Honestly, Brian Phillips’ 1,400 words on Diego Maradona and Pele could have gone on for 14,000, and I’d have been right there with him. You can never say enough about either of these two, let alone the dynamic that’ll keep them intertwined for eternity. But Phillips says it particularly well:
Pele Vs. Maradona, And World’s Neverending Argument
↵↵Pelé is the company man, the executives’ protégé, who smiles and smiles and tilts his lapel toward the bluest ribbon at the fair. Maradona is the unstable outsider, his life a carousel of mobsters, doctors, dictators, and cops. When Pelé publishes a book, it appears in an $11,000 limited edition and prompts the New York Times to opine that “his admirers likened him to Saturn.” When Maradona publishes a book, it provokes a meditation on sodomy from Martin Amis. Soccer is barely big enough for both of them.
↵↵There needs to be some sort of documentary made about these two, but for now, the fantastic overview at Slate will suffice. As Phillips writes, “Pele ... embodies the basic fantasy of sports. Maradona exposes the falseness of that fantasy.”
↵So who’s the better player? The answer says as much about you as it does either of them.
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