tell me what's the correct number then?

"
They are the most successful football club in Spain, having won a total of 77 domestic titles: 27 La Liga, a record 31 Copa del Rey, a record 14 Supercopa de España, a record three Copa Eva Duarte[note 1] and a record two Copa de la Liga.

The club is also one of the most successful clubs in international club football, having won 22 official trophies in total, 14 of which are UEFA competitions and 8 recognised by FIFA. Barcelona has won five UEFA Champions League titles, a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cup titles, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cup titles (non-UEFA), a shared record of two Latin Cup titles, a shared record of five UEFA Super Cup titles and three FIFA Club World Cup titles. They are also second to Real Madrid in terms of overall official titles, with 99."
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Wiki lists 130 odd trophies, including all the Catalan ones, and I'm not even sure that's correct, it should be more.
 
Di Stefano also won everything in a star-studded Madrid side. Are you supposed to hold it against him?
 
Kwabs said:
Wiki lists 130 odd trophies, including all the Catalan ones, and I'm not even sure that's correct, it should be more.
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Well they omitted the catalan ones in the passage i qoted why i dont know.
 
tenpoless said:
Looking at these stats, Maradone looks the worst out of everyone.
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He played during the most defensive era in football history arguably.

His goal contributions are pretty high(more-so considering he's an attacking midfielder) if you consider the total amount of team goals.

But you cannot measure Maradona's brilliance by purely numbers. One can strongly argue no one can conduct a ball better than Maradona could.
 
Passitlikescholes said:
And to throw this tid bit in as well, Messi never won a Champion League without Xavi or Iniesta in the side.
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A poor argument, because his performances against Liverpool in 2018-2019 were incredible. He can't set up and score at the same time.

And his performances that entire season were perhaps only bested in totality value by 2 only other Messi seasons(2010-2011, 2014-2015). Disregarding those 2 seasons, you can argue it's his best season.
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
He played during the most defensive era in football history arguably.

His goal contributions are pretty high(more-so considering he's an attacking midfielder) if you consider the total amount of team goals.

But you cannot measure Maradona's brilliance by purely numbers. One can strongly argue no one can conduct a ball better than Maradona could.
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Maradona played quite deep also
 
Passitlikescholes said:
Messi won most of his accolades with Barcelona, a star studded Barcelona vs Real Madrid in a two horse La Liga.

Maradona won his titles with Napoli, against a star studded AC Milan, Inter and Juve (with many other teams in Serie A having "just as good" a team as Napoli)

And to throw this tid bit in as well, Messi never won a Champion League without Xavi or Iniesta in the side.
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I'm not saying Maradona is not one of the best ever, he is just not right up there as the arguable greatest ever. When there is not much difference between most of the GOATs based on talent and peak, to split them you then have to use career achievements.

Maradona achievement wise is below others. Cristiano pushed himself into the top 5 due to everything he achieved, even when he has less natural talent than Messi, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Platini etc.

For me, Maradona didn't do enough to be seen as top 4 greatest ever or arguably number 1. Top 3 best ever peak/prime yes, but not greatest.

Greatest and best are not the same.
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
A poor argument, because his performances against Liverpool in 2018-2019 were incredible. He can't set up and score at the same time.

And his performances that entire season were perhaps only bested in totality value by 2 only other Messi seasons(2010-2011, 2014-2015). Disregarding those 2 seasons, you can argue it's his best season.
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Messi won 3 Ballon d'ors after both Iniesta and Xavi retired. And a WC as player of the tournament. That's more than enough to debunk the whole Messi looks good because of those 2. Also using team trophies as a metric of individual quality is a bit unnuanced in a game with 22 players on the pitch and you factor in the squad, coaches and managers and a bit luck too. But even by that metric he's the most decorated player of all time.
 
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The holy trinity 68 said:
I'm not saying Maradona is not one of the best ever, he is just not right up there as the arguable greatest ever. When there is not much difference between most of the GOATs based on talent and peak, to split them you then have to use career achievements.

Maradona achievement wise is below others. Cristiano pushed himself into the top 5 due to everything he achieved, even when he has less natural talent than Messi, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Platini etc.

For me, Maradona didn't do enough to be seen as top 4 greatest ever or arguably number 1. Top 3 best ever peak/prime yes, but not greatest.

Greatest and best are not the same.
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Maradona is also a drugs cheat that tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, in athletics, cycling or baseball that would have ruined his reputation.
 
Kwabs said:
if that Madrid team was playing under 80s rules of European Cup qualification, they would have won (at most) one of those 3 CLs.

The 80s in Italy was a tougher league to win than 21st century La Liga. Surely that cannot be debated.
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I'm not really big into the whole team wins therefore a player is better thing anyway tbh, Salah is one of the best PL forwards ever despite winning one PL. If Barcelona won feck all, Messi would still be top 5 of all time, but it helps when he's won a shitload of trophies to go with it.

As far as I'm concerned, Messi against Maradona was an interesting debate a few years ago but the 2022 World Cup (and Copa Americas) shored up Messi's weakness, when the rest of his career was 10/10 and put the debate beyond doubt. Messi is like Maradona leaving clean and looking after himself. The only one who can compare to Messi is Pele imo. Maradona v Cristiano Ronaldo is a more interesting debate because it's artistry and talent vs stats/delivering and carrying a team vs finishing it off with supreme efficiency. I'd go for Maradona there, because he was insanely good, but there's more of an argument for Ronaldo in this case.

Whereas Messi is everything - artistry, consistency, stats, records, playmaking, trophies, dribbling, passing, goalscoring, carrying teams, starring in star-studded teams, starring in an international tournament, starring in a continential tournament, starring in multiple club continental tournaments, starring in year-on-year league performance, starring in cup finals.
 
I wonder why always this type of threads derraill in such a silly manner and to such extremes and stupid remarks.

PD: regarding the Messi being a system player it's one of the most insane takes I've ever read and pretty much installed by Madrid's media. In fact nor Iniesta, Messi or even at some point Cesc, where typical La Masia products and these three have become more or less the ones that opned the door to players like Yamal.

Anyway, just a vid in this sea of silly remarks to just enjoy beautiful football, your welcome:

 
Gehrman said:
Di Stefano also won everything in a star-studded Madrid side. Are you supposed to hold it against him?
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Alfredo deserves way more credit than he receives, his carreer was absolute perfection and he just had bad timing with the NT and even in the few games he had in those (including his Spanish affair, he delivered).
 
tenpoless said:
Looking at these stats, Maradone looks the worst out of everyone.
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The most interesting stat is the one that they've been ranked by — the mysterious "%" at the bottom. It's not clarified in the picture but it's how many of their own team's goals said player have directly contributed to (either by scoring or by assisting). It's a great way to separate the difference between eras & leagues from their individual involvement. And Maradona is ahead of everyone but Pelé there, despite playing deeper than anyone else on that list (it's either him or Zico but I've seen Zico play further forward more often).

To be fair you can argue that this particular stat favours low-scoring and less stacked teams — especially Puskás seems to be struggling from it as his Hungary simply blew the opposition away game after game and even his ridiculous individual g+a stat only equates to roughly 50% of their goals.
 
cpresc said:
Agreed.

Messi and CR7 are absolute beasts and in 50 years time I think their legendary status will be far kinder than it is today.
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In 50 years time the kids will be telling us how Messi and Cristiano played against farmers and dismissing the quality because it was so long ago.
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
In 50 years time the kids will be telling us how Messi and Cristiano played against farmers and dismissing the quality because it was so long ago.
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This, pretty much. Always happens. And myths develop over the years, like how Pele had no offside trap (even though the offside trap was actually more difficult than today).

There will also likely be changes in formats and rules of the game. I can see where in 50 years time people might say it was easier to play in the old rules as the game changes. What's also likely is some sort of Super League finally happening and then you would hear "Messi and Ronaldo scored 5 goals against Osasuna, nobody cares when they didn't do it in the Super League week in, week out".

Not sure how their legendary status will be kinder than it is today. This is their peak level of popularity.
 
cpresc said:
Agreed.

Messi and CR7 are absolute beasts and in 50 years time I think their legendary status will be far kinder than it is today.
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Kids in 50 years will be laughing at how pathetic defences were nowadays.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
I'm not really big into the whole team wins therefore a player is better thing anyway tbh, Salah is one of the best PL forwards ever despite winning one PL. If Barcelona won feck all, Messi would still be top 5 of all time, but it helps when he's won a shitload of trophies to go with it.

As far as I'm concerned, Messi against Maradona was an interesting debate a few years ago but the 2022 World Cup (and Copa Americas) shored up Messi's weakness, when the rest of his career was 10/10 and put the debate beyond doubt. Messi is like Maradona leaving clean and looking after himself. The only one who can compare to Messi is Pele imo. Maradona v Cristiano Ronaldo is a more interesting debate because it's artistry and talent vs stats/delivering and carrying a team vs finishing it off with supreme efficiency. I'd go for Maradona there, because he was insanely good, but there's more of an argument for Ronaldo in this case.

Whereas Messi is everything - artistry, consistency, stats, records, playmaking, trophies, dribbling, passing, goalscoring, carrying teams, starring in star-studded teams, starring in an international tournament, starring in a continential tournament, starring in multiple club continental tournaments, starring in year-on-year league performance, starring in cup finals.
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Not true, it is still a debate, and the reason it is a debate is because the eras are different. You can't act as if they were operating in identical circumstances, because they weren't.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
This, pretty much. Always happens. And myths develop over the years, like how Pele had no offside trap (even though the offside trap was actually more difficult than today).

There will also likely be changes in formats and rules of the game. I can see where in 50 years time people might say it was easier to play in the old rules as the game changes. What's also likely is some sort of Super League finally happening and then you would hear "Messi and Ronaldo scored 5 goals against Osasuna, nobody cares when they didn't do it in the Super League week in, week out".

Not sure how their legendary status will be kinder than it is today. This is their peak level of popularity.
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Can't wait for people in the future to claim that Ronaldo didn't score a thousand goals for some arbitrary reason that has everything to do with the prevailing standards in 50 years time and nothing to do with what people actually thought in the 2020s.
 
harms said:
The most interesting stat is the one that they've been ranked by — the mysterious "%" at the bottom. It's not clarified in the picture but it's how many of their own team's goals said player have directly contributed to (either by scoring or by assisting). It's a great way to separate the difference between eras & leagues from their individual involvement. And Maradona is ahead of everyone but Pelé there, despite playing deeper than anyone else on that list (it's either him or Zico but I've seen Zico play further forward more often).

To be fair you can argue that this particular stat favours low-scoring and less stacked teams — especially Puskás seems to be struggling from it as his Hungary simply blew the opposition away game after game and even his ridiculous individual g+a stat only equates to roughly 50% of their goals.
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That's why I posted it. I think alot of people are aware of how many goals these players scored, not everyone knows the assists and very few knows how many goals their teams scored. It's also really interesting to see Pele lead the list while playing for a very highscoring team and on the bottom of this list we find Puskas who also played on a very highscoring team. I think showing the percentage of team goals the players where a direct part of is it's a great way to reflect offensive brilliance.
 
tenpoless said:
Looking at these stats, Maradone looks the worst out of everyone.
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Hate to say it, but Maradona is the best player I’ve ever seen. Had the lot and such an inspiration to his team mates. He got absolute brutal treatment off defenders. Messi and Ronaldo both had longer more successful careers but neither were as inspirational to the team, nor could do what he could do with the ball and both were protected species on the pitch.
 
harms said:
The most interesting stat is the one that they've been ranked by — the mysterious "%" at the bottom. It's not clarified in the picture but it's how many of their own team's goals said player have directly contributed to (either by scoring or by assisting). It's a great way to separate the difference between eras & leagues from their individual involvement. And Maradona is ahead of everyone but Pelé there, despite playing deeper than anyone else on that list (it's either him or Zico but I've seen Zico play further forward more often).

To be fair you can argue that this particular stat favours low-scoring and less stacked teams — especially Puskás seems to be struggling from it as his Hungary simply blew the opposition away game after game and even his ridiculous individual g+a stat only equates to roughly 50% of their goals.
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It's very important that you highlighted this, and it gives the lie to the idea that Maradona has the 'worst' stats of the group. In fact, contextually, he has very good stats.

We also have to point out that it doesn't cover each player's whole career, but rather around a decade for each. But for Pele, it covers the years from when he was 17 - 26, whereas with Messi and Ronaldo it covers from age 23 - 32 and age 25 - 34. I'm assuming the most productive 10 year period was chosen for each player, but I'm not sure.

If we take this percentage stat as definitive (which we obviously shouldn't), then it suggests that Pele and Maradona are still the 2 greatest players of all time and in fact were never surpassed by Messi and Ronaldo. And I do think there is an argument for that, especially of you look at international football, which has changed less than the club game.
 
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The holy trinity 68 said:
I'm not saying Maradona is not one of the best ever, he is just not right up there as the arguable greatest ever. When there is not much difference between most of the GOATs based on talent and peak, to split them you then have to use career achievements.

Maradona achievement wise is below others. Cristiano pushed himself into the top 5 due to everything he achieved, even when he has less natural talent than Messi, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Platini etc.

For me, Maradona didn't do enough to be seen as top 4 greatest ever or arguably number 1. Top 3 best ever peak/prime yes, but not greatest.

Greatest and best are not the same.
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In a one off game, the be all end all of games, I'm picking

1. Maradona
2. Pele
3. Messi

I couldn't care less about longevity, players are humans at the end of the day, they can get sidetracked by distractions, they may not have their heart in it anymore, it may be outside environmental factors that affect them mentally, or it could be that modern day sport science is so far ahead of what they had in the 80s,90s and prior, or even that it took the downfall of players like Best/Maradona for clubs to learn how to look after their stars.

It's the one off peak that matters to me personally, and Diego is number 1
 
To those who are either trying to rewrite History or aren't really aware of what Maradona was, what he achieved and what he meant to Napoli and Argentina, I recommend this excellent documentary.

I consider this football channel as one of the best, if not the best on YouTube. Thorough, very well documented, and beautifully narrated. His pieces on Brian Clough, Johan Cruijff, Berlusconi's AC Milan, and Arsenal are also well worth a watch.

 
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