Why does Messi needs to win a major tournament in order to be compared to Pele and Maradona?

[Neodegenerate]

bdbdbd said:

Neodegenerate said:

So Europe has the same feeling as the US does regarding their own internal sports championships?  Did not know that.

As an American I have always found it funny that we (Americans) place the title "world champions" on our own national leagues like the NBA and MLB when there are other countries that have just as robust of leagues out there.  I have always viewed the actual world championships (World Cup, Olympics to an extent) as the biggest and baddest of them all because even though there might be some dilluted talent in there, you are competing with the best the rest of the world has to offer.

Umm... Not quite. The most obvious difference is that European championships is an international competition, while the US leagues are not. Outside of Europe there are only Brazil and maybe Argentina that have a chance on the top spot in World cup, while EC does not usually have so many bad teams playing as WC has. 

It is the exact same argument though.  In the US, it is assumed that the rest of the world isn't as good at baseball, basketball, or football. Therefore, we celebrate our individual team success as "world champions."  Replace a city/state in the US with a country in Europe and you are saying the exact same thing.  In that one condensed area of the world the competition is high amongst those playing in that one condensed area and thus the rest of the world doesn't matter.