The strangest claims ever made by soccer legend Pele, including saying that Lionel Messi only has 'one skill'
- Brazilian soccer legend Pele has made some outrageous claims over the years.
- Alongside insisting goals he scored for the Brazilian military count towards his all-time goal total, he's also called Neymar average, and said that he once made a goalkeeper cry so much he had to substituted.
- Read on to find out the weirdest and most astonishing claims the 80-year-old has ever made.
He claimed he was better than Lionel Messi because the Argentine only has "one skill."
Speaking with Folha de Sao Paulo in 2018, Pele was asked if Messi was a better player than him, to which he replied: "How can you make a comparison between a guy who heads the ball well, shoots with the left, shoots with the right and another who only shoots with one leg, only has one skill and doesn't head the ball well?
"How can you compare? To compare with Pele, it has to be someone who shoots well with the left, shoots well with the right and scores headers."
He said former Liverpool midfielder Nick Barmby was as good as Zinedine Zidane.
"Nick Barmby is up there with Zinedine Zidane, Paolo Maldini and Ronaldo [Nazario]," Pele once said, according to Goal.
While Barmby had a decent start to his career, he flopped following his move from Everton to Liverpool in 2000 and never recaptured his form, spending the majority of his final years in England's lower leagues.
Zidane, on the other hand, won 17 major honors during his career, including the World Cup and European Championship, and also scooped the Ballon d'Or in 1998.
He called Neymar average.
"For the national team, he's just an ordinary player," Pele told O Estado de Sao Paulo of his countryman back in 2013, as reported by Reuters.
"He's got a huge responsibility and his greatest concern is to change his style, change his haircut."
Since, Neymar has taken his total of international goals for Brazil to 64, just 13 fewer than Pele's own record. Neymar, who is just 28, will almost certainly overtake Pele's target, barring an early end to his career.
In 2002, he said Brazil wouldn't get out of their group at the World Cup. They went on to win the tournament.
He said there will be never be another Pele because his mother "closed the factory.”
"People always ask me: 'When is the new Pele going to be born?' Never," he told French newspaper Le Monde in 2012."
"My father and mother have closed the factory."
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