Messi, CR7, Pele, Maradona....Di Stefano is a better Legend

 Who is the greatest player ever - Pele or Maradona? It is a question we are asked all the time.



Comparisons of playing styles are always difficult, especially when dealing with different eras, but I think I'm on safe ground arguing there has never been a footballer more influential than Alfredo Di Stefano.

Di Stefano, who died on Monday aged 88, never played in a World Cup, but club football belongs to him. The world's two leading international club competitions bear his mark - one obviously and directly, the other indirectly.

Di Stefano was the last great product of the golden age of Argentine football, the 1940s, when he starred for River Plate.

After the big players' strike there in 1948 he was snapped up by Colombia's newly launched league, and helped get the professional game off the ground in that country as the star of the great Millonarios side. And in 1953, at the age of 27, he went to Real Madrid and changed the course of history.

Alfredo Di Stefano's honours

Five European Cups: 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960 (Real Madrid)
Eight Spanish leagues: 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 (Real Madrid)
One Spanish Cup: 1962 (Real Madrid)
One Intercontinental Cup: 1960 (Real Madrid)
Two Argentine leagues: 1945, 1947 (River Plate)
One America Cup:1947 (River Plate)
Four Colombian leagues: 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953 (Millonarios Bogota)

Di Stefano was a prolific goalscorer and was the top scorer in the Spanish league five times between 1954 and 1960