Best of his generation? Probably. Best of all time? Absolutely no chance. Pelé is by far and away and without a shadow of doubt, the greatest player this sport has, or will ever see. I for one rank the great Eusébio as the equal second greatest striker of all time, on par with Maradona simply because he carried Benfica and Portugal on his shoulders. Messi will never rank among those 3, Maradona and Eusébio were both by far the greatest players their respective clubs and countries produced and are solely responsible for the successes of their respective clubs and countries. As his teammate at Benfica and Portugal once said, "With Eusébio we could have been tri European Champions, without him maybe we could win the League." Messi has a long, long way to go to catch him and overtake him in my books as the equal 2nd greatest striker in the history of this game. I'd rank Messi behind Ronaldo (the fat one), di Stefano and Puskas as the 6th best attacker.