Soccer’s Greatest? It’s Pele!

By Wole Olaoye

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As Qatar 2022 kicked off, Arabophobiacs went on overdrive with unsavoury stories about the host country. The stories ranged from deaths recorded during the construction of the various facilities to ‘human rights’ (read: gay rights) concerns. Those who thought nothing good could come out of that region were roundly disappointed in the end. Qatar gave us the best World Cup hosting ever, achieving a record spectatorship of four billion worldwide. 

I hope the world has learnt a crucial lesson: no matter how powerful you are, you cannot impose your values or lack thereof on other people. The least expected of visitors with good breeding is to respect the culture and sensibilities of their hosts. If you can’t keep the rules of a particular country, what are you doing there?

One reporter, David Walsh, exposed the typical Western attitude to the coverage of the World Cup. Having decided that nothing good should come out of lowly Qatar, they proceeded to bend reality to their sick concoctions. The dictum seemed to be— If you don’t have bad news, don’t report:

“At one match, I sat beside a fellow journalist (not a Times or Sunday Times colleague) and we fell into a “what’s-it-been-like-for-you” conversation. He was enjoying the world cup and there was no dissension from me on that point. The football had been great and logistically, it had been off-the-scale easy. Same bed for five weeks, no flights, no long car journeys, good organisation, impressive stadiums. Some of this stuff he would like to have reported on for his newspaper and he lamented that he couldn’t. More than once, he had been told by somebody on the desk in London that “good” stories about the World Cup weren’t wanted”

Nigeria was missing from the elite tournament but Morocco gave all Africans something to cheer as it got to the semi-final stage to ensure that the continent was represented among the last four. Nigerians, however, enjoyed the soccer feast while it lasted, providing, as it did, a welcome distraction from the problems at home

The tournament, at which Argentina’s Lionel Messi twinkled like a thousand stars, has thrown up the usual question of who is the greatest footballer of all time.  This is a matter about which everyone who has access to television has an opinion. Even this writer, who is as undistinguished in football matters as many a fan with a gold medal in cheerleading.

There is no argument about who is the greatest boxer ever. It’s Mohammed Ali. True, some other great punchers happened along the way— the Joe Louises, the Rocky Marcianos, the Sugar Ray Robinsons, the Joe Fraziers, the Mike Tysons… great men, all. But the greatest is Mohammed Ali.

Most sports have their own ‘Alis’. In my books, the Mohammed Ali of football is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pele.

The good thing about the game of football is that it is everybody’s game. Kings, presidents, prime ministers, celebrities and tzars of industry worship at the altar of the round leather game; just like those on the lower rungs of life’s ladder. The picture of French President Macron squatting beside a despondent Kylian Mbappé shortly after the world cup loss has been permanently stamped on the minds of many people who continue to marvel at the capacity of the world’s number one game to transcend protocol and break all boundaries. 

At Qatar 2022, The final game between Argentina and France turned out to be one of the most keenly contested finals in the history of the mundial. It appropriately threw up two undisputed kings of the game — Messi and Mbappé, the former approaching the evening of his reign and the latter just ascending the throne. It was fitting that Fate chose the global stage to flaunt the change of guards.

Before the next World Cup, one king will retire and another will ascend the throne. Messi’s name will join those of many great footballers before him— men who had tantalised us with their incredible footballing skills. He will join the pantheon of the greats. But that won’t be an excuse for any analyst to suggest that Messi’s achievements can rival Pele’s in any way. Some people have said (erroneously, in my view), that now that Messi has won the World Cup with Argentina, that achievement makes him the greatest footballer of all time.

 At the risk of overstating my respect for Messi’s achievements, let me repeat my contention that he remains one of the greatest players of his generation. Diego Maradona and Cristiano Ronaldo also belong in the hall of fame. They are both great football alligators while Pele is the Nile crocodile.

Football has had many true heroes who have transcended the game itself and cemented their legacy in the minds of football fans forever. There has been none to rival Pele’s record. No player has won more World Cups than Pele who is the only player to score more than 1200 senior goals in his career. He was the youngest ever player (17 years and 249 days) to score in a World Cup, scoring twice in the 1958 edition’s final against Sweden. In the 1962 World Cup, he  only played one match because of injury, and in 1970 he won the Golden Ball  as the Best Player of the tournament.

 He won three world cups, a distinction that stands him out. Also a winner of multiple trophies at Santos, Pele scored over 600 goals for the Brazilian club before finally winding down his career in America. Pelé won a total of 10 trophies during his senior international career but only three major titles. In all he scored 1,284 goals. He scored 77 goals for Brazil in 92 appearances (Brazilian FA’s records show 95 goals with the inclusion of friendlies against clubs). He is the top goalscorer of all time for Brazil.

 In addition to two Intercontinental Cups, Pele’s Santos won the short-lived Intercontinental Supercup in 1968. In later years, he won the North American Soccer League Atlantic Conference and the North American Soccer League Soccer Bowl – both in 1977.

Interestingly, he never played in the Olympics, nor did he ever win a Copa America (the South American Championship as it was then known), as Argentina and Uruguay dominated the tournament during his playing days.

Celebrities treated Pele as the ultimate celebrity. Even the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth of England, broke protocol just to shake his hands! 

Having settled Pele’s peerless place at the top of the pyramid, we can then consider some of the other great talents that football has gifted the world over the years. Diego Amando Maradona readily pops up as one of the greatest. The supremely talented magician dazzled the world as he put his talent at the disposal of club and country, leading Argentina to her first World Cup in 1986. 

After Maradona, we can mention Eusebio, the European Footballer of the Year in 1965 who led Portugal to a third place finish in the 1966 World Cup in England and was the top scorer, with nine goals. Eusébio was the Portuguese League’s leading scorer seven times (1964–68, 1970, and 1973) and led Benfica to 11 league championships injury cashiered him.

It won’t be sacrilegious to discuss Lionel Messi, Alfredo Di Stefano, Johan Cruyff, Garincha, Ronaldo Nazario, and Zinedine Zidane in the same sentence. They were all great players who lit up stadia with their consummate skills. Messi is the most contemporary of the lot, but it will be helpful to recall what a player like Di Stefano brought to the field. A commentator described him thus: “He revolutionised forward play by his box-to-box mobility, his willingness to tackle back and his mastery of the attacking arts — shooting, close control, heading power and an eye for the most telling pass.”

Christiano Ronaldo should also make the Top 10 list, in spite of his tantrums and unbridled arrogance as demonstrated before and during the World Cup. His talents and achievements earn him a place, in my view, among the big boys. So do Michel Platini of Juventus and Emidio Oddi. 

The list of players taking the number 3 to 10 slots may vary. I can’t imagine anyone begrudging Maradona the number 2 slot.

I have a dream that someday Nigeria will awake from its stupor and resume the forward march it initiated in 1994 and reclaim its rightful place in the pantheon of great footballing nations. Someday, the Nigerian professional league will enjoy a rebirth, our players will number among the best in the major football clubs of the world and we shall show up to shock the world at the mundial..

And who says wishes can’t be horses?

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(Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on wole.olaoye@gmail.com, Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021)

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