Feuding no more, Pelé joins world in mourning Diego Maradona

The most heated wrangling over the title of soccer’s greatest player could be found between Diego Maradona and Pelé themselves.

So often, their squabbling would descend into acrimonious barbs and taunts launched between the finest to play the game.

It was a feud in which FIFA did not want to takes sides when it came to naming the top player of the 20th century. Pelé was the pick of experts. Maradona was the people’s choice as the winner of an online vote. So they shared the award and continued to bicker in public.

“He thinks it’s him,” Pelé once said. “But we all really know who was the best.”

Being born 20 years apart meant the duo never settled their rivalry on the pitch.

Interviewed once by Pelé, Maradona playfully asked the Brazilian three-time World Cup winner how he accumulated an apparent goal total of 1,281.

“Who did you score them against?”…

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