How Good Was Pelé Actually

If you're a football fan of any age, you've probably heard of Edson Arantz Donacimento, although you might not know it. That's because Mr Donacimento is better known as Pelé, and Pelé is among the greatest footballers of all time. Don't take our word for it, Bobby Moore, Franz Beckenbauer and Eusebio called him the most complete footballer they've ever seen. Argentinian coach Cesar Luis Menotti described him as a mixture of Alfredo Di Stefano, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff and Leo Messi. Michel Platini, the great French midfielder, put it best, to play like Pelé is to play like God. So, more than 40 years on from his retirement, we ask, how good was Pelé actually? Pelé burst onto the scene as a 17-year-old. He suffered a knee injury before the 1958 World Cup, but his Brazil teammates begged the coaching staff to include him in the squad. They'd played against him in training and knew how good he was. Pelé scored the winner against Wales in the quarter-final. He then hit a hat-trick in the semi-final against France, and in the final against host Sweden, he scored twice, as Brazil won 5-2. At 17 years of age, Pelé was the youngest ever world champion and a bona fide global superstar. Pelé also won the World Cup in 1962, although he missed most of that tournament through injury. Eight years later, in 1970, he won the competition for a third time. No other player has ever equaled that achievement. At Santos, he won 10 Sao Paulo State Championships and two Copas Libertadores, the South American equivalent of the Champions League. He also won two Intercontinental Cups, and the best individual performance of his career came against Benfica in the 1962 edition. The tie was built as a battle between Eusebio and Pelé for the title of World's Best Player. Pelé scored five goals across two matches, as Santos won 8-4 on aggregate. I arrived hoping to stop a great man, Benfica's goalkeeper said afterwards, but I went away convinced I'd been undone by someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us. Pelé was so popular that Santos quit the Copa Libertadores and embarked on a world tour, playing lucrative friendlies across the globe. They were football's equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters. Everyone was desperate to see Pelé in the flesh, even if it wasn't always easy. In 1967, both sides in the Nigerian Civil War agreed a 48-hour ceasefire so that rival troops could watch him play. Pelé was an all-round genius. He was a natural athlete who was strong, speedy, and superb in the air. He was a terrific driller and passer, and could finish with both feet. By the time he retired, Pelé had scored 1,281 goals, an all-time record. Seventy-seven of those came for Brazil, more than Ronaldo, Neymar, Romário, Zico, and all the other greats who've pulled on the famous yellow shirt. Pelé could do everything. He could play as a number 10, a wide forward, or a striker. According to many, he was the best in the world in all three positions. Brazil boss Jao Saldanha went further. Ask me who's the best right-back in Brazil, and I'll say Pelé, he once remarked. Ask me about the best left-back, or the best midfield man, or the best centre-forward. Always, I must say Pelé. If he wants to be the best goalkeeper, he will be. There is only one Pelé. Back then, the Ballon d'Or was only open to players based in Europe. Raymond Kopa, Eusebio, Bobby Charlton, George Best, and Gert Müller were among the winners between 1958 and 1970. But everyone, including his rivals, knew that Pelé was the real number one. I sometimes feel as though football was invented for this magical player, Bobby Charlton once said. But what if we compare Pelé to the legends of today, and by that we have two men in mind. No, not Nicolas Bentner and Shkodran Mustafi, but Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. All three are considered greatest of all-time candidates, and Pelé shared certain similarities with the modern duo. Like Ronaldo, he was a beast in the air. Pelé was just 5ft 8, but he regularly outjumped taller defenders. He was also a brilliant athlete, just like the Portuguese superstar. He was akin to Messi in other ways. Pelé loved to drop deep and carry the ball forward. He was skilled at both creating and converting chances. Football was a very different game in Pelé's era. The pitches were often poor. Defenders could assault opposition forwards without even being shown a yellow card. Some will argue that Pelé is the greatest of all time because he overcame those obstacles. He also has three World Cups to his name, compared to Messi and Ronaldo's zero. But the Champions League, not the World Cup, is the pinnacle of the game today, and Messi and Ronaldo have won nine between them. There's also the fact that more than 500 of Pelé's goals came in unofficial friendlies and tour games. He even counted goals he scored in games for the 6th Coast Guard in a military competition. That shouldn't diminish his genius, though. Pelé was undoubtedly one of the greatest footballers to have walked the earth. Some insist he's still number one, while others believe Messi and Ronaldo have now overtaken him. Everyone has their favorites, which are often influenced by age, nationality, club allegiance, and more than anything else, personal taste. So for all the debates, it's impossible to definitively prove that a player from one era was better than a player from another, which on balance is probably a good thing. It's much more fun this way, right?