Imagine Pele in todays limited contact game. All records would be broken.
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Imagine Pele in todays limited contact game. All records would be broken.
Always very subjective, but in my humble Pele is the most complete football player I have seen in way over 50 years of watching the game. Best I ever seen playing in a game that I was at would have to be Maradona.
The 2 tax dodgers of todays game are both fantastic players and we are lucky to be able to be entertained by them.
Eusebio.
Me then after that Maradona and Garrincha :na na:
Lionel Messi is the best footballer of all time.
I think people are being caught up in the moment with Ronaldo's free kick last night.
Barcelona don't have anywhere near as cohesive a side as Real Madrid these days yet Messi still drags Barca to league titles which for me is a bigger achievement than Ronaldo playing in a Champions League winning side.
George Best for me. Pele though so too.
Pele for me every time. His performances in the 1970 WC in Mexico as part of that legendary Brazilian team were outstanding and probably get better with time.
We are particularly lucky to have 2 of the greatest ever in Messi and Ronaldo playing right now. I would also say even that though he is a footballing genius, I just can’t warm to Ronaldo. He comes across as an arrogant bawbag. I doubt he’ll lose any sleep over that though and I’d definitely take him at ER if he ever gets bored at Real Madrid 😉
In the interests of gender equality why bother adding greatest male footballer of all time to the question? Surely greatest footballercovers all bases and if anyone wants to argue the case for a woman then fine? It’s all PC gone daft these days:wink:
FWIW, Ronaldo and Messi are both awesome footballing machines. Pleased to be able to say that I saw the wee fellae in action live.
Hey! Where’s Archie Gemmill?
https://youtu.be/eyJTBrbPIHQ
"Greatest Male Footballer"
Lol.
Bit of a thread hijack but who do people consider the best Scottish player of all time? Dalglish? Law?
Between Christino Ronaldo and Maradonna for me.
Messi doesn't produce at international level like those 2.
If you consider Ronaldo is still that good at 33 he edges it for me over Madonna who wasn't having g the same impact and went a bit off the rails.
Honourable mentions to pele and zidane
Messi won player of the tournament at the last World Cup and dragged an average Argentina to the final. He’s also scored 64 international goals. How can you possibly claim he doesn’t produce at international level like those two? Ronaldo has won the euros with a team who didn’t even win a game in 90 minutes (I don’t think?) until the final, when he went off injured at 0-0. Fair enough he has the medal, but he hardly set the heather alight. Before last night aswell he’d scored 3 goals in 3 world cups, one in each. Again, hardly that exciting. Messi has also scored nearly double the goals Maradona did and has a games to goals ratio that is miles ahead of Maradonas over a larger amount of games aswel.
Controversial that messi won that award at the last world cup.
Ronaldo is miles ahead in international goals and led Portugal to the euros 2 years ago.
Messi decided to give up at the last copa America and retired!!
I'm not saying Messi doesn't play well at international level. I just feel Ronaldo performs internationally at a higher level.
Maradona. Some great players there but Maradona for me.
He's not the best but, where's Matthaus? The guy was brilliant.
1.Messi
2.Cristiano
3.Ronaldo
4.Ronaldinho.
The Ronaldo and Ronaldinho's peak was no where near the other 2 but as far as talent they were right up there.
Didn't realise he didn't have as many caps so ill accept that no problem as similar ratio.
Let's see how Messi gets on this tournament but overall I still think Ronaldo is better. Done it in 2 different leagues too. Doubt Messi will leave Barca so hard to know how he would do outside Spain.
Think we might have to agree to disagree on this one.
Maradona for me. That season at Napoli and the World Cup in '86 were something else. What i would also say is that players from those days had nowhere near the protection that Messi and Ronaldo get. Back then a defender could quite literally mark you out the game. The Italian defender Gentille has the football boots he wore when he put Maradona out the 82 world cup in a glass case on his matlepiece!!:greengrin
Ronaldo is a goalscorer, if that there is no doubt. He plays centre forward now and I can’t honestly say he brings as much else to the team (not that he needs to due to the volume of goals he scores). Messi is a footballer who also happens to score barrowloads of goals. Messi will pop up all over he place making things happen, a magician at times. It’s harder for him as a 10 to play against 10 man defence Iceland as it is for Ronaldo to play as a 9 against a wide open Spain.
George Best for me. Genius is a much overused word but he certainly was one.
I don't see that his lack of a World Cup Winner's medal is relevant. If he'd been born Brazilian etc. he'd have had more than one of those tucked away.
Maradona.
As great and talented player that he was, Best had far too short a career to be considered among the greatest players ever. At the peak of his career he was undoubtedly one of the world's top players, maybe even the greatest at the time. If he had not self destructed at such a young age and been able to continue at the top level well into his 30s as so many do nowadays then I'm sure he would be in the top 10 greatest players ever at the very least. Unfortunately he never realised the limits of what his talents could achieve after winning the European Cup at a young age. That was part of his downfall as he saw that as the most he could ever achieve in the game.