Pele is amazing. But he did not play in Europe where the competition was more fierce. And he was also a goal-scoring forward primarily. Messi is both one of the greatest goalscorers and one of the greatest playmakers.
At the time Europe, particularly UK, was the backwater for soccer.
Teams (and players) went to play in Uruguay exhibition matches, because that's what the best players did.
EU didn't rise as a competitive market until the late 80s.
Before that, certainly around the time of Pele, Penarol, Santos and some other south american teams ran around in CIRCLES against any european team. Look at who won the world cups! France did not even register. UK was nothing except on home soil. Spain was a backwater league. Italy was just emerging. Germany was the only country that could actually compete.
Only the Hungarians were worthy of calling themselves competition....
More here: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/ac-milan-silvio-berlusc...
Looking over the winners of the early world cups, I'm trying to square the results with what you've written here (I'm not a soccer watcher): Europe won 5 out of the first 10 world cups (1930-1974); Italy won both the second and third. England won the 1966 cup, which interrupted Pele's run of World Cup wins.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190627023833/https://www.fifa....
Alfredo Di Stéfano:
"The best player ever? Pele. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pele was better," Di Stefano told El Colombiano.
Di Stefano played over 300 games for Real Madrid, winning eight La Liga titles, and five European Champions Cups.
Looks like he didn't have to since he still won 3 world cups.
>After changing the rules in 1995, France Football did an extensive analysis in 2015 of the players who would have won the award if it was open for them since 1956—the year the Ballon d'Or award started. Their study revealed that Pelé would have received the award a record seven times (Ballon d'or: Le nouveau palmarès). The original recipients, however, remain unchanged.