Calling him as a more, “organised” player, the legendary Pele said that he would have Argentine star Lionel Messi in his team over Cristiano Ronaldo.
Pele was speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2018.
“Difficult to compare Messi and Ronaldo. Messi has a completely different style than Ronaldo. A lot of people compared me with George Best but we had a different style of play. Ronaldo is more of a center-forward while Messi is more organised,” he said.
“If I have to decide for my team I will choose Messi over Ronaldo,” he added.
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When asked by Bhaichung Bhutiya about his football inspiration, the 77-year-old said, “My father was a good center-forward. He taught me how to play. He asked me to score three times more goals than him. My father was the person who encouraged me to play football. He was my inspiration.”
The three-time World Cup further added how he got his name -‘Pele’.
“My father gave me the name after the famous inventor Thomas Edison. When I went to play football, they started calling me ‘Pes’ – the Portuguese word for feet. In Portuguese when you kick the ball it means “Pes” so they started calling me Pele on the football field and that is how I got my name.”
While Ronaldo has found the beginning of his life at Juventus initially before netting three goals and having four assists in seven matches, Messi has been in good form for Barcelona where he has scored 10 goals and grabbed 4 assistant in the 8 appearances.
Image credit-FIFA.com