Would Pele Have Been A Great Player In Today's Football?

When you’ve been dubbed the ‘World’s best footballer’ like Pele has anything you say or do will make headlines. That’s exactly what happened last week when the former 3-time World Cup winner sat down with The Sun’s Stuart Pink.

Pele speaking in London to promote his own new Sportswear brand and football boot, gave his take on current footballers Wayne Rooney and Leo Messi, as well as giving his take on some of the great players of yesterday year.

First up Pele admitted that he’s a fan of Wayne Rooney and that the current Manchester United and England player is a good player who ‘fights for the team’ and has a great ‘heart’ whilst not being a great technical player.’

Well firstly There’s no doubt that the Brazilian is spot-on when he picks out the current United no.10’s strength as his heart and that he always fights for the team. Those two points are what make Rooney such a special player.

Some critics and fans have argued that his ‘heart’ and ‘fighting ability’ can also lead to his downfall as sometimes as we’ve seen on many occasions he tracks back too much and can get involved with needless scraps which does give him a bad reputation at times.

Pele also gave his take on Barcelona’s superstar Messi saying that he didn’t think the Argentinean could be labelled a ‘great player’ because he hasn’t starred in the two World Cups that he has played in.  That may sound incredibly harsh but it’s a view that has often been poked at the little maestro plenty of times over the last couple of years.

In all fairness, it’s an understandable view to make as whilst Messi has done things most players can only dream about doing, month after month for Barcelona, for Argentina due to tactical reasons as he’s often played on the wing and the fact his International team-mates clearly as a unit and as individuals do not compare to his team-mates at club level – that’s not Messi’s fault though is it?

 Of course when the world’s most famous footballer gives his take on two of the best players to be playing today, it does ‘dig up’ the question of would Pele be as successful as he was if he was playing today. There’s no doubt that any striker who scored over 1000 career goals and set the world-stage alight would have probably been a success in today’s football, as great players should be able to adapt.

In many ways it’s a shame that you can only go back in time and pit great players against different football era’s on computer games, but there’s no doubt that football back in the ‘rock and roll’ era of the 1960’s and 70’s was different back then with officials failing to protect players with defenders being far more tougher with their challenges which at times were brutal.

We can only wonder just how Pele would have fared today.  How would he have found playing in Europe and the Champions League? Surely he couldn’t have run riot scoring goals a plenty, like he did back in Brazil and the now-defunct NASL league in America?

Adam Dennehey @ADennehey87

Comments

[John Tring]

What a meaningless question! Would Roosevelt/Churchill et el be better than current leaders today? These are hypothetical matters and does not deserve any attention.