0% Villa: Maradona or Pele?

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Pele won the World Cup with brilliant Brazil sides and stayed in a mickey-mouse league.

Mickey Mouse League? And the old First Division was what, Minnie Mouse? I don't recall any English teams winning the Intercontinental Cup during the 60's, Santos won it twice. Even the great Manchester United European Cup winning team lost to Estudiantes of Argentina in 68.

[bob]

Maradona and it's not even close.

[darren woolley]

Maradona for me he played in in spain and italy he won the league with Napoli and the Uefa Cup and won Argentina the world cup so it's got to be Maradona.

[lovejoy]

Santos were the equivalent of the Harlem globe trotters. I read somewhere public in brazil rate Garricha more highly than Pele.

[pedro25]

Pele

[WarszaVillan]

it's difficult to answer because i don't remember watching Pele live at his pomp but I can remember Maradona. For me Maradona is the best player I've ever seen but was he better than Pele - i dunno.

[Gareth]

see, it would be a different answer for me if we were looking at the best volleyball player.  But we are not.  So Pele wins by not being a cheating bastard.

Maradona was the best player I have seen but purely for the reason that he made me cry with his cheating scumbag antics I would have to rate him just behind Bernie Gallacher

[Lucky Eddie]

Anyone voting for the M word [spits] can only possibly be a media type afraid of being shot!

[timeoutbigbar]

As far as i understood the point of this thread, it was supposed to be who was the better player, not who was the most popular.  Apparently the two are intertwined

[Monty]

Maradona, definitely.

Santos were the equivalent of the Harlem globe trotters. I read somewhere public in brazil rate Garricha more highly than Pele.

The line goes that, in Brazil, Pele is respected but Garrincha is loved. Mind you, Pele since football has become a figure deserving of less and less respect as time has gone by. Not only the notorious viagra adverts, but also his petty squabbling with Maradona before the World Cup (which he absolutely started) and especially his absolute selling-out to Ricardo Teixeira and the CBF when a huge anti-corruption breakthrough was about to be made, effectively ending hopes of stopping corruption in Brazilian football for a generation. I can't say I have much respect for him for anything other than his football.

Maradona, interestingly, is actually loved by almost all who've met him. He went through his trouble in the '90s, but he seems through it and is doing better. Despite his undoubted cheating basterdry (and nobody mentions Terry Fenwick's elbow on him earlier in the game that ludicrously went unpunished), you can't say he isn't loved. None of Pele's former team-mates really seem to like him, and I can't say I'm surprised.

[cdbearsfan]

The 1958 and 1970 World Cup-winning teams were both amazing and would've won the World Cup without Pele. The '58 team proved this as they did win it without him in 1962. The 1986 Argentina team were average without Maradona. He virtually won it on his own... then took a more mediocre side to within a dodgy penalty of winning it again in 1990.

The anti-Maradona faction seems to stem from that one handball incident. I don't recall too many England fans moaning when Paul Scholes did exactly the same thing against Poland, or Villa fans complaining when Baros did it against Everton. Overall, I would say our Ashley and most of the current England side are far closer to being cheating bastards than Maradona was... especially considering the treatment he had to put up with (although I acknowledge players used to kick Pele all over the pitch too).

Pele scored more goals but many of these were in specially arranged friendlies against the likes of Bournemouth and Third Division Villa (we stopped him scoring). He probably played about 100 games a season.

I reckon Maradona, with Gerd Muller as the greatest goalscorer ever.

Di Stefano ahead of any of them though.

[The Man With A Stick]

Diego.  All day, every day.

[TopDeck113]

Maradona.  Loath to say it, but his second goal against England in 86 showed that, if nothing else, he had the feet of God.

As has been said, he almost single-handedly took a mediocre side to World Champions and an unfashionable Napoli to the only two Serie A titles in their history.

Pele on the other hand has the consolation prize of playing in the greatest team of the television era: "Oh, that was sheer delightful football!"

[TaxDodger]

Pele.

[ozzjim]

Pele. Greatness for me had to have an element of the man and the integrity of that man on the pitch. As such, both were wonderful players, but Maradona was most certainly a cheating little shit, and off the pitch shoved more white powder up his nose than there is in the local Johnson and Johnsons Talc factory. At the end of, as the drug testing tightened in 94 Maradona was carted off for his usage of banned substances. One is a legend. One is a flawed genius who will always spark more debate. So Pele for me.