Pele declared that Spain's current squad (which won the Euro 2012 tournament) is less than Brazil's squad that won the 1970 World Cup. Pele made his declarations in an interview that appeared in Reuters with a h/t to Goal. The Santos and Brazilian star went further and suggested that Spain has "two or three great players" compared with Brazil in 1970. Pele later admitted that he enjoyed watching the Spanish Euro 2012 squad play football. While having tremendous respect for Pele and the Brazilian squad that won the 1970 FIFA World Cup, he is not helping himself (and Brazil) with comments comparing Spain in 2012 with Brazil in 1970. A decision was made to state the important reasons and defend [briefly] the Spanish Euro 2012 squad. Perfection + Idealization = Never Satisfied The concept of comparing one player and/or one team with another is based on two flaws which are perfection and idealization. Perfection is a concept that never existed, does not exist, and will never exist since there are athletes and clubs better or worse than others. When a person compares an athlete on the basis of an idealization of another athlete, what happens when the ideal athlete does not meet expectations? In the beginning of 2012, Pele said that Neymar was better than Lionel Messi in an interview published in the Associated Press with a h/t to ESPN. In June of 2012, Pele (in a declaration to AFP with a h/t to Brooks Deck of Dirty Tackle and Yahoo) criticized Neymar and the Brazilian Olympic team after their loss to Mexico.