Marco van Basten has omitted Lionel Messi from the world’s best three ever footballers and questioned his personality in comparison to other leading stars.
Van Basten is one of the most iconic attacking players of all time due to his spells with Ajax and Milan across the 1980s and early 1990s. The Dutchman scored over 300 goals across his senior career but his playing days were cut short by injury.
He played his last match in 1993, at the of age 28, due to an injury which forced his retirement two years later. Despite his relatively limited time on the pitch, he enjoyed plenty of successes as he won seven trophies at Ajax and 11 competitions with Milan, including three Serie A titles and three European Cups.
Van Basten’s glorious career also extended to the Dutch national team, whom he helped to the 1988 European Championships title – the nation’s only ever major piece of silverware. He would go on to manage the national team between 2004 and 2007, before further managerial stints at Ajax, Heerenveen and AZ Alkmaar.
The Dutchman has now caused somewhat of a stir when asked to name who he believed were the best three players of all time. It was no surprise that his compatriot and former manager Johan Cruyff was named on the list for Van Basten, alongside former superstars Pele and Diego Maradona.
Van Basten opted not to name Messi, while he went on to explain the Argentine’s omission and what he was lacking compared to the top three – with Maradona used as an example of why the Paris Saint-Germain forward missed the cut.
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Van Basten told France Football, as cited by bein Sports: "Pele, Maradona and Cruyff are for me the three great players in history. As a child, I wanted to be like Cruyff. He was my friend. I miss him. Pele and Maradona were also incredible.
"Messi is also a magnificent player, but Maradona has always had more personality in a team. Messi is not the one who gets in front to go to war." Van Basten then added a further three players who were also worthy of mention for the world’s best-ever players: "I don't forget Cristiano Ronaldo, (Michel) Platini or (Zinedine) Zidane."
The omission of Messi from Van Basten’s list however is likely to lead to some raised eyebrows, due to Messi’s record-breaking data and lifting a record seven Ballon d’Or crowns across his trophy-laden career.
