Brazil legend Pele believes that Barcelona star Lionel Messi is the second best Argentine footballer of all time, after Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano.
Despite ranking him second to Di Stefano and ahead of another legend Diego Maradona, the 75-year-old did add that the Barcelona star was “the prince” to his king in terms of footballing royalty.
Pele’s comments came the day after Messi’s Barcelona team secured their sixth La Liga title in eight years, to go with the three Champions League trophies they’ve picked up in this period.
“If I am the king, then Messi has been the prince over the past 15 years,” Pele told La Vanguardia.
“I cannot call him the king, because there is only one king. I believe that Alfredo Di Stefano was the most complete of the Argentine stars, he was more complete than [Diego] Maradona and Messi.
“I am glad that I played in my era, even if it’s true everything is more simple now.
“Players like Di Stefano and I are not as well-known because there are far fewer recordings of our performances.”
The Catalan giants, often spearheaded by Messi, needed to match Real Madrid’s result on the final day of the Spanish season to secure the title and did so in style as a Luis Suarez hat-trick propelled them to a 3-0 victory at Granada.
While Messi has had great assistance from Suarez and Neymar this season, the Argentine has still delivered an impressive 26 goals and 16 assists during their domestic campaign.
Luis Enrique’s side were under pressure to secure the Spanish title with their two main rivals contesting the Champions League final at the San Siro in two week’s time, but appeared nerveless throughout their routine victory on Saturday.
Messi has declared himself available to represent Argentina at the Copa America this summer, which will be hosted by the United States, marking the first time the competition has been hosted outside of South America.
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