In the summer of 2016 Diego Maradona and Pelé were sitting in the Palais-Royal in Paris as part of a promotional event organised by a Swiss watch company. Afterwards the pair held a press conference and before long the topic of conversation turned to Lionel Messi.
“He is a great person,” Maradona said, “but he has no personality. He doesn’t have the personality to be a leader.” Pelé agreed. “He’s not like we were back in the days,” he said. “In the 1970s we had really good players like Rivellino, Gérson, Tostão. Not like Argentina now, which depends only on Messi. Messi is a good player, there’s no doubt about it. But he has no personality.”
