Who was better -- Pele or Maradona? Who is the greatest of all time?

It's actually not even close. Diego Maradona was and remains far and away the greatest footballer ever.

It's hard to compare players whose careers didn't coincide in time. Pelé played from 1956 to 1977 while Maradona played from 1976 to 1997. The criteria for this analysis is comparing their performance in similar conditions and calculating the amount of awards they both could have earned. 1. Goals per game for national team (Pelé wins) Pelé: 92 matches, 77 goals: 0.83 goals per match. [1] Maradona: 91 matches, 34 goals: 0.37 goals per match. [1] 2. Goals per game in World Cup (Pelé wins) Pelé: 14 matches, 12 goals: 0.86 goals per match [2] Maradona: 21 matches, 8 goals: 0.38 goals per match [2] 3. Copa Libertadores performance (Pelé wins) Pelé: top scorer (1965) [3], 2 titles (1962, 1963) [4] Maradona: no records of titles 4. Individual awards (Pelé 5 v. 5 Maradona) FIFA Player of the Century (IFFHS): Pelé [4] FIFA Player of the Century (popular vote): Maradona [6] World Team of the 20th Century: Pelé and Maradona [4] [6] Mastercard All-Star Team: Pelé (1958, 1970) and Maradona (1986, 1990) [7] FIFA Silver Boot: Pelé (1958) and Maradona (1986) [7] Conclusion The tie in the individual awards indicate they were both great footballers at their time but the international performances favors Pelé as the most efficient player. Sources [1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1285718/Sportsmails-10-World-Cup-Gods-Our-look-best-best.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_top_goalscorers [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Copa_Libertadores_top_scorers [4] http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/players/player=63869/ [5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/3278819/Life-and-crimes-of-Diego-Armando-Maradona-Football.html [6] http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/players/player=174732/ [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_awards Notes National competitions were not counted. It's hard to tell if the conditions were similar. Maradona's 18-month suspension due to failing the antidoping test [http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/files/10660/11725127711Speech_by_Dr_Dvorak.pdf/Speech%2Bby%2BDr%2BDvorak.pdf] was not taken into consideration because it's not clear whether these tests existed back when Pelé played. FIFA's Golden Ball was not considered since during Pelé's career it was only awarded to european players. [http://www.fifa.com/ballondor/news/newsid=2259756/index.html] South American Footballer of the Year was not counted since it began at end of Pelé's career. FIFA 100 is a list made by Pelé so it's obviously useless here, not to mention the criteria is questionable. Onze d'Or only began in 1976.

Pelé's goalscoring record is often reported by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA among others as being 1281 goals in 1363 games.He won three world cups an incredible achievement.Pele was more of a team player, he was surrounded by great players always.He had the best physique and was two footed.His team always dominated.He scored more goals but many were in friendlies and there was no offside rule.He played most of his career in his Brazilian league which was hardly competitive.He never played in Europe where the competition was higher. Maradona did not have a great physique,but incredible technical ability on and off the ball.Maradona was the one man army.Even in Argentina he intially played for Argentinos jr which was fighting for relegation and lifted it to second place single handedly. Then he went to Boca jr because it was his dream to play for Boca,he won the league with them in 1981.After that he had a bad spell with Barcelona both on and off the pitch.He went to napoli which was on the verge of being relegated in 1984 and built the napoli team from scratch, won the Italian league in 1986-87 season,and later in 1989 uefa cup,the italian league again.He won the 1986 world cup for Argentina single handedly(literally).A goal with his hand and five minutes later the goal of the century.He later pulled a very poor Argentina team to world cup finals in 1990 but lost to west Germany.  His life of the pitch was not as good he was caught in using cocaine and failed a drug test in world cup 1994. Pele was voted player of the century by Fifa officials, journalists and coaches,while Maradona was voted player of the century by the people. Statistics will always side with Pele but peoples heart will always beat faster for Maradona's incredible plays

Thank you for the A2A. Whenever i read about a comparison between 2 sporters who lived in a different era you always face the same problem, you are basically comparing apples and bananas. The professionality in the sport has increased a lot. The material sporters use, the scientific approach of the sport, training facilities, sponsorships, professional managers, docters, mental coaches, food experts that develop special diet plans. Some sporters even have financial advisors. This all makes that the modern day sporters are better prepared and trained than those of a few decades ago. This does not mean they are intrinsically better, just better trained, prepared and with better equipment. In football the tactics of the game changed, the speed of the game also increased. With all respect for the Hungarian team of the 1950´s they would have no chance at today´s world cup. The English team that won in 1966 would be massacred if they played in Brasil in 2014. The quality of the game, the tactics and the players improved too much. Very talented people like Pele and Maradona were the best players of their days but i wonder if they could excel in a modern team. They would not get the chance to outperform the rest, defensive tactics would limit their impact on the game. Perhaps Messi is better than Pele or Maradona but he will find it hard to prove it at a major tournament like the world cup. His opponents know his qualities and they will do everything ( tactically ) to limit his impact. Everybody remembers 1986 when Maradona was solely responsible for Argentina winning the world cup but those are just a few weeks of his career. At that time, he was "greater" and of more influence than Pele ever was in any game or tournament, but Pele was important for his team for a longer period of time. But those few weeks do not make Maradona the greatest of all time. He is one of the greatest of all time, like Pele was one of the greatest. The French had Platini, the Germans had Beckenbauer, the Dutch had Cruyff, the Portuguese had Eusebio, Hungary had Puskás... all great players, all had their peak moments but none of them is "the best of all time". Asking who is the best football player of all time is like asking who is the best general of all time. Some say Alexander the Great, others say Hannibal, maybe Julius Caesar. And then there is Robert E. Lee, Genghis Khan, Erwin Rommel, Napoleon, Timur, Saladin, Georgy Zhukov  and many others..... You can not make a fair comparison between those people. In my opinion you can not give a definite answer to those questions, there are too many factors. I think both Pele and Maradona were great... and both had their moments of excellence.

Pele. He, to keep the analogy Brazilian, is the Senna of soccer.

I always wanted to know the answer to this question but believed that Maradona was better because he played in an era where the game and the tactics were much better and Pele in an era where not many people played football because he was born furing the world war and by the time he started playing, people shifted towards the jobs which had more money, plus he played in the best of teams(brazil with garrincha etc. , santos was the best club in those years) while maradona single handedly carried argentina to a world cup win, transformed napoli from a relegation threatened team to a league winning team, and similarly with Argentinos jrs. In his early years! Pele also makes baseless claims, in 2011 he said that neymar is the best in the world, then a year later, he said that only messi could be compared to Pele, and another year later, he said that Cristiano has no comparisions, meanwhile maradona has stuck with messi as the best player according to him! Pele fans argue that he won 3 world cups, but he was injured after 2 games in 1962, 1970 was probably the best brazilian team ever, but pele was the most famous player there, and he never won the player of the tournament at any world cup! Then I read this article which I thought was good enough to answer most of my questions about pele. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/10874465/How-and-why-Peles-mystique-and-reputation-as-the-worlds-greatest-ever-footballer-has-been-overhyped.html

I used to think Maradona was the greatest dribbler of all time, while Ronaldo (the old one), Messi and perhaps Pele fell a tad short. But I'm not so sure now. I used to think Cristiano had the best shooting weak foot. Then I saw footage of the old Ronaldo at Barca, Inter and his days at Madrid I hadn't watched, and I couldn't tell he was right-footed, I literally couldn't. And then I watched Pele. I used to think Ronaldo was the most explosive player. And then I watched Pele. I used to think Maradona suffered the worst tackles, got hacked the most. I used to think he was the one who inspired the greatest terror among opposition defenders. And then I watched Pele play. All this stuff about him not playing in a strong league, playing with a lenient offside rule or not having enough competition in his time is absurd - Pele beat Juventus, AC Milan, Inter, Real Madrid, Benfica among others while they were champions and had European AND South American footballers to choose from in their side. Brazil had one of the strongest domestic leagues at the time. “The greatest player in history was Di Stefano. I refuse to classify Pele as a player. He was above that.” Ferenc Puskas "I told myself before the game, 'he's made of skin and bones just like everyone else'. But I was wrong.” Tarcisio Burgnich, the Italy defender who marked Pele in the Mexico 1970 Final “I arrived hoping to stop a great man, but I went away convinced I had been undone by someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us.” Costa Pereira on Benfica’s 5-2 loss to Santos in the 1962 Intercontinental Cup in Lisbon “The difficulty, the extraordinary, is not to score 1,000 goals like Pele – it’s to score one goal like Pele.” Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet “Pele was one of the few who contradicted my theory: instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.” Andy Warhol, American artist and thinker “When I saw Pele play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots.” Just Fontaine, 13 goals in the 1958 World Cup. “Pele was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic.” Johan Cruyff,Netherlands, Barcelona and Ajax legend. “I sometimes feel as though football was invented for this magical player.” Sir Bobby Charlton, Man United and England legend "Pele was the greatest – he was simply flawless. And off the pitch he is always smiling and upbeat. You never see him bad-tempered. He loves being Pele.” Tostao, Brazil compatriot of Pele "An artist in my eyes is someone who can lighten up a dark room. I have never and will never find difference between the pass from Pele to Carlos Alberto in the final of the World Cup in 1970 and the poetry of the young Rimbaud. There is in each of these human manifestations an expression of beauty which touches us and gives us a feeling of eternity." Eric Cantona, Man United and France legend "The best player ever? Pele. [Lionel] Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pele was better." Alfredo di Stefano, Real Madrid, Argentina and Spain legend "He is the most complete player I ever saw." Franz Beckenbauer, Bayern and Germany legend "The best of all was Pele, who is a mixture of Di Stefano, [Diego] Maradona, Cruyff and Leo Messi." Luis Menoti, Argentina's World Cup winning coach "There's Pele the man, and then Pele the player. And to play like Pele is to play like God." Michel Platini, Juventus, Marseille and France legend, currently President of UEFA "Pele was the most complete player I've ever seen. Two good feet. Magic in the air. Quick. Powerful. Could beat people with skill. Could outrun people. Only 5 ft 8 in tall, yet he seemed a giant of an athlete on the pitch. Perfect balance and impossible vision." Bobby Moore, West Ham and England legend, voted greatest defender of all time on http://FIFA.com "Pele is the greatest player in football history, and there will only be one Pele in the world." Cristiano Ronaldo "Debate about the greatest player of the 20th century is absurd. There is only one answer: Pele. He is the greatest player of all time, and by some distance I might add." Zico, Flamengo and Brazil Legend. Genuine anointation for Maradona as the greatest ever comes mainly either from his compatriots, like Gary Lineker, or from players like Ryan Giggs, who watched and idolized him when they were growing up. People like Puskas, di Stefano, Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Zico, Bobby Moore, Sir Bobby Charlton, Platini, Laudrup - absolute legends of the game - they have no doubts about who the greatest ever is. Adulation for Pele isn't limited to his contemporaries - many top players and managers today, in the 2 or 3 generations before us also, consider him to be the greatest ever. I don't consider myself anywhere close to having as much expertise as them to contest what they are saying, so I'd rather fall in line with them and support them. I'd recommend the rest of Quora too, because I suspect they're not much better off than me compared to di Stefano. O Rei - the king of football is Pele. And I doubt there will ever be another like him.

They were both incredible players. But they played in different football "periods". Pele won 3 World Cup and was best player for about 20 years. And then the another legend was born, Maradona. He was incredible player, he has everything, skills, shoot, header, tackle....... Look on the Youtube his goals and watch interview with Maradona by Emir Kusturica, then you'll release how great he was ;-)

Its hard to said, they play at different times, but I think Maradona was better, he transformed average teams in titles contender.Brazil was one of the best team in the world, so good that managed to win a World Cup without Pele, Maradona won a World Cup with Argentina playing with average players and leading his team on his back. Pele played his entire career in Brazil league playing in Santos, the best brazilian team of the time and the base for Brazil Squad, Maradona played in Napoli, a middle table team, against teams like Juve, Milan, Inter, in one of the most difficult eras of italian football and won the league two times.Imagine if you changed places between Pele and Maradona, I doubt Pele could win Serie A with Napoli and a World Cup with Argentina and for that Maradona is better to me, he had more impact on the field, Pele was in the right place on the right time and did his job, Maradona was in the wrong place on the wrong time and did the impossible.