The “Best” Vs “Greatest” Argument In Football

Whenever the “best vs greatest” argument flares up, I think the problem usually starts with language. We use the words interchangeably, but they are doing different jobs. “Best” describes ability at its highest point, what a player could do on a pitch in full flow state. “Greatest” describes impact over time, what a player built, sustained, and left behind. The eye test versus the spreadsheet is the simplest way to frame it. The eye test asks, what am I watching right now, how impossible does this look. The spreadsheet asks, how often did this happen, for how long, and at what level. Neither is wrong, but they answer different questions.

This is where the “prime” talk comes in. A three year stretch of football that feels unplayable, like Ronaldinho between 2004 and 2006, can dominate the “best” conversation because the ceiling was absurd. At the same time, fifteen years of elite output, like Cristiano Ronaldo’s consistency across leagues, managers, and tactical systems, builds an almost unarguable case for greatness. One perhaps burns brighter but the other burns longer.

I always come back to the pickup game thought experiment. If I need to win one game tomorrow, stripped of context, trophies, and narrative, who do I take. That usually leads people toward “best.” If I ask instead who shaped the sport more, who bent competitions around themselves for a decade or more, that leads toward “greatest.” Same sport, different lens.

When people talk about the “best” player they have ever seen, they are usually talking about ceiling, not résumé. Players like Ronaldo Nazário or Zinedine Zidane did not just beat opponents, they broke the logic of what defenders thought was possible. They felt like glitches, moments where the game briefly stopped obeying its own rules. This category values how it looks as much as what it produces. A nutmeg in traffic, a solo run through a settled defense, a touch that kills a ball dead at full sprint. These moments carry emotional weight that a tap-in never will, even if the tap-in counts the same on the scoreboard. The “best” conversation is deeply aesthetic, even when people pretend it is not.

Injuries matter here, maybe more than anywhere else. Many of the players we call “best” come with an implied asterisk. What if R9’s knees held up. What if Van Basten lasted another five years. Their bodies failed before the arc could flatten into longevity, which almost freezes them in peak form in our memory.

I think that is why the “best” label is so powerful. It preserves a player at maximum voltage. There is no slow decline phase, no awkward adaptation years. They live forever at their highest point.
Greatness, on the other hand, is about accumulation under pressure. Longevity is not just survival, it is a skill. Staying elite through tactical shifts, physical decline, new teammates, and rising expectations requires a different kind of intelligence. This is where numbers start to matter. Hundreds of goals. Multiple Champions Leagues. Multiple peaks across different squads. At a certain point, volume becomes its own form of dominance. It is harder to dismiss, even if the football itself feels less romantic. Players like Pelé or Cristiano Ronaldo define eras not because every moment was beautiful, but because the output never stopped. Season after season, the floor stayed absurdly high. Even when the style shifted, the production followed.

What often gets overlooked is adaptability. The greatest players learn how to win differently as their bodies change. They stop relying on pure athleticism and start managing games, moments, and spaces. That evolution is part of the greatness argument, even if it looks less spectacular than a 23 year old at full speed.

This is where Lionel Messi enters, and this is also where the framework starts to strain. Messi does not neatly merge “best” and “greatest” so much as he exposes how unstable the distinction really is. What makes Messi uncomfortable for this debate is not just that he had a high peak, it is that the peak never seemed to collapse on schedule. The technical level associated with a short, explosive prime extended deep into what should have been decline years. That does not erase the categories, it stretches them.

The 2022 World Cup did not create Messi’s greatness, but it compressed the narrative. It gave a clean ending to a story that was already overwhelming in its detail. For many people, that trophy did not change their evaluation so much as simplify it. Complexity gave way to closure. Still, the argument does not disappear. Some people continue to value physical dominance, others value adaptability across leagues, others weigh international context differently. Messi becomes less a final answer and more a stress test for how each person defines “best” and “greatest” in the first place.

Part of why this debate never dies is that football itself keeps changing. Defenders in the 1980s played by different rules. Space, protection, and officiating all shape how talent expresses itself. Comparing across eras requires adjustment, and adjustment invites disagreement. There is also the teammate variable. Being the greatest is easier when you are surrounded by elite infrastructure. Being the best can sometimes mean shining anyway, even in imperfect conditions. That difference matters to people, even if it is hard to quantify.

Which leads to the uncomfortable final question. Is “best” sometimes just the label we give to our favorite players when the trophy count is not quite enough. And is “greatest” sometimes a way to end an argument by pointing at numbers instead of memories. I do not think the distinction is fake, but I do think it is personal. The debate says as much about what we value as fans as it does about the players themselves. And maybe that is why it never really ends.