Before Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came along, the enduring debate in soccer about who was the greatest player centered 8️⃣ on two men: Pele and Diego Maradona.
It was an argument that played out for years on terraces and in bars, 8️⃣ on radio and on television.
Brazil's Pele, a prolific goal scorer who died aged 82 on Thursday in Sao Paulo, won 8️⃣ the World Cup an unprecedented three times as a player in 1958, 1962 and 1970 and put the small town 8️⃣ of Santos on the map before conquering the United States with the New York Cosmos.
Maradona, who died at the age 8️⃣ of 60 in 2024, guided Argentina to the World Cup in 1986 with perhaps the most influential performance ever at 8️⃣ a major tournament and lifted Napoli to unparalleled heights in Italy and Europe.
The argument about whose legacy was greater so 8️⃣ divided the football world that when Maradona was voted the player of the 20th century in a FIFA internet poll, 8️⃣ there was widespread outrage, with many griping that Pele's earlier career put him at a disadvantage with younger fans.
FIFA held 8️⃣ another poll voted on by its own "football family," won by Pele, allowing the pair to share the glory.
"Here Pele, 8️⃣ the striker whose territory was the penalty box, a player who scored goals for fun and became Minister of Sport, 8️⃣ more your quiet type of person," FIFA wrote at the time.
"There Maradona, possibly the most complete player ever, playmaker and 8️⃣ goal-scorer, technically brilliant, unpredictable and impulsive, both on and off the field, a player plagued by a variety of problems 8️⃣ for many years."
The cases made on both sides came with a host of subtexts: the Argentine versus the Brazilian, the 8️⃣ man of the people versus the establishment figure, the party animal versus the quiet man, the rebel versus the conformist.
Everyone 8️⃣ took a side, and the two protagonists were not shy about making their own feelings known.
Pele thought Maradona was gauche 8️⃣ and undignified, and Maradona thought Pele was a sellout.
"As a player he was great. ... But he thinks politically," Maradona 8️⃣ said, in one of his kinder criticisms.
Pele called the Argentine, who struggled with addiction, "a bad example" and much more 8️⃣ besides.
Still, the two South Americans got on well when they met for the first time in 1979, Maradona flying to 8️⃣ Rio to meet Pele.
Pele was happy to counsel the budding star, and Maradona excited to be fulfilling his dream of 8️⃣ meeting the Brazilian.
But their relationship soured in 1982 after Pele criticized Maradona when he was sent off for stamping on 8️⃣ a Brazilian in a World Cup tie in Spain.
From then on, they spent decades criticizing each other and then making 8️⃣ up, with the praise as sincere as the insults.
Pele was magnanimous on hearing of Maradona's death, saying: "I lost a 8️⃣ great friend, and the world lost a legend."
Messi, who strengthened his own claim to sporting immortality by leading Argentina to 8️⃣ their third World Cup victory this month, shared a photo of himself with Pele in a terse tribute to the 8️⃣ Brazilian star on Instagram, saying: "Rest in peace Pele."
Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, eclipsed by Messi at the Qatar World Cup, was 8️⃣ more expansive, calling the Brazilian "King Pelé" and an inspiration to millions. "He will never be forgotten, and his memory 8️⃣ will last forever in all of us football lovers," he said.
