Coach wrote:
He will go down as the greatest and rightly so. People will come and talk about that irrelevant from the 70s who claims to have scored 1000 goals in the era of no-offside. Pele was the 70s, today he's a door to door salesman slinging Sildenafil to keep the rent as well as the willy up. Yes, he won world cups, with perhaps the most complete national team that has ever and will ever play the game. Brazil of the 70's would be untouchable today...what was that Rafa? Fact! Messi is above and beyond all else in this era and any to come. Sadly, he was born on the wrong side of the grey-scale and so, many a man will cry foul. In time all will realise just how fortunate we were to watch a legend in our time. The greatest.
Comedy of the highest order, though perhaps unintentional.
"The era of no-offside."

Pele just stood by the net and tapped the ball in.
"...with perhaps the
most complete national team that has ever and will ever play the game."
With Felix, the lousiest goalkeeper ever to win a World Cup?

In that defense of capt Carlos Alberto, Brito, Wilson Piazza and Everaldo, none should be classified as a defender. People speculated that they were attacking players forced to play defense.
My man Coachito, I realize you said this in that prehistoric time 2012, and you have since updated your understanding and knowledge of the history of football: 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 and "parking the bus" all existed in Pele's time. And offside too. What did not exist is protection for skilled forwards by referees. It was called "a man's game," then, there were no yellow or red cards, the tackling was brutal, two-legged studs-up tackles, and tackling from behind were all fully legal.
There are similarities between Pele's club football and Messi's. In Pele's day, Santos was believed to be the best clubside in the world, and they won trophies galore. Very much like Messi, Pele was an absolute monster with Santos, running riot in nearly every game, and terrorizing defenses almost every club game. Like Messi, Pele had two team mates who were superior ball players in their own right--Pepe, the Xavi of the team, and Coutinho the wizard dribbler and Iniesta of Santos. But the similarities end there. Barcelona was/is a much better team than Santos ever was, with more players of great quality overtime, and far superior tactics. Draw your own conclusions.
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