Pele, Messi, and Ronaldo are often compared as the greatest footballers ever. In club football, Pele scored over twice as many goals per game as Messi and Ronaldo. Pele would have scored over 100% more goals than Ronaldo and 75% more than Messi if they played the same number of games. In international football, Pele also significantly outperformed Messi and Ronaldo in goals per game. Ronaldo and Messi would need around 237 and 265 games respectively to match Pele's international goal tally of 77 goals. The analysis shows that comparing any player to Pele is difficult since he was the best striker in both club and international football.

1. Pele vs Messi vs Cristiano
World football is now synonyms with two names Lionel Messi & Cristiano Ronaldo, with
every other day someone or the other makes an announcement claiming either one of
them to be the best footballer to have ever played the beautiful Game. The tiny
Argentine and the glamorous Portuguese have been in the news daily for their breath
taking runs, sublime finishes, trashing their opponents and breaking records with only
recently Ronaldo breaking the 40 mark barrier in Spanish League football. But there have
been some who have rightly questioned their legendary status and immortality, one of
them being Edison "Edson" Arantes do Nascimento, otherwise known as the King Football,
Pelé.
Unlike the duo Messi and Ronaldo, Pelé was truly a complete footballer renowned for his
dribbling, passing, pace, powerful shot, heading and prolific goal scoring, he was indeed
closest to or the perfect forward.
So if either Messi or Ronaldo is truly the greatest ever he must stand the test against the
King.
Since the comparison is to find the greatest forward ever, we will only let the Goals do the
talking. Pele in his playing career has scored 1281 Goals in 1363 Games but in our analysis
we shall only consider League and International Goals.
Club Football
Player Games Goals Goals per Game
Pele 669 737 1.1
Cristiano Ronaldo 284 153 0.53
Lionel Messi 199 125 0.62
To be fair to Messi & Ronaldo the total number of Goals cannot be a comparable
parameter, with Pelé playing 22 years of professional football and the duo not reaching
the 22 figure put together, so we look at the Goals per Game, Pelé averages an
astonishing 1.1 Goals per Game while Messi and Ronaldo far away from Pele’s standard
and are close to half of Pelé.
284 Games 199 Games
Pele 313.8 219.2
Cristiano Ronaldo 153 107.2
Lionel Messi 178.3 125
Statistically speaking if Pele played the same number of Games as Ronaldo and Messi he
would score 313, 219 Goals i.e. 104%, 75% more goals than Ronaldo & Messi in the same
number of Games.

2. Now let’s have a look at International Football
International Football
Player Games Goals Goals per Game
Pele 92 77 0.83
Cristiano Ronaldo 80 26 0.32
Lionel Messi 55 16 0.29
Yet again as would have been expected Pelé thrashes the young duo, with almost a
Goal per Game while Ronaldo & Messi close to a Goal every three Games.
Just to have look at this in another way let’s see how many games will Ronaldo & Messi
require to match Pelé’s 77 goals.
Player No of Games
Cristiano Ronaldo 236.92
Lionel Messi 264.69
So to reach 77 international goals Ronaldo & Messi would require 237, 265 games i.e.
158%, 188% more Games than what Pelé required.
The only sensible conclusion after this analysis is that comparing anyone to Pelé is a waste
of time, one should accept the fact that Pelé indeed is the best ever and there will most
likely not be anyone like him ever again. And anyone claiming or publicizing that anyone
including Ronaldo & Messi to be the best ever probably doesn’t understand football and
should rightfully be ignored.