1. Eye-test: Just simply compare the highlights of the two players. Messi highlights are much more impressive

2. Quality of Competition: Pele played in an era when elite talent was spread across 10+ leagues. Now it’s all consolidated into 4-5 leagues and Messi has constantly dominated against the worlds best

3. World Cups: Pete’s main argument is winning 3 world cups. However one of them he barely played in and Brazil won without him. Another he was 17 and was an important player but not the star on his team. 1970 he was the captain and arguably their best player bet even then he didn’t lead the team in goals