Diego Maradona more complete footballer than Lionel Messi: Pele

Kolkata: Soccer legend Pele on Monday lamented Brazilian players playing mostly in European leagues instead on their own country, and rated Argentinean Diego Maradona as a more complete footballer than Lionel Messi.

"It is normal that after one generation of good players, then the next generation is not the same. The exception is Brazil. But unfortunately now we have a problem there. Now almost all the Brazilian players play in Europe.

"To have one good player you need to have a team. Nobody plays alone, you need to have some good players in your side. So to set up a team it's very difficult.

"When you talk about Brazil, we produce the best players. The best players playing now in Europe are form Brazil. Unfortunately for us it's not too good," said Pele, replying to a question by Bengali actor Prasenjit Chatterjee about nurturing young football talents during a chat show here.

Former Indian soccer skipper and current MP Prasun Banerjee asked Pele to compare the two Argentines greats -- Maradona and Messi.

"Both are very good players. But the way I see football, Maradona was more complete than Messi," said the Samba magician.