Are Messi and Ronaldo better than Pelé?

In my opinion. Yes. There is a lot of controversy surrounding Pelé, and casual fans would regard him as “the best” simply because they read his myth and don't look further into his career. read more

Messi also has an Olympic gold medal having won in Beijing in 2008, Ronaldo is the only one of the four to be a world champion with two different clubs, while Maradona can lay claim to having scored arguably the greatest goal of all-time against England in 1986. read more

For me, Messi is better than Pele because I never saw Pele play a game. For me, Messi is the best footballer I have seen in my life, but it is a very subjective question - lots of people would say Ronaldo is better than Messi, just like there is an argument over whether Maradona was better than Pele. read more

Pele did score 1,088 times for Santos – fairly impressive, admittedly (if true) – but needed 1,115 games to do it (0.98 goals per game). Gerd Muller struck 566 times in 607 games for Bayern Munich, at 0.93 goals per game. Ronaldo isn’t the only club record holder to have scored consistently at more than a goal a game, though. read more