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The 5 players Pep Guardiola considers in the GOAT debate alongside Lionel Messi

It’s no secret that Pep Guardiola regards Lionel Messi as the greatest player of all time, but he also named five other players among the ‘eternal’ greats during an interview in 2023.

“Everyone has an opinion but nobody can doubt that he [Lionel Messi] is there, with the greatest of all time,” Guardiola said after Messi won the World Cup.

“For me, I said many times, he is the best.”

During a press conference in 2023, these were the other five players that Guardiola named as the best of all time, alongside Messi.

Pele

While Guardiola never got the chance to watch Pele in the flesh, he was quick to recognise the legendary Brazilian for his impact on football.

“I never pretend to be Pele, honestly,” Guardiola said. “I never saw him play, I spoke with people who said he was the greatest for them.

“What he has done, not just winning three World Cups, the goals and he was a new thing when he came up.

“I was not born when he was playing. It’s like a good movie, the legacy that we’re still talking about him, about a good movie, a good book, because he was so good.”

Diego Maradona

For many people who were born in the sixties or seventies, Maradona was their GOAT and for good reason.

Guardiola would’ve been in the Barcelona academy when the legendary Argentinian was playing for the first-team and he’s been quick to recognise Maradona’s legacy.

“He gave a lot of joy and he made football better. What he did for Napoli and for Argentina in 1986 was something unbelievable,” Guardiola said back in 2020.

“His impact in world football, the love and the joy, I was not with him in the dressing room, but all the people who were expressing his generosity and how he thought of them to make football better.

“On the pitch he was unique. A once in a generation.”

Johan Cruyff

Had it not been for the teachings of Cruyff, we probably wouldn’t have the same version of Guardiola today.

“He helped me to love this game, to love football,” Guardiola told BBC Sport last year.

“To love it, you have to understand it. To love something, you have to understand what you love.

“There were secrets, but the way he sees football is completely different to others. The way he sees, he was so attractive.”

Guardiola would’ve been around 13 when Cruyff retired and his impact on world football is still being felt today.


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Cristiano Ronaldo

While Guardiola fully sides with Messi when it comes to the modern GOAT debate, he has often praised CR7 in the past.

“He will score goals all his life,” Guardiola told Sky Sports in 2021.

“He will be 75 years old, maybe retired, but he would be at his own barbecue playing a game and he’ll score goals.

“These types of guys, like Messi, like him, what they have done in the last decade in world football scoring goals and goals and goals and helping their team win, it speaks for itself.”

Guardiola supposedly came fairly close to managing Ronaldo at one stage, although following his links to Manchester City in 2021, he instead re-joined Manchester United.

We dread to think just how many goals a prime CR7 would’ve scored under Guardiola.

Erling Haaland and Cristiano Ronaldo

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Franz Beckenbauer

Among the ‘eternal’ greats that Guardiola named, Beckenbauer was the only defensive player which is a testament to his legacy.

The legendary German star is the only defender to have won the Ballon d’Or twice, having collected the award in 1972 and 1976.

Guardiola would’ve also crossed paths with Beckenbauer during his time managing Bayern Munich as the former Germany international was the club’s honorary president at the time.