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

[bdbdbd]

Neodegenerate said:

bdbdbd said:

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.

That was the same argument used from late 1800's to early 1900's; national champions were heralded as world champions. Your description would fit better to UEFA Champions league, though nobody is calling the winner world champion, just like nobody is calling European champion a world champion.