Pele Versus Maradona

Edison Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pele, is a luminary in the field of soccer. Only Pele and his fellow legend Maradona have received the most prestigious award by FIFA as the greatest players soccer has yet seen. While both Pele and Maradona brought immense fame and popularity to their country with their spectacular performances, comparisons have been made and the question that "Who is a better player among the two?" is a debate that does not seem to go away.

Pele started his soccer career at the age of 15. One year later, he made his debut for his country Brazil and won the World Cup 1958 at the age of 17. He scored two goals against Sweden in the final and went on to title Brazil as the Winner of the World Cup for the first time. Not only this, Pele is the only player who won three World Cups for his country. On the other hand, Maradona played for his country Argentina in the 1980s. His best performance was revealed in the World Cup 1986 where he scored four goals and won his country the World Cup. In the same World Cup, he was titled the Best Player and awarded the FIFA World Cup Golden Ball. If we look at the scores, Pele scored 77 goals in 92 caps and is undoubtedly the highest scorer of his country while Maradona won 91 caps and scored 34 goals for Argentina. Maradona's best performance was against England and is also considered as the ‘Goal of the Century'.

Both Pele and Maradona were immensely talented players and were skillful at passing and scoring. Maradona was more of a left-footed player while Pele was complete two-footed player. Both Pele and Maradona played as forwards for their country. However, Maradona also played as a second striker and attacking Midfielder. Maradona had a better ability to dictate the tempo of the game than Pele, while Pele had a great aerial ability. Though Maradona did not have a good height, he had impeccable power to survive challenges and run the ball. Pele, on the other hand,