Neymar or Messi?

Usually it's Jose Mourinho who opens his mouth and out pops sparkly gems and koo-koo nuggets. You cue the fun-fair music, and you listen intently as utter nonsense gets bandied about as if Indiana Jones had discovered the lost third tablet of Moses, but then we forget that the originator, the primogenitor of football nonsense is Pele himself: Edson Arantes do Nascimento. 


The goofball legend, who has spent the better part of his retirement throwing mindful darts at Diego Maradona amongst others in a tiresome attempt to ensure his legacy as the greatest football player who ever set foot on a pitch, has thrown his one lidless, all-seeing Sauronic eye, at the new pretender Lionel Messi. At an event celebrating the centennial of Neymar's and Pele's club Santos, Pele said, "there's always this Maradona comparison, saying that he's better than Pelé. Now some are saying that Messi is better than Pele. Well, he has to be better than Neymar first, which he isn't yet. He has more experience."


Now, this isn't an argument as to who the Flea from Rosario is best compared to in the current annals of great players. Cristiano Ronaldo maybe, or even a half dozen other Ballon D'or winners or pretenders even, but Neymar? I could even see including Messi's Barcelona compatriots Xavi or Andres Iniesta, or maybe even dark-horses like Wayne Rooney or even Diego Forlan who dominated the last World Cup even, but a kid who is, granted a very competent player and the standard bearer of the next generation of talented Brazilian players, but extremely limited in his experience dealing with the best players in the world? Neymar has more experience than Lionel Messi who has five league titles, a league cup, five Super-Cups, three Champions League titles, a UEFA Super-Cup, and he has a World-Cup medal, a U-20 one granted, and an Olympic Gold Medal? Neymar has two regional Paulista titles, a Brazilian Cup title and a Copa Libertadores trophy. He has won nothing of merit for his country. 


That's not to say that I don't think the kid can reach his ultimate potential, supersede his eternal rival in the pantheon of great Argentine/Brazilian match-ups, but it is too soon to tell. He is 20 years old and he hasn't left the comforts of Santos. Robinho or Diego Ribas da Cunha, both left the club at about the same age, carried a similar weight of expectations, of Brazilian trophies and selecao honors, and neither of them have matched expectations. 


Pele has done this before. He said Robinho was his true heir, but he also said the same about Ronaldo. He dismissed Romario, Zico and a dozen others. It's his modus operandi. This is how he maintains his grip on our picture of him. He will always be the King to us, O Rei, and I agree that his legacy is fixed in all of our memory, but Pele has never allowed us to consider that there might be someone else, someone more definitive as the best player that the game has ever seen.


George Best, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, or a dozen others have a real legacy in the game. Some of them have better defined the way the game has been played and has been adapted to modern times and modern sensibilities. I know that there are some that believe that great players would find their niche in whatever time they played in, if you could extract them from their time and their place, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Pele is one of the greats, first in a museum of greats, but he is not the eternal champion.