This Guy Kiddin'?

Earlier this week former Brazilian soccer star and legend, Pele, had the audacity to assert that fellow countryman Neymar is a better soccer player than Barcelona's Lionel Messi. Normally the debate on who the best soccer player in the world results in a comparison between Messi and Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo (CR7), two well established players with many accolades in their respective careers despite young age. While I am sick of hearing this debate, at least it makes sense. Both Messi and CR7 abuse opposing defenses and rack up goals at an alarming rate while playing for two of the best, if not the two best, club teams in the world. What makes no sense is Pele's comment that Neymar is better than Messi, which by the transitive property also makes him better than CR7. The only acceptable response: this guy kiddin'?

Has Pele seen my trophies?

I don't like Maradona, but I agree with him that Pele's comment was absolutely absurd and erroneous. Let's take a look at how Neymar stacks up to Messi. Both Messi and Neymar have played for the same club teams for the duration of their careers. Messi is part of an immensely successful Barcelona side that is arguably the greatest team in the history of anything. Neymar plays for Santos in the Brazilian league. Santos has a good side, but cannot stack up to many European powers and were decimated by Messi's Barcelona in the 2011 Club World Cup 4-0 in a game where Messi netted two goals. Santos did win the Copa Libertadores to qualify for the tournament while Barcelona won the Champions League to earn its spot. I think it goes without saying that the Champions League is one of the toughest tournaments to win in any sport.

Not only is Barcelona extremely successful, but Messi is the main man. He has won the Fifa Ballon d"Or three consecutive years, awarded to the best player, and produces eye-popping goal totals. Take this year for example, Messi has scored 61 goals in 51 games in all competitions up to this point. The guy is on the verge to break the all-time record for most goals scored in one season by a player in Europe, which is basically the most goals scored in a season ever since Europe has the most competitive leagues. Neymar has  15 goals in 15 club goals this season which is a ridiculous ratio, it's very hard achieve the one goal to every game ratio, even for the most gifted of strikers, but Messi's this season is 1.196 over a much greater sample size. Additionally, Neymar is playing in Brazil's first division which doesn't match up to La Liga or most leagues in Europe. While the Brazilian league is very entertaining and often comes down to an exciting race for the title at the end of the season, most top flight European leagues have better quality teams.

Neymar is still very young and has yet to prove himself in an elite league. I know that is a cliche argument, but it's true. Pele might want Neymar to stay in Santos, like he did, but times have changed. Any soccer player with good talent, especially of the caliber that Neymar possesses, needs to go to Europe. Messi, despite playing out his entire career in Spain has a goal to game ratio of 0.75 (241 goals in 320 games) while Neymar's is 0.548 (96 goals in 175 games). The only argument I could attempt to make in respect to the number of goals that Messi has amassed in such a short amount of time is that Spanish teams don't play the same type of defense as seen in other leagues, such as Italian teams. But then again, it's not Messi's fault that the Spanish teams don't have a bunch of hacks in their defensive line.

We take no prisoners

Internationally, neither have achieved much success and only time will tell if they do. Neymar is still very young and has only just recently been called up for national team duty. Messi has not won anything with Argentina, but all the fault does not rest on his shoulders and he will be back with a talented Argentina side. This is an area between the two that is wide open, neither has the upper hand, but that does very little to sway the argument. Actually, it does nothing, Messi is still superior despite a lack of international success.

Another sign that Pele's claim has no foundation is that I cannot think of anything to mention about Neymar. Neymar is a good striker, but he hasn't accomplished anything near the level of Messi, at least not yet. There are tons of trophies that Messi has won and he scores goals at such an improbable rate that there is no comparison between him and Neymar at this point. Pele probably doesn't want Messi known as the greatest in the world because of the Brazil versus Argentina rivalry. Pele should calm down, Brazil has more World Cup titles than Argentina, which holds a great deal of weight when speaking of national team sides, especially in South America. Again, the World Cup is a more prestigious award than the Copa America, at least in my estimation.

The competition between Pele and Maradona regarding who the greatest football player of all time is one of the most annoying debates alive in sports right now. Both of them should just stop talking about the subject and so should everyone else. Their time has come and gone and it is quite possible that Messi is better than either of them ever were. I also think it is incredibly stupid that many people fail to mention Brazilian Ronaldo, R9, Il Fenomeno, the goalkeeper's worst nightmare, in the conversation. Pele is also famed for his illustrious feat, scoring over 1,000 goals. But this mark is questionable since friendlies were taken into account as well as goals scored in the backyard during pickup games.

This is funny because I don't like Maradona

Pele, we all know you love your country and countrymen, but honestly, there is no basis for proclaiming that Neymar is better than Lionel "the little genius" Messi. This is coming from me, a guy who loves Brazilian soccer players and has a hard time appreciating the dominance that describes Barcelona right now. Messi is better than Neymar right now. I don't know if Neymar can reach Messi's level, but that's sure an incredibly difficult task. The only person currently in soccer that can even be mentioned in the discussion for world's best player with Messi is CR7, and maybe Heskey, but there's no one else.

It's Heskey Time!!!