Keen On

Maradona, Pele or Messi? It’s the eternal debate. Who is the greatest footballer of all time? According to The Soccer 100, The Athletic’s new book ranking football’s hundred greatest players, the answer is Messi. But the North London based contributor Amy Lawrence cast a dissenting vote: she chose Pelé, deferring to those who witnessed the Brazilian king’s dominance firsthand. The book’s official ranking places Maradona second, Pelé third, then Cruyff, Ronaldo, and Di Stefano. But the list reveals something more interesting than rankings: the impossibility of comparing eras. How do we judge players like Alfredo Di Stefano or Ferenc Puskas we’ve only seen in grainy footage against those, like Messi or Ronaldo, whose every touch has been televised? And why do great footballers like Diego Maradona —masters of intelligence on the pitch—sometimes become such flawed and tragic figures off it?1. The Pelé Problem: Why Nostalgia Matters Amy Lawrence voted for Pelé as number one, even though The Athletic’s collective r