v2 G.O.A.T The Last 16 Match 7

Another match in the v2 GOAT and another win for basketballs Michael Jordan, after a closely contested match up against Wayne Gretzky it was MJ that eventually progressed into the final 8 by32 votes to 27.

Today’s match sees a clash of generations as Pele takes on Michael Phelps for the penultimate spot in the final 8.

Please vote for the participant you believe has achieved the most in sport

Please leave a comment as to why you voted

Pele- Football- Championed by paperbag_puncher

Only when I sat down to write this article did the sheer scale of what I was attempting to do hit me. This article should really write itself, yet there are no words that can accurately describe the greatness of 'The King of Football' There are few human beings throughout history in any walk of life who have reached the iconic status of Pele.
“My name is Ronald Reagan, I’m the President of the United States of America. But you don’t need to introduce yourself, because everyone knows who Pele is.”
Ronald Reagan

Like most young boys I grew up hearing stories of this mythical man from Brazil who could create magic with his feet. I’d always been told of his greatness and happily accepted it but I was doing the man a great disservice by simply accepting it. Only as I got older and researched further did I realise how great he actually was. I am genuinely grateful that I have agreed to write this piece as it has given me the opportunity to revisit and explore the career of arguably the greatest sports person to have graced this earth.

There is no doubt in my mind that Pele was the most complete player of those who are generally mentioned in the greatest ever debates. Blessed with an unbelievable combination of pace, power, balance and close control he beat defenders at will making everything look effortless. Capable of the unpredictable and the sublime he was very much ahead of his time. Two footed and lethal in the air he was the ultimate goal scorer. The famous stat of 1281 goals in 1363 games is testament to this.

Pele said in 2006: ""For 20 years they have asked me the same question, who is the greatest? Pele or Maradona? I reply that all you have to do is look at the facts - how many goals did he score with his right foot or with his head?""

Pele made his debut for Santos at the tender age of 15 scoring on his debut in 1956. By the time the 1957 season came around he was a first team regular and finished as the league’s top scorer. Just 10 months later he was called up to the Brazilian national team scoring in a 2-1 defeat to Argentina making him the youngest ever international scorer at 16 years and 9 months. He would go on to become and still is Brazil’s top goal scorer with a remarkable 77 goals in 92 games.

1958 was Pele’s breakout year and he announced himself to the world in style. He won his first major title the Campeonato Paulista with Santos scoring a record 58 goals along the way (a record that still stands) He was selected for the 1958 World Cup at the insistence of of his team mates despite being injured, which shows the regard the 17 year old was already held in. He played a pivotal role scoring the winner against Wales in the quarters, a hat-trick against France and another brace Vs Sweden in the final on his way to becoming the youngest ever World Cup Winner.

Brazil repeated the trick in 1962 but did it without Pele who injured himself in the second game having looked ominously bright in the opening game. The 1966 was even worse for him. Pele was ruthlessly and cynically targeted by opposing defences meaning he missed the loss to Hungary and was never at his best for the two games he did play. Without their talisman the defending champions were eliminated in the first round.
He got his redemption in 1970 inspiring perhaps the greatest team of all time to a third world cup success. Pele at the peak of his powers won the player of the tournament and provided us with two of his most iconic moments. Had his lob from the half way line against the Czechs or his audacious dummy to round the Uruguayan goalie resulted in goals they surely would have been 2 of the greatest in World Cup history.

At one stage it was universally accepted that Pele was the greatest footballer of all time. In recent years it has almost become fashionable to dismiss his claim and achievements in favour of two little Argies. There are two sticks that are usually used to beat him which are contradictory for me. True he never tested himself in Europe. Having been named a ‘national treasure’ by the Brazilian Government and not being allowed to be ‘exported’ he spent his best years in his native land. However, we do have some clues as to how he would have fared had he moved to a big European club. His goals record and performances at international level leave me unequivocally convinced that he would have burned it up in any league. Also Santos (mainly to be able to afford his wages) regularly toured and faced the biggest clubs in Europe where Pele showed he was still on another level. The other criticism is that he was part of the greatest international team ever and had world class team mates around him which somehow should dilute his success. Many of these same team mates also predominantly played in Brazil yet this isn’t held against the likes of Garrincha, Rivelino, Tostao or Jairzinho who regularly had to play second fiddle to Pele and his Santos team. Nor is it held against one Lionel Messi who is a part of the greatest team I have ever seen. Like Messi now, Pele was the undoubted jewel in a beautiful crown.

For me, to be worthy of being called the greatest sports person of all time you need to tick several boxes. You must be supremely talented and have a strong argument to be the GOAT in your own sport. In my opinion you also have to have transcended your own sport and have made a widespread universal and lasting impact. With all due respect to the big hitters who have been voted through so far, most people have no idea who Bradman, Merckx etc are. While this may not be a popularity contest Pele’s notoriety and worldwide acclaim stemmed solely from his prodigious talent and countless achievements. He wasn’t a character, he wasn’t a loveable rogue. He did all his talking with his feet and his reputation is a product of his talent alone.

I have used a lot of words despite originally stating words could not do the great man justice. Still for me Pele is a treat best enjoyed visually. Watching him nutmeg two defenders and rounding the keeper or seeing him effortlessly flicking the ball over a defender’s head and volleying home is still jaw dropping even today. I will leave you with some quotes from his peers and contemporaries who say it a lot better than I ever could.

""I told myself before the game, 'he's made of skin and bones just like everyone else'. But I was wrong.”
Tarcisio Burgnich, the Italy defender who marked Pele in the Mexico 1970 Final

“The difficulty, the extraordinary, is not to score 1,000 goals like Pele – it’s to score one goal like Pele.”
Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet

“The greatest player in history was Di Stefano. I refuse to classify Pele as a player. He was above that.”
Ferenc Puskas

“After the fifth goal, even I wanted to cheer for him.”
Sigge Parling of Sweden on a 5-2 defeat by Brazil in the 1958 FIFA World Cup Final

“I arrived hoping to stop a great man, but I went away convinced I had been undone by someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us.”
Costa Pereira on Benfica’s 5-2 loss to Santos in the 1962 Intercontinental Cup in Lisbon

""Pele was the greatest – he was simply flawless. And off the pitch he is always smiling and upbeat. You never see him bad-tempered. He loves being Pele.”
Tostao
“When I saw Pele play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots.”
Just Fontaine

“Pele was one of the few who contradicted my theory: instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”
Andy Warhol

“Pele was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic.”
Johan Cruyff

“His great secret was improvisation. Those things he did were in one moment. He had an extraordinary perception of the game.”
Carlos Alberto Torres

“I sometimes feel as though football was invented for this magical player.”
Sir Bobby Charlton

""Pele played football for 22 years, and in that time he did more to promote world friendship and fraternity than any other ambassador anywhere.”
J.B. Pinheiro, the Brazilian ambassador to the United Nations

Malcolm Allison: “How do you spell Pele?”
Pat Crerand: “Easy: G-O-D.”
British television commentators during Mexico 1970

Pelé is the greatest player of all time. He reigned supreme for 20 years. All the others – Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini – rank beneath him. There's no one to compare with Pelé.
—West Germany's 1974 FIFA World Cup-winning captain Franz Beckenbauer

The best player ever? Pelé. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pelé was better.
—Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stéfano

Michael Phelps-Swimming- Championed by 88chris05

"There probably aren't enough superlatives in a dictionary to fully explain the greatness of Michael Phelps, or just how much he's achieved in his professional swimming career. I'll make my agenda clear early on - if Phelps doesn't make it to the advanced stages (let's just say, last eight or better) of this process, then I honestly would consider it a v2 travesty. If anyone reading this isn't a great fan of swimming, then don't fret - you don't need to be in order to gain an understanding of some sort of Phelps' accomplishments, as they're so glaring and awe-inspiring. So I'll do my best to give a reasonable explanation of them here.

Unless you paid absolutely no attention to the London 2012 Olympic Games, you'll know that, during the Games, Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time, with his London haul of four gold and two silver medals bringing his overall tally to twenty-two (a staggering eighteen gold, two silver and two bronze, spanning the Athens Games of 2004, the Beijing Games of 2008 and last year's London edition). This would be a damn good time for me to dispel and irksome myth, namely this idea I've seen thrown about that Phelps only became the most decorated Olympian of them all because there are ""loads of medals in swimming"" and / or because ""it's easy to win them in that sport."" First off, as I'll explain a little further down, there's nothing remotely easy about swimming and secondly, you'll find that, of the top ten most prolific Olympic medal winners in history, Phelps is the only swimmer amongst them. It should also be noted that Phelps is the owner of eleven individual golds in the Olympics (thirteen individual medals of all colours), more than any other man or woman in history - once again, this serves to dim the off-base talk suggesting that relay medals have given an over-inflated view of Phelps' achievements.

On top of that, there's thirty-four World Championship medals (a record), twenty-six of them being gold (a record), seven 'World Swimmer of the Year' titles (a record), a world record set at the tender age of fifteen years and nine months (a record), thirty-nine world records in all (a record), as well as becoming, in 2008, the only swimmer ever to win the coveted 'Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year' award.

Some CV: some athlete.

However, those numbers alone still can't fully convey how utterly dominant Phelps has been within his field, and nor can they give full context to his brilliance.

To me, even more than his medal collection, what sets Phelps apart is his unbelievable desire to test himself and take on new challengers, no matter how daunting they may be. By 2004, Phelps had already established himself as the most complete and best all-round swimmer on the planet at that time, with four gold medals and two silvers at the previous year's World Championships. By now, Phelps had established himself as being completely dominant in the 200m individual medley, 400m individual medley and also the 200m backstroke, and held the world record in all of these events. He was also the silver medal winner in the 100m butterfly. Let's remember here, before we get too far in, that all but a very select few swimmers spend their whole career concentrating and excelling in just one specialist event.

These were the events he'd been training for and participating in all of his career thus far, and it would have been easy for him to have stayed within these confines (although it was already one hell of a hectic schedule!) and remain undefeated throughout the 2004 Olympics. However, Phelps wanted to try and do the impossible; eclipse Mark Spitz's feat of seven golds in one Games in the 1972 Munich Olympics, and to do that meant adding the 200m freestyle to his schedule.

In that event, Phelps had to settle for a bronze medal, trailing in behind Australian legend Ian Thorpe and also Holland's Pieter Van Den Hoogenband. But the point is, a bronze in the 200m freestyle was still a remarkable feat - Thorpe and Van Den Hoogenband were the two preeminent freestylers of that era, and also the two fastest ever over that distance. Phelps, in comparison, had never even taken a stab at that discipline before Athens. It's worth noting that, after Phelps had dominated him at the 200m individual medley event at the 2003 World Championships, Thorpe never ventured in to one of Phelps' signature events again. However, the nineteen year old Phelps vowed to carry on until he became the world's best freestyler, to go along with being the world's best in the butterfly and medleys. Keep in mind that, at the time, most observers felt that this was a truly unreachable goal. Nevertheless, Phelps was the most successful athlete of the Games, narrowly falling short of Spitz's seven golds but still scooping up six golds (four of which came in individual events, equalling Spitz in that regard) and two bronzes.

His dominance in the butterly and medleys assured (he completed the 100m-200m double and the 200m-400m double in those events respectively in Athens), Phelps, good to his word, then set his sights on Thorpe's 200m freestyle world record (thought to be the best record in men's swimming at the time) of 1 minute 44.06 seconds, edging it out at the 2007 World Championships with a 1 minute 43.86 and then totally dismantling it with a 1 minute 42.96 clocking in winning the 200m freestyle gold at the 2008 Beijing Games.

I mean seriously, come on - he's not even meant to be a freestyler!

Almost as a bit of fun, Phelps even tried his hand at the backstroke in 2006, an event in which he was even less experienced and trained in than the freestyle. At the Pan Pacific championships that year, he won the silver medal in the 200m backstroke event. It was the only time he ever competed in backstroke at a major championship but, a year later, he showed his hand when he gave the discipline another whirl at the US Nationals; incredibly, he clocked the third fastest time ever recorded in the 200m backstroke, and went one better in the 100m, coming up with the second best time ever, just 0.03 seconds off the world record for the event. That a part-time (at best) backstroker could, almost at the drop of a hat, produce such performances in his weakest event, all while dominating the butterfly, medleys and freestyle (2007 had been the year in which Phelps scooped seven golds in seven events at the World Championships, lest we forget) is way beyond remarkable. I don't think there are sufficient words for it, in fact.

And then, of course, came the most successful Olympic campaign ever in Beijing in 2008, as Phelps took eight gold medals in eight events (seven of them in world record time, the other 'only' an Olympic record), eclipsing Spitz's aforementioned seven. His five individual golds at the meet (400m individual medley, 200m freestyle, 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley and 100m butterfly) also equaled the record for the most individual golds won in a single Olympics.

After the Games, a debate raged on about who was the stand out performer and / or biggest star of the Beijing Olympics - Phelps, or the incredible Jamaican track star Usain Bolt, who set world records in winning gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m sprints. Well, due to track and field's popularity and his telegenic personality (a contrast to the quiet, reserved Phelps), Bolt was the star of Beijing. But was he the greatest performer of the Games, as many claimed? Absolutely not. Phelps was. The variety of his schedule is scary. Ian Thorpe won nine Olympic medals, which is fantastic, of course. But all of them were in freestyle. Phelps' medals came in freestyle, butterfly and medley - to even compare, I honestly think that Bolt would have needed to add long jump to his arsenal and won the gold in that event, and / or perhaps a longer sprint such as the 400m.

After the eight golds of Beijing it was, naturally, impossible for Phelps to go beyond what he'd already done, however the medals continued to flow right up until his retirement after London 2012; five golds and one silver at the 2009 World Championships, four golds, two silvers and one bronze at the 2011 World Championships and then, to put the seal on his career, those four golds and two silvers in London.

Not only does Phelps boast unrivalled diversity and variety in the pool, then, but he also has insane fitness and unbelievable longevity to bolster his claim of being the greatest sportsperson of them all.

Take his Beijing feats, for example; to collect his eight gold medals, Phelps had to complete seventeen races in one week, what with the qualification rounds before the finals. While he was doing this across the past three Olympics, he often had rivals awaiting him near the end of the week - rivals who competed in just one specialty event and, having nothing like the work load of Phelps, would have been rubbing their hands together watching him fatigue himself. Milorad Cavic, a world champion over the 50m butterfly (and a former world record holder over the 100m distance) was awaiting Phelps in the 100m butterfy final in Beijing. How much fresher and less fatigued he must have been than Phelps at that stage was staggering - he'd dropped the 200m butterfly in order to maximise his chances of upsetting Phelps over the shorter course, and Phelps had already collected six gold medals that week. And yet, Phelps was still able to claim the gold in what was, without doubt, the greatest race I've ever seen in the pool.

Once more, to consistently be able to race across so many different disciplines for a week and then, at the end of it, be able to beat world-class specialists at their best event and after they've basically spent a week resting in comparison is a true mark of Phelps' ridiculous talent, and also his wonderful winning mentality.

What's more, swimming is a hard sport to stay at the top of, and seldom do its top practicioners produce anything like their best after their mid twenties. Before Phelps came along, no man in history had ever managed to win the same event at three successive Olympics in the pool, and many observers were wondering if the 'threepeat' was indeed possible at all, given how short a swimmer's peak is. Step forward Mr. Phelps, who made history at London 2012 by becoming the first man ever to do this, taking gold in the 200m individual medley (ahead of his great rival Ryan Lochte) to go along with the golds he took in that same event in 2004 and 2008. Not content with making history once, less than twenty-four hours later he was at it again, winning the final of the 100m butterfly (the last individual race of his career), turning a never done before threepeat in to a double threepeat.

Typical Phelps, really - nobody ever did it, and then he goes and does it twice at the same Olympics! It's just an outrageously fabulous achievement. And, for the third successive Olympics, Phelps took home more medals than any other athlete of the Games, regardless of discipline.

There have been some great all-rounders in sport; Gary Sobers in cricket, Frank Riijkaard in football - but none of them have been as complete across so many areas as Michael Phelps has been. If you wanted to be pedantic, then you could argue that Phelps lacks Usain Bolt's irrepressible star quality, or that he's not at the centre of the dreams of the world's youngsters the way that Lionel Messi is. But swimming is a sport which has grown immensely in participation levels, both amatuer and professional, in the past two decades, as well as being a truly demanding and punishing one in which incredible focus, dedication and a great deal of God-given talent are all neccessities. And Michael Phelps has been, to put it mildly, the Don Bradman of swimming. In many ways, in fact, you could argue that the 'Baltimore Bullett' has dominated his own field to an even greater extent than Bradman dominated his.

Not the greatest sporting personality, but as a sportsman in the purest form, and a true freak of nature, Phelps simply must be amongst the very, very elite of all time. Despite the length of this article, I still don't think I've done him full justice - that's how highly I think of Michael Phelps, unquestionably the greatest swimmer and most successful Olympian to ever walk the planet. "

Pele for me. With swimming you have so many variations of strokes to enable so many medals to be won which I think distorts the actual talent.

I don't rate Pele as the GOAT in football, so it's Phelps for me. Despite me not believing any of swimming's records, or that it's a clean sport

I think it would do a disservice to Phelps is Pele were to absolutely run away with the vote here. Sadly, I suspect that'll be what happens.

There's no need to get too hung up on Phelps' medal count, phenomenal though it is (I could, of course, point out that even in other sports where there are a lot of other medals available, nobody has even come close to matching Phelps over a career, but no matter how hard I try that point still seems completely lost on people who still reply with the same old "yeah, but there are a lot of different events in swimming"). Even without the medal return, he's still easily the greatest swimmer of all time.

Pele's claim to be the greatest footballer is disputed, whereas absolutely nobody of sane mind can doubt that Phelps is easily the best and most complete swimmer there has ever been. I also think that, in an individual sport, it's always that little bit easier to see just how great someone was. Remember, the Brazilian teams of 1958 and 1970 are often cited as the two finest World Cup winning sides ever, man for man. Pele may well have been the best player of that outstanding bunch, but naturally it did make things a wee bit easier for him. Phelps does have relay golds, of course, but he also has individual golds and world records spanning freestyle, medley and butterfly, something no other swimmer can boast in history (Spitz never tried his hand at medley in a major championships).

Again, taking away the sheer volume of medals and records, there are other reasons to consider Phelps as a sporting legend. His mastery of all strokes, his consistency, his frankly ridiculous dominance of the 400m individual medley and 200m butterfly over the years etc. Remember, in more than a century no male swimmer had ever won the same event in three successive Olympic Games - in London in 2012, Phelps broke this pattern not once, but twice, completing the hattrick in the 200m individual medley and 100m butterfly.

Ian Thorpe was the best freestyler in the world in his day. Spitz was the best freestyler and butterfly swimmer in his day. Phelps, however, was the best freestyler, the best butterfly swimmer and the best medley swimmer all at the same time in his absolute peak. A true freak of nature.

Anyway, that's it from me for now. It'll be a bit of a gutting one for me if Phelps can't make the last eight, but hey ho!

To me, this is one of the simplest ones of the process thus far. Pele.

I do think he is the GOAT footballer and think he is a very strong candidate for overall too.

Swimming is a clean sport though, what with them being in all that water

I'll get me coat.

Phelps for me. He is swimmings GOAT, Pele is not my football GOAT so I can't vote for him. Simple.

I've never been able to get my head around the Pele phenomenon. He scored goals galore in Brazil true, but so did Romario, and he never comes into GOATest debates. The clips I've seen of Pele show a talented centre forward who was clearly the best of his time - but seemingly no better than Puskas or Di Stefano.

Phelps however has the Hench Seal of Approval. 22 Olympic medals - 18 Gold, even in swimming is really outstanding.

Tricky one for me, really all I haver to go on with Pele is the stats and being told how brilliant he was. Of course this is an incredibly strong case for his to take the overall title.
But Ive watched Phelps and unlike many love watching swimming, it was my sport as a kid, and there really has never been anyone better. The guy rises to the occasion pretty much everytime and what he achieved in Beijing for my money may well be the greatest achievement in sport ever. He had to be perfect in so many races and he was, even throwing in a fingertip finish he had no right to get.
Both global sports, both mass participation......I think Im going to go for Phelps on this one though.

Pretty easy choice, it has to be Phelps.

Pele played in such a diabolically poor league there is no way to judge his talents compared to other players.

McLaren wrote:Pretty easy choice, it has to be Phelps.

Pele played in such a diabolically poor league there is no way to judge his talents compared to other players.

Pele was great at international level as well.

I've gone for Pele.

No point in voting really, we all know MJ will win.

88Chris05 wrote: Remember, the Brazilian teams of 1958 and 1970 are often cited as the two finest World Cup winning sides ever, man for man. Pele may well have been the best player of that outstanding bunch, but naturally it did make things a wee bit easier for him.

To be a part of a group of wonderful players who as you quite rightly say could be the greatest world cup winning teams of all time and still be head and shoulders above them is an achievement in itself. Like Messi today with Barca.

paperbag_puncher wrote:

88Chris05 wrote: Remember, the Brazilian teams of 1958 and 1970 are often cited as the two finest World Cup winning sides ever, man for man. Pele may well have been the best player of that outstanding bunch, but naturally it did make things a wee bit easier for him.

To be a part of a group of wonderful players who as you quite rightly say could be the greatest world cup winning teams of all time and still be head and shoulders above them is an achievement in itself. Like Messi today with Barca.

Messi didnt look much last night. A half decent well drilled Italian defence and he was stuffed. Does make you wonder how many he would have scored in Seria A back in the 80's.

Duty281 wrote:No point in voting really, we all know MJ will win.

Hee-hee, ow! Shamone Duty!

Diggers wrote:

paperbag_puncher wrote:

88Chris05 wrote: Remember, the Brazilian teams of 1958 and 1970 are often cited as the two finest World Cup winning sides ever, man for man. Pele may well have been the best player of that outstanding bunch, but naturally it did make things a wee bit easier for him.

To be a part of a group of wonderful players who as you quite rightly say could be the greatest world cup winning teams of all time and still be head and shoulders above them is an achievement in itself. Like Messi today with Barca.

Messi didnt look much last night. A half decent well drilled Italian defence and he was stuffed. Does make you wonder how many he would have scored in Seria A back in the 80's.

One game against a very well drilled side. Milan werent 7/1 at home because it was the kind of thing that happens a lot thats for sure.

I championed Messi in this and put a little into arguing his talents against Maradona. Pele was better than Maradona, and hes not a **** either. I will always compare the honour of Pele with Bobby Moore in 1970 to Maradona's hand of god, which probably included a line of god's beautiful clouds under his nose too.

I wouldnt pick many people over Phelps, but Pele is one. (Jordan would be another)

McLaren wrote:Pretty easy choice, it has to be Phelps.

Pele played in such a diabolically poor league there is no way to judge his talents compared to other players.

Other than that Pele was a key member of Brazil's 1958 and 1970 World Cup winning teams, was widely considered by his contemporaries and predecessors as being the best ever (to that time), and that the Brazilian domestic competition of the 50s and 60s was far from diabolical - for a start it had the entire Brazilian team playing in it, because they simply didn't transfer to Europe in those days. OK, it was not as strong as the Premier League or La Liga are now, but it was much more credible than more recent Brazilian domestic competition where the best players all move to Europe in their late teens.

OK, Pele's 1000 senior goals is so much PR spin - counting friendlies is rather over-generous, but to dismiss him out of hand is ridiculous.

Somehow, Phelps's achievements leave me a bit cold - maybe because I find swimming a mind-numbingly dull sport to watch. I have no doubt that Phelps is the finest male swimmer ever, but I do think there's a bit of an issue with trying to count medals and titles - swimmers (and gymnasts) do have the opportunity to win more titles per competition than say track athletes (about twice as many for the best competitors) and far more than say rowers. Admittedly, Phelps was the most successful swimmer at 3 Olympics, so had remarkable longevity in a sport where it is rare to last more than 4 or 5 years at the top.

Another related issue I have with swimming (not specific to Phelps, although it does link to his ability to win so many titles) is that competitors don't seem to require long to recover between events - it's not unusual to see someone win one race and be back out for the next but one event apparently with little sign of fatigue. Makes me wonder a bit about how much depth of talent there really is in competitive swimming.4

Anyway, of these two, it's Pele for me. The best player in the most global game, so has to be close to the overall GOAT.

I'm really racking my brains trying to think of ways to belittle Swimming and Phelps

Who doesnt know much about pele..

We all know enough , and the majority is based on heresay and the odd clip of his acheivments. The overhead kick and all that. His success in world cups!!

But i have gone for phelps.. Pele transendied his sport more. And although phelps has won plenty of medals due to swimmings amzing amount of events that many single swimmers can compete in. He is still the unquestionable GOAT of swimming.

And everone swims , so particpation is high- even if that is normally on an uncompetitive level

Does anyone remember "Pele was Sh*te" from Fantasy Football?

Pele, it is.

The overhead kick and all that.

Do you mean the one from Escape to Victory? That doesn't count.

I'm not voting but if I was, I'd vote for Pele.

superflyweight wrote:

The overhead kick and all that.

Do you mean the one from Escape to Victory? That doesn't count.

I'm not voting but if I was, I'd vote for Pele.

Maybe that's one of his 1000 goals

Love Pele's OHK from the half way line from 50 different angles in Escape to Victory. Class.
Especially with broken ribs.

McLaren wrote:Pretty easy choice, it has to be Phelps.

Pele played in such a diabolically poor league there is no way to judge his talents compared to other players.

Got any footage of Santos v Botafogo, Penarol or Vasco da Gama etc that you can post to substantiate your wild assumption or have you Marty McFly'd it back to the Maracana in the early 60s?? No...didn't think so.

Pele for me. At the end of the day if Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Moore and the other best defenders of that period cite Pele as the best they ever played against I'd say their opinion carries just a wee bit more weight than your strangely distorted view Mac.

Nothing against Phelps by the way, phenomenal achievements but we are getting to the business end of this contest now.

Pele is an A typical sportsman from that era when the top sports dudes become international heros and transended sports..

The only sportsman that could compare these days is David Beckham

superflyweight wrote:

The overhead kick and all that.

Do you mean the one from Escape to Victory? That doesn't count.

Pity because if a sportsman's film work could count for or against him Michael Jordan's efforts in Space Jam would surely see him eliminated from this process.

The times have got a big article today on Bobby Moore (20 years ago this weekend since he died) open up the paper at page 70 and the main picture is Moore and Pele (at the end of the 1970 world Cup QF in Guadalahara).

If you're too young to remember 1970 it won't mean much but to those that do remember...doesn't it just look iconic and evocative?? That Brazilian team were hugely entertaining and effective, the only time since that they've come close to being that entertaining was '82..and they weren't as effective, succumbing to Italy quite early (for them)

Whilst I expect much consternation from many angles, it seems that if one has the specific fitness for a particular distance one can win most if not all the events at that distance. So fitness/physique seems to count for relatively more in such sports (swimming/running/cycling). Now, there is supreme dedication and application to get to peak physical fitness and I applaud that in such sports, but they seem to lack a level of dexterity/skill that I would look for. There is a bit of a feeling that if Joe Public trained and trained they could compete at a high standard (admittedly unlikely the very very top).

On the flip side, sports such as golf/darts/snooker/archery are almost entirely dexterity/skill without the requirement/need for much fitness, which is why I would struggle to have Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus as overall GOAT (despite my being a golfist). Joe Public could train and hit a ball as far, but the skill levels to consistently make the ball go where it has to in the variety of ways they can manipulate it to do so is supreme.

So, I look for sports where both fitness and skill are required in high levels to provide the greatest sportspeople of all time.

Football is the one to which I've been closest to playing and watching so I perhaps am drawn towards that naturally. It also requires both speed and endurance based fitness rather than specifically one or the other. Basketball has both (although physicality is a big part), hockey, tennis etc.

I'm not trying to belittle the skill set of (say) Phelps nor the athleticism of (say) Nicklaus, their overall achievements are too stunning to say they only had one set. Or indeed any participant in those sports I mention (or others I haven't) as being either predominantly fitness or predominantly skill based, so apologies if it has come across that way.

The overall GOAT for me also has to transcend their sport into the global consciousness (and not simply as a result of being a marketing department's poster boy for example) and so (to me) Pele again is a strong overall GOAT candidate.

The bottom half of the draw will have real heavy-weights in the quarter finals. Who would you choose between Bradman, Jordan, Pele, and Ali.

Good post Roller and I would agree with most of those sentiments.

With regards to transcendence I think it's important to distinguish the nature of it and the means by which it was acquired.

Some sportsmen transcended their sport predominantly based on their sporting achievements (Federer, Pele) others because of a variety of other reasons as well as their sporting achievements, including notoriety or infamy (Tyson, Maradona) or politics (Owens, Ali - the latter of course transcends the sport on many levels).

For me, the first category is the best - stars who have transcended their sport based predominantly on their sporting achievements.

Of course any one sportsman can transcend their sport in more than one way.

out of them 4 its a no brainer for me. Cucumber man wins

cant see that fed has trurly transended tennis.. the goat yeah- but transended it!!

Wowzers that's a strong quarter finals lineup! Luck of the draw maybe put Redgrave and Johnson through but Federer, Nicklaus, Bradman, Jordan, Pele, and my old man's favourite Ali (also my mother's name so you can see why he loved him harha!)!

Good range of sports, and all the names you'd hope to see. Well done you organizers!

Probably a lack of paying attention on my part but a serious question nonetheless. Is each round drawn (so anyone could play anyone each time) or is progress based on the initial draw (winner match 1 plays winner match 2 etc)?

Fed/Jack/Sir Don/Captain Controversy/(quite possibly Pele)/Ali (versus who tomorrow btw?) are names (with probably the exception of Captain Air himself, although I did vote for him in his matchups so far) I'd kind of expect to see.

Will certainly be interesting to see Jordan win in the early hours of the morning after the poll for the final opens up.

Roller_Coaster wrote:Probably a lack of paying attention on my part but a serious question nonetheless. Is each round drawn (so anyone could play anyone each time) or is progress based on the initial draw (winner match 1 plays winner match 2 etc)?

Fed/Jack/Sir Don/Captain Controversy/(quite possibly Pele)/Ali (versus who tomorrow btw?) are names (with probably the exception of Captain Air himself, although I did vote for him in his matchups so far) I'd kind of expect to see.

Will certainly be interesting to see Jordan win in the early hours of the morning after the poll for the final opens up.

I can see it now, Bradman 54-36 Jordan in the final at 22:30. Then, when I wake up in the morning, Jordan has won 58-55 owing to a highly-suspicious 22 votes in 1 hour.

super_realist wrote:Does anyone remember "Pele was Sh*te" from Fantasy Football?

I remember it mate mainly because I came across it on youtube when I was trying to find a clip of old football was rubbish from the same show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4fzeK3SQa4

Phelps for me, anyone that can get through water quickly with those ears must be pretty special.

mystiroakey wrote:cant see that fed has trurly transended tennis.. the goat yeah- but transended it!!

Trust me pal, there isn't a person alive on this planet that finds tennis as bonecrunchingly dull as I do. The very fact that I have heard of Roger Federer means he has almost certainly transcended his sport.

Plus he did an advert with that French wendyballer, didn't he? It was for razor blades or mimsy plugs or something along those lines. He is well famous, innit.

Does anyone else think George best looks better than pele when you watch video's of old games?

George Best was the most over-rated footballer I've ever seen.

Also

What the hell was wrong with defenders back in the day?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7HFq1gKeUU

super_realist wrote:George Best was the most over-rated footballer I've ever seen.

Come on, name one sportsperson you actually rate. Go on just this once. You know you want to

While Pele is a giant in his sport cant believe people voted against MP.

Philips gets my vote and deserve to win 55-45 range.