Is Lionel Messi the greatest player of all time?

• “Is Messi a real player or a Play Station character?” - Radamel Falcao. 
• “Like Michael Jordan in basketball, Messi is dominating his sport. Very few people in history have managed to dominate their sport the way Jordan and Messi have." - Pep Guardiola. 
• “I wear Number 10 Jersey for the US National Team in honor of the Greatest athlete i have ever seen, Messi.” - Kobe Bryant. 
• “I have seen the player who will inherit my place in Argentine football and his name is Messi. He is a genius. His potential is limitless." - Diego Maradona. 

For more glowing, endless tributes championing this once in a generation talent see here: http://proudbarcelonista.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/quotes-about-lionel-messi/

Lionel Andrés Messi. As you can see in the aforementioned bullet points, Messi has been widely touted as the greatest player the game has ever seen.
"There are no adjectives to describe Messi," says Pep Guardiola. I however shall give it a try.

The greatest of all time?

He bestrides the Nou Camp's hallowed turf like a colossus. A bottomless pit of trickery and illusion. Like a Shakespearian sonnet he pulses in perfect time and is a triumph of cadence and tempo.
His magnetic ball control, guile, poise, balance, panache and skill may never be witnessed again.

Not only is "La Pulga" (the flea) a joy to watch, he is ruthlessly effective and efficient.
In days gone by, a 1 in 2 strike rate was the yardstick of greatness in football. However with Messi that seems like a quaint anachronism in comparison to his record breaking calendar goal scoring tally of 91 goals on top of his burgeoning CV of 3 Champions League wins, 5 La Liga's and 4 Ballon D'or awards.
Staggering isn't it? So how does he compare against arguably the two greatest football players ever?

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON: MESSI, MARADONA AND PELE

	Lionel Messi	Maradona	Pele
Playing career	2004 - March 2013	1976-1997	1956-1977
Career games	449	592	1366
Career goals	310	311	1282
Goals per game	0.69	0.52	0.94
Number of clubs	1	7	2
International caps (goals)	77 (31)	91 (34)	92 (77)
World Cup apps (goals)	8 (1)	21 (8)	14 (12)
Major honours	3 Champions League's, 5 La Liga's, 2 Copa del Rey's, 2 World Club Cup's	1 World Cup, 2 Serie A's. 1 Uefa Cup, 1 Coppa Italia, 1 Copa del Rey	3 World Cup's, 1 Copa America, 6 Brazilian League title's, 2 Copa Libertadores'

The three musketeers?....

As you can see Pele appears to surpass little Lionel. Pele at the same age had more goals, a better goal to game ratio but perhaps most important of all, the most glaring admission on Messi's CV, is Pele's three World Cup triumphs (arguably two as he was injured in the 2nd match of Brazil's 1962 triumph) compared to Messi's zero. 
He has greatly under performed at International level, whereas Maradona almost single handedly won the 1986 World Cup with a team deemed as nothing special, a feat he repeated for a S.S.C Napoli side punching way above their weight in winning multiple Serie A titles, a Copa America and the UEFA Cup. Would Messi have achieved this at Napoli now for instance or any other second rate side?
It is pointless debating that as we have no way in knowing. It is the definition of conjecture. Caution: If you took this a bit too literally and looked in the dictionary, the definition won't involved Messi.. I think.

So is he the greatest of all time? Naturally Pele doesn't concur.
"When Messi's scored over 1000 goals like me, when he's won three World Cups, we'll talk about it."
This could and perhaps should be construed as a rather narcissistic and conceited remark from the great man, considering that 526 of Pele's 1283 goals came in unofficial friendlies and tour games and it is argued that the 1970 Brazil World cup winning team, often revered as the greatest side of all time, would sweep any competition, with or without Pele.
Moreover, Pele critics point to his lack of Champions League experience, a worthy point as the combined best teams of Europe locked horns each season, whereas the brilliant, all conquering Brazilian players merely did battle versus one another.

Admittedly the game today is vastly more professional with a far greater amount of depth, something that may have been lacking in the eras of Maradona and especially Pele. 
But here is where it gets hazy. 
I consistently maintain that you simply cannot compare eras, especially ones decades apart from one another.
Take this armed forces example. It is absurd to think that the Roman Empire or WW1 airplanes could defeat even the weakest European nation's army or today's state of the art aircraft respectively because of modern weapons and techniques. The same applies for all sports which have experienced technological revolutions over the decades. 

1966 World Cup Ball

First and foremost, the football's used today - Micro textured casing, synthetic material covering, nitrogen crossed linked foam and geometric design which enables more spins, flight, shape retention, consistency, accuracy and power - were polar opposites from the 1960's model which had leather casing, was much heavier due to water absorption and far less aerodynamic; meaning, for instance, Roberto Carlos's famed "banana" shots simply wouldn't have existed.

Secondly the pitches of today resemble a pristine snooker cloth, due to round the clock ground staff aided by state of the art lasers and pitch technology. Not a blade of grass is out of place at the Nou Camp, whereas not many blades of grass were in place half a century ago. This coupled with the brutal physicality of the game back then would make the free flowing passing football of today extremely difficult.

Here is former Charlton player Derek Hales' account of the state of the pitches in 1970's Britain. "It was like playing on a beach. The ball would be hoofed up in the air and land with a 'plop' - it would never roll anywhere. The pitch was so muddy and sandy the groundsman had to repaint the penalty spot."

http://www.footballsite.co.uk/Statistics/Articles/DidYouKnow23.htm

This greatly aids the current crop, in terms of ball control, passing, shooting and preventing injury, and hugely inhibited those battle hardened warhorse's of the 60's and 70's, who had to settle for these mudbaths seen below.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2295492/Footballs-golden-years-Think-pitch-Blackpool-poor-shape-You-look-little-lot-.html

Billy Bremner's post match treats

Thirdly and finally, sports medicine, diet (was common for players to drink, eat and smoke whatever they so chose), fitness and conditioning of players has come on leaps and bounds since the days when physios were "inadequately qualified"  and seemed to answer most problems with the "magic sponge and strong smelling salts." (Waddington, 2007).

Dr Neil Carter avers that only since the 1990's, where the commercialisation of the sport grew exponentially since the Premier League's inauguration, has football taken the role of medicine more seriously. This, according to Dr Carter, has enabled swifter recoveries and more accurate diagnosis's which in turn has helped to help lengthen sporting careers. 

So those myopic football fans who shortsightedly state "Messi or Ronaldo would dominate everyone back in the day" fail to comprehend that if they had played during that era they would have to deal with, according to Middlesborough FC Legend Alan Peacock, all the shortfalls of less forgiving footballs, brutal tackles, mudbath pitches, fitness levels and resting periods, as "back then" players, which invariably numbered a dozen unlike the 30 strong squads of today, played 60 plus games a season. Gift these modern benefits to a Maradona and a Pele, they too would improve; it works both ways remember.

Bert Trautmann playing with a broken neck!!!

Ultimately these three players, along with a multitude of others, were supremely gifted individuals that uniquely lit up the game for us all to savour.
We should respect each one of their achievements and credit them for being, as UEFA President Michel Platini puts it, "the great players of their generations."
Comparing eras involves far too much conjecture, intangibles and variables we cannot objectively compare and quantify, but that definitely won't stop this debate from raging on as generally it is rather enjoyable, wouldn't you agree?